Content Marketing: What is it and what does it deliver?

Content Marketing is about providing relevant content (both visual and textual) for your target audience. This is a common term in B2B marketing. Engaging potential customers is done by providing value and relevant content creation: you actually offer help. This content is offered at the right time, provoking communication and interaction from the target audience.

Content can come in many different forms and through different marketing channels. Think blogs, landing pages, white papers, infographics, podcasts, checklists or newsletters. It all depends on what your target audience is looking for and how they gather information.

By informing and helping your target audience without directly advertising or selling, you build a bond of trust and exude expertise. Instead of immediately offering a sales pitch, take a more subtle approach where you can offer value. As a result, you meet the requirements of the target audience. The strategy behind this is that potential buyers will always be encouraged to convert, through content, and eventually start to see you as the best partner to do business with. To actually rank well in Google, you need to exude expertise, authority and trust.

Purpose of content marketing

The goal of content marketing is to attract potential customers and elicit interaction. That way, you build a substantive connection with individuals who are interested in your product or service. These individuals, through different content, are constantly tempted to take the next step toward a purchase. The steps a (potential) customer or lead takes are described in the marketing and sales funnel.

What does content marketing provide?

Simply put, more content produces more leads. In doing so, it is important to note that quality always takes precedence over quantity. For both findability and conversion, it is more important to write quality content, rather than large amounts. Content is only findable and therefore attractive if it contains relevant and substantive content. In addition, it is important to know your target audience. Generate better leads through a good marketing and sales funnel.

What are the benefits of content marketing?

Content Marketing is a way to work on brand awareness, findability and lead generation in a sustainable way. This has several advantages:

• Investing in content marketing is sustainable. It is a long-term strategy because content creation is a lot of work and it does not bring in new customers immediately. The upside, though, is that once the ball starts rolling, it starts paying off more and more in the long run. This certainly applies to “evergreen content”: content that remains interesting, timeless and relevant in the long run. So this content stays current for years and you don’t have to update too often. Also, this type of content continues to continuously generate interest from readers (or listeners).
• Content marketing provides value for your target audience. It’s easier to offer content that really benefits your target audience, instead of feeling like you’re always trying to sell something.
• Content marketing is multi-purpose. Content in the form of text can be provided in many different ways. For example, consider a blog and an associated podcast. In addition, you can revisit the topic in a newsletter, social media post or an email, or write a white paper to go with it. That way, you produce many different content pieces on the same topic, which is good for your SEO value.

What are the disadvantages of content marketing?

Content marketing also has a downside:

• Content marketing is time-consuming. Writing relevant, high-quality content is no easy task. You need knowledge and experience of copywriting to produce the right texts for a specific target audience, where a certain strategic goal must be achieved. These texts must also be surprising and must not contain errors. Copywriters are often employed to accomplish this task, taking into account all kinds of SEO optimizations. In addition, it takes time before you start generating reach through these marketing efforts: you need patience.

Start with Buyer Personas

To generate good content in a content marketing strategy with effective content planning, it is important to consider the target audience through Buyer Personas. Using these profiles, you figure out how the target audience orients themselves, what content they consume at what times, what they consider important, etc. You then respond to that by creating the right content and distributing it. So not only the content, but also the channel and the moment is important here.

Need help?

Would you like to get started with content marketing, but no idea how? Or do you not have the right resources? We will help you out. 2manydots is a full-service Internet marketing agency and specialist in converting websites. We help with your online marketing strategy based on a data-driven approach. With an in-house team of specialists, including SEO specialists and copywriters, we will work together to create content and optimize your existing content.