What is Content Marketing and How Does It Work?

In a saturated digital market, a blogger needs not only to be familiar with content marketing but also to apply it in different forms on a daily basis.

No matter if you’re starting your blog or you want to work on an existing one, content marketing is one of the most efficient types of online advertising. In any case, you want the number of your blog visitors to increase, and the right content marketing approach will help you do that.

What is content marketing?

We have all been there, at one second you’re reading news, and then three hours later you find yourself watching random YouTube videos. Who knew that clicking on a random link that seemed to be very naive at first can lead to this?

With the amount of online content continuously growing, so is the number of bloggers. To attract a targeted audience and keep them interested, you need to create high-quality content.

What are the goals of content marketing?

To understand what separates a general blog post from a post covered with layers of advertising, you need to learn the goals of content marketing. As mentioned by Content Mavericks, “you create educational and entertaining “content” to get your customers to pay attention to you”.

Each piece of content needs to fulfill the following four objectives to serve its purpose:

Inform

One of the most efficient ways to attract your audience and get them interested in your business is to provide them reliable information. Sharing news and the latest trends you apply to your line of work will be considered a good read.

Entertain

Entertainment is one of the key reasons why people spend hours and hours online. If you want to attract a wider audience, the content you release should have an interesting note.

Inspire

An incredible number of people trying to achieve success in life. Thus, motivation is a highly valuable feature to incorporate into your content. You can share stories about how you got out of some critical situation and try to inspire followers of your blog. While motivating, you can still refer them to your line of products or services.

Purchase

The final goal, the one that started this whole process, is an eventual purchase. Useful information cleverly unfolds this type of advertising. Providing your followers with a source of knowledge will help you grow your following. The more people follow you, the more of them will be interested in what you have to offer.

How is it beneficial?

Let’s start with the benefits that come with introducing content marketing for your blog.

I’m sure you’re already aware of the fact that word of mouth is the most effective advertising method. When a person is in need of a service or a product that’s unfamiliar to them, they always ask someone they know about it. People love to share their satisfaction online and in-person; great food, excellent service, and useful blogs.

So, with great content marketing, you’ll gain more visitors and loyal followers. Then you can start posting quality content that directs people to your products or services.

Content vs. Inbound Marketing

These two terms are often confused. People who are not pro advertisers often refer to content marketing and inbound marketing as if they were synonyms. Although these two do have a lot in common, both are used to attract a target audience by investing more effort into content but their nature is different.

Creating content that is an extension of your expertise, and promoting it to those who could benefit from it, is a natural way to expand your blog. This tactic falls under content marketing. Inbound marketing methods are a bit more sophisticated. Their aims could be to improve Google ranking with SEO techniques and different data analysis tactics. Of course, combining these two distinct methods to grow your blog will be more efficient.

Elements of content marketing

To understand what content marketing is with clarity, you need to learn from which parts it consists. You should keep all of them in mind to master advertising methods efficiently.

Target audience

Before you start creating blog content, you first need to define your target audience. It’s necessary in most cases, although there are blogs that cover a broad range of subjects and their content often seems to be all over the place. If you concretize your subject by defining an audience, your blog will become a center of profound knowledge, and it will gain popularity.

Content

After you establish the profile parameters of your target audience, you can start building suitable content. There are many different types of content, and we’ll get to it later in this article so you can decide which content is the most appropriate for your blog. Usually, you are not bound to one type; it’s recommended for your content to be diverse.

The offer

We already discussed how your proposal should explain the need for certain services or products and be wrapped in layers of subtlety. Because the broad public is aware of content marketing methods, this is the part that needs a detailed strategy and a nice spin on the story you’re trying to tell.

Promotion and distribution

Your job doesn’t end with releasing a blog post; that’s half of the job. Once it’s out there, you need to make sure that people can hear about it and reach it. The open platforms which are a very fertile ground are social networks, so it’s smart to develop them together with your blog.

Continuity

Releasing one blog post on a monthly basis and doing it without any schedule won’t work. If you want to attract your audience and keep them interested, it’s necessary for you to establish continuity in procreating and posting your pieces of content.

Natural language

Some content marketing newbies consider that using big words that are familiar only to experts will sound professional. If every other word you use will require the reader to consult a dictionary, you will drive them away. Thus, you should insist on simplicity and clear explanations in every piece of content your release. And try to attract a wider group of people with different levels of expertise.

Types of content you can use

Now that we’ve defined content marketing, went through its benefits, and separated it from inbound marketing, it’s time to look at the different types of content used for advertising.

Here is the list that you can use:

• Social media posts
• Books
• Videos
• Images
• Infographics
• Blog posts
• Reviews
• Guides/Lists/How-tos
• Linking
• Studies
• Podcasts
• Whitepapers
• Games
• Memes

Each of these fourteen types can be a highly efficient form of advertising if used correctly. Yes, even memes. We’re sure you have noticed that they are taking over the internet, and this is a trend you can use to your advantage. Spread a bit of quality humor online, along with working on your marketing efforts. Also, as we already suggested it would be smartest to use several different content types. But your choice should be under the preferences of your target audience.

Conclusion

This advertising method has many different levels and benefits. Filling your blog with quality content and making it a knowledge source is something that any audience would appreciate. Raising awareness about your work through this marketing method will increase the number of visitors to your website.

The only thing left is to select the type of content your audience needs and start posting quality pieces. I’m sure that the numbers will surprise you in a very positive manner quite soon.