What Is Content Marketing? (Tips & Tricks)

Before answering the question of what content marketing is, it is necessary to consider the concept of content. Content. The whole of the idea, emotion, thought, and images that are desired to be given in a narration. Above all, it is the process of spiritual and intellectual functions. It is a whole of visual and audio messages. It is transmitted from the source to the end recipients through social media networks in digital media.

With the proliferation of the Internet, societies evolved into Information Societies. And became an encoded identity with information and communication technologies. The most important fact in terms of function and power factors in information societies is meaningful information. In the Big Data era, the information collected from the sources and transformed into a meaningful and processable form. That creates an avalanche effect resulting from the flow of data from all communication channels. Which causes information pollution and various manipulations.

In this infinite ocean of data, billions of content have been lost. Brands, institutions, and companies use their content marketing strategy to stand out in their minds by highlighting their identities. Today, we will start with what content marketing is, why it is important, types of content, how content marketing works, content marketing examples, and SEO and content marketing, respectively.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing; is a new-generation digital communication and marketing process. The new media ecosystem is prepared by sensible positioning studies in the mind of a new or current customer group. By preparing content that will attract the attention of the target audiences of the brands.

The definition founder of the Content Marketing Institute, Joe Pulizzi, “Content marketing is the marketing technique that involves the creation and distribution of relevant and valuable content to influence, attract, and maintain their loyalty to a clearly defined and well-understood target audience.” 

Content marketing, unlike other digital marketing methods, aims to enable the existing customer group to participate in the process by providing the information they need and creating new needs to target the audience towards the products of the brand. When you enter the market with a brand new product, with the content marketing strategy, you can position it as a demanded product by making it a necessity to people.

Why Is Content Marketing Important 

Content marketing is important because it can help you to increase brand awareness, attract and engage customers, and improve your search engine rankings. Creating high-quality content for your target audience can build relationships with potential customers and drive business growth. We can examine the benefits of content marketing into some subheadings like visibility, credibility, authority, and traffic.

• Boost Online Visibility 
• Improve Credibility 
• Increase Authority 
• Drive More Traffic 

Boost Online Visibility 

One of the key features of content marketing is its ability to boost online visibility. By creating and publishing relevant content, you can improve your search engine rankings; therefore, potential customers can easily find you. 

Improve Credibility 

Another important feature of content marketing is to improve your credibility. By creating relevant content, you can establish yourself as a thought leader and expert in your field. This can help build trust and credibility with your audience.

Increase Authority 

Content marketing can also help you to increase your authority in your industry. When you create informative, engaging, and valuable content, you can establish yourself as an authority in your field. Therefore, you can attract more customers and influence them.

Drive More Traffic 

One of the most important features of content marketing is its ability to drive more traffic to your website. Creating relevant content can improve your search engine rankings and attract more visitors to your site. When you create valuable content for your audience, you can build relationships with them and encourage them to take action.

Consumers Prefer Modern Marketing Methods

Content strategist James O’Brien draws attention to value-based marketing. He says that brands must offer value to their customers. In return for efficient ROI in the center of content marketing. For this, a visual feast of many layers should be presented to the target audience instead of ordinary advertisements. In digital content marketing, each piece of content prepared informs the target audience. It also draws attention to the brand and makes positioning interesting. According to statistics, 7 out of 10 consumers prefer articles, videos, and visual content. So, traditional marketing methods don’t apply to internet consumers. They prefer to have information about the services and products.

Content marketing does not sell products; It draws the target audience’s attention to the brand and product and directs them to perform their purchasing behavior naturally.

In content marketing;

• blogs,
• e-books,
• e-magazines,
• e-mailing,
• case studies,
• videos,
• infographics,
• white papers (research and reports),
• online events,
• internet seminars (Webinar),
• online newsletters,
• photos and illustrations,
• news announcements and forums, etc.

are included. Using these types of content, brands market content that provides for their customers’ lifecycle; It integrates all the strategies and techniques used in achieving business and customer goals. In this way, it is a method that provides permanent, stable, and integrated solutions. So that provides added value to customers, which we can call the umbrella of marketing.

How Content Marketing Works 

Content marketing is a strategic approach to creating and distributing relevant content that attracts your audience and, therefore, drives business growth. Content marketing is a highly effective strategy when you accomplish each stage of the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Decision

Awareness Stage

At the first stage of the buyer’s journey, potential customers are just becoming aware of you. You should create content that attracts their interests through educational and instructive content rather than selling purposes. You can use blog posts, social media campaigns, videos, etc., at the awareness stage. The key is to engage the customer and establish the brand as a thought leader in their industry. By creating relevant content that informs your audience, you can attract their attention and encourage them to learn more.

Consideration Stage

After the first impressions, your potential customers will start to wonder if your products or services are needed. At this stage, you should focus on creating content showing your expertise and authority in your field. You can prefer lots of content at the consideration stage, like worksheets, product comparisons, and how-to guides. By creating informative and helpful content, you can provide confidence to your potential customers.

Decision Stage

At the decision stage, the customer is ready to make a purchase decision. To gain customers, you should create content that is irresistible to them, such as a free trial offer, a demo video, or a limited-time discount code. This content should help customers to feel safe and motivated to take action. Examples of content that might be used at the closing stage include product videos, demos, special offers, and promotions. By creating persuasive content that highlights the offerings, you can drive conversions and increase the number of customers.

Content Marketing Examples 

Effective content marketing campaigns focus on creating informative, entertaining, and engaging content with the audience. By sharing stories, educating audiences, and providing value, you can establish a strong connection with your customers and drive business growth. Therefore, there are many famous examples of content marketing campaigns that have been successful in promoting brands and engaging with audiences. Here are a few examples:

• Red Bull
• Airbnb
• Coca-Cola
• Nike

Red Bull

Red Bull is a great example of a brand that uses content marketing to build its image and engage its audience. Through its events, sponsorships, and content creation, Red Bull has built a reputation for being an exciting and adventurous brand. Red Bull’s content marketing efforts have included YouTube videos, live events, and social media campaigns that all focus on the theme of “giving you wings.”

Airbnb

Airbnb’s content marketing strategy focuses on creating content that showcases the unique experiences available to travelers who use its platform. Through its blog, social media channels, and “experiences” section, Airbnb shares stories of real travelers who have used their service to have trips. The brand’s content marketing efforts have helped it establish itself as a trusted source for unique travel experiences.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola’s content marketing strategy focuses on creating emotionally charged content that resonates with its audience. Through its campaigns like “Share a Coke” and “Taste the Feeling,” Coca-Cola creates ads, videos, and social media content, creating a sense of happiness and togetherness around its brand.

Nike

Nike’s content marketing strategy inspires its audience through stories of athletic achievement and personal growth. Through its “Just Do It” campaign and partnership with athletes like Michael Jordan and Serena Williams, Nike creates ads and social media content, inspiring people to pursue their passions and push themselves to achieve more.

How Is Content Marketing Done

Today, 93% of purchasing behavior begins with an online search. To create a content marketing strategy, you must identify your target audience by researching and considering the buyer’s journey. Then, you need to create a content schedule. By combining these two steps according to your audience’s feedback, you can create a content marketing strategy appealing to your audience and building trust with customers. To do content marketing, you should keep up with the following;

• Set Your Goals
• Identify Your Audience 
• Build Your Strategy 
• Identify Your Content 
• Create a Schedule 
• Take Regular Measurements
• Benefit from the Power of Social Media

Set Your Goals

Set your marketing goals for your vision and missions. Analyze the results you have made and get to know your audience. Then identify the target audience you will address as a result of the analyzes you have made and get to know them. Learn your target audience in the finest detail. From demographic features to what they like, the facts they value, and their passions. So, it is important for you to establish a sincere connection between your brand and your target audience.

Identify Your Audience 

The first step to creating a successful content marketing strategy is identifying your target audience. You need to understand their interests and needs. You can use customer surveys or social media analytics to understand your audience’s preferences. Therefore, you can create detailed profiles of them. 

Build Your Strategy 

What will be the messages or solutions you want to give in the content you will create for your target audience? When determining your strategy, answer this question first. If you want to know how your brand is known, create “Personas” and elaborate as much as possible. Decide how you want to reflect the Persona you created from which digital channels. Most brands make mistakes by trying to be active on all social media platforms. The important thing is not to look a bit everywhere. So, to be popular on the platform, that will be the tool to promote your brand in the best way. Consider the problems you will encounter in the strategies you create. So, make backup plans and produce proactive solutions by making budget plans.

Identify Your Content 

With what type of content and which topics you will address your audience? What should the timeframe of your content be? Make detailed configurations by answering these questions. Make sure that your content is clear, sincere, understandable, remarkable, and niche. Use plain language that builds trust and loyalty. Ensure that your content is continuous and that it is not frequent enough to make your target audience get bored.

Create a Schedule 

Secondly, you should create a content schedule to be organized and share regularly. After identifying your audience and determining the type of content you want to create, it’s time to create a schedule. Then, choose the topics and themes of your content and arrange your publishing frequency and your distribution channels like social media, email, blog, etc. 

Take Regular Measurements

Analyze efficiency and effectiveness among the different types of content you publish. Make it easy for your target audience to reach your brand by doing SEO studies. Use the right digital tools to help your content reach more people. Standardize your measurement and reporting activities by performing them regularly. So, make retroactive improvements and forward-looking plans in your content marketing strategies as a result of your outcomes.

Benefit from the Power of Social Media

It is not enough to publish your content on a blog or website. You should position your strategies on social media networks. This will establish a loyalty bond with your brand and target audience. This will gain you prestige and reliability.

SEO and Content Marketing 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and content marketing are two strategies that work together to drive traffic and business growth. It is optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results pages, and it can improve the visibility of a website in search results and drive more traffic to the site. On the other hand, content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that involves creating and sharing relevant content to build relationships with potential customers. While SEO and content marketing are different strategies, you can use both to drive traffic and engagement and achieve business goals. Here are some ways that they can work together: 

• Content Quality
• Keyword Research
• User Experience
• Link building 

Content Quality

High-quality content is important for both SEO and content marketing. Search engines prioritize high-quality, relevant content that provides value to users. 

Keyword Research

Keyword research is an important aspect of both content marketing and SEO. It involves researching and identifying potential customers’ keywords and phrases to search for relevant information. By using these keywords strategically in your content, you can be found easily by your target audience.

User Experience

Providing a positive user experience on your website is important for content marketing and SEO. A well-designed and user-friendly website will keep visitors on your site longer and improve engagement and your search engine rankings.

Link building 

Link building is a strategy used in SEO to increase website traffic and improve search engine rankings. High-quality content is often a key component of successful link building, as it gives other websites a reason to link back to your site. Similarly, link building can benefit content marketing, as it helps drive traffic and improve search engine rankings. 

The Most Effective Strategy: Influencer marketing

If you are asking what is influencer marketing, we can say that it is the most powerful marketing type these days. With the implementation of content strategies within the framework of hybrid marketing, brands reach the fastest growth rates in the digital world. Today, the most successful content marketing performance optimization is integrated with customer insights. It provides more data to brands while informing the target audience; the content cycle is influencer marketing. In Influencer marketing, brand positioning is the fastest. It provides the most effective positioning of the products as reliable, accessible, and affordable; it is an innovative digital marketing channel that maximizes the return on investment. So much so that brands like NYX have been using influencers as brand faces in recent years. With influencer marketing, a marketing strategy focused on influencing purchasing behavior, you can create compelling campaigns that inspire, drive audiences, and include the target audience.

Conclusion – Content Marketing Is Bigger Than You Think

We gave quite a few examples in our article, but we could only touch the iceberg’s visible face. The best thing about content marketing is that you don’t need large budgets. So, you can start implementing a content marketing strategy today. Our world is becoming noisier and noisier. As a result, this enables content marketing to become a more important type of marketing to make a point shot. For instance, people who tell good stories also achieve success in the long run, regardless of the platform. In a nutshell, let’s finish by saying: Not shouting louder, shouting by saying better things wins!