What is Content Marketing and why should your business be doing it?

Richard Penny, 06 February 2013

Content Marketing has been the talk of "Marketing Town" for some time now, however for many businesses it is still quite unclear exactly what it is, and why they should be doing it. In this post I have attempted to cover some of the fundamentals of Content Marketing and to explain why, when combined with a sound nurture programme (AKA marketing automation), it is a vital part of any B2B sales and marketing programme. 

Firstly, what is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing (also sometimes referred to as Inbound Marketing) is the name given to the creation and distribution of informative, relevant content for the purpose of creating new leads. Put plainly, it is the art of making people come to you because they like what you have to say. 

So what type of content are we talking about?

The first and most important thing to appreciate here is that the content you generate must be a) interesting b) relevant and c) non "salesy". The content's primary purpose is to demonstrate to your market your knowledge and expertise in a specific area, and there negate the need for you to tell people about it.  

The content itself can take a range of different forms. Some of those most commonly used are:

- Blog articles
- Press releases
- Video (posted to YouTube or Vimeo)
- Infographics
- Whitepapers and articles
- PowerPoint slides (posted to a service such as Slideshare)
- Social Media such as Twitter (although I consider this more of a content distribution tool), LinkedIn and Facebook. 

I also include events such as seminars or presentations as part of a Content Marketing programme and is often the ideal way to move contact with a prospect from online to  face-to-face. 

Why would you do it?

The goal of Content Marketing is the same goal you should have for any marketing activity: to create new sales leads, and ultimately, drive new revenue. Content Marketing helps you achieve this by bringing engaged prospects into contact with your company in a non-intrusive way, where they can then be taken through the sales process. 

Content Marketing is also a very important tool in brand positioning. It is an opportunity to enhance your brand and differentiate yourself from your competition through the demonstration of specific expertise. After all, your brand isn’t built on what you say you are, it is built on what you do… 

And not only does Content Marketing have the potential to be far, far more effective that traditional forms of marketing (read “interruption marketing), it is also significantly less expensive. Studies show that Inbound Marketing is up to 62% less than the likes of trade shows, email etc. These cost savings in large part due to its efficiency of the approach as your audience effectively "self-qualifies".  This is very different to most traditional outbound techniques which are either very broadly targeted, or to a segmented audience selected based on your assumptions of product-market fit. 

To help explain the concept, here is a simplified diagram of how one example of a content marketing programme could work: 

This is a somewhat simplistic example, however i'm sure you get the key points:

1. Creating good content gets you found by an audience who has already "self-qualified" through their search behaviour.

2. Good content helps boost search engine rankings, which in turn makes it easier for you to be found.

3. Engagements created from content marketing are unintrusive and begin with value and consent, rather than unsolicited interruption

4. By providing content that is relevant, you create value for the prospect. This often leads a propect to opt-in to further communications which allows you to use further interesting content to “nurture" them through a buying process and create high-quality leads for your sales team. 

So in this post we have covered some of the fundamentals of Content Marketing and why it should be central to any good B2B marketing programme.  In the next post we will take a look at how you get this great content found.