Everyone has heard the phrase ‘Content Marketing.’ Do this for content marketing, or do that! But what really is content marketing? Let's take a look at the definition of content marketing.
Before we dig in, if you haven't checked out our latest comprehensive content marketing post (90+ tips!), you can view it here.
The most common phrase when it comes to content marketing is “I’m an effective content creator, I write these great posts and I publish them.” Although content creation is an element of content marketing, it's not the only one. Unfortunately, simply sitting down and writing a blog post is not effective content marketing.
Those same people get stuck on a flow. The flow being: creating a blog post, optimizing the blog post, then publishing and promoting the blog post. They see what works and doesn’t work, and then share through various social channels. Content marketing seems that simple. But is it?
Lets first quickly look at some fast facts surrounding content marketing.
- 27 million pieces of content shared daily.
- 90% listen to recommendations shared from friends
- Articles with images get 94% more views than those without
- Companies with an active blog report 97% more leads
One Size Does Not Fit All
The reality is that content marketing is comprised of multiple elements. These elements need to be customized to each situation separately. There are multiple factors (some large and some small) that contribute to content marketing such as:
- Audience pain, need or interest in the topic
- Use of keywords
- Social media capabilities and analytics
- Website analytics
- Marketing automation tools and insight
- Content distribution channels (Email, influencer marketing, social media, etc.)
- Content format (Video, podcast, blog post, slideshare, etc.)
- and more.
The "Definition"
The challenge is that content marketing is based on many features that change from situation to situation. This in turn becomes very overwhelming to try to understand, let alone define. Let’s take a look at how these top leaders define the term content marketing.
- The Content Marketing Institute says, "Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."
- Marketo says, "Content marketing is the process of creating high-quality, valuable content to attract, inform, and engage an audience, while also promoting the brand itself. Buyers and consumers are already searching the web for answers that your brand is uniquely positioned to offer."
- Marketing Insider Group says, "Content marketing is about delivering the content your audience is seeking in all the places they are searching for it. It is the effective combination of created, curated and syndicated content."
The truth is, content marketing is a blend of all these definitions.
Our Definition
Here at the Social Fusion Group, we define content marketing as a process. It's communicating relevant messages to specific target audiences across various buying cycles. Effective content marketing includes:
- Communicating relevant messages to inform, educate, and persuade.
- Communicating relevant messages to our target audience on a sustained basis
- Build relationships and trust
That's our view on defining content marketing. What is yours? Feel free to share it with us here or across social media.
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