It’s a popular fact that the Internet has taken over the marketing sphere, and this has resulted in a rise in the popularity of content marketing. If you’re a forward-thinking marketer, you’re probably working on a strong content marketing strategy for your business.

Content marketing is one of the best ways to raise brand awareness in today’s world. It’s far more effective in helping you reach your target audience – but only if you have a strong content marketing strategy and the right tools.

We’ve prepared this beginner’s guide to content marketing for all aspiring marketers who are intrigued to find more about this type of marketing’s potential and what it has to offer.

What is Content Marketing?

As the term suggests, content marketing is basically marketing your product, service, or overall business using captivating content. It sounds straightforward, but there’s a lot that goes into making content marketing successful.

Content marketing can be divided into two parts: content and marketing.

The content part includes information in written, audible, or visual form. Blog posts, articles, podcasts, infographics, and videos are all examples of content that businesses use for marketing.

Next, there’s the marketing part. This bit hasn’t changed in decades; it’s all about telling your target audience about your product or service with the aim of converting them into your customers. Here, we are referring to marketing using content.

However, there’s one difference; unlike other types of marketing where a business reaches out to its potential customers with an offering, content marketing is supposed to make people come to you. This is why it’s a part of inbound marketing.

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Does Content Marketing Really Work?

At this point, you’re probably wondering if content marketing really words, when in fact, you should be asking how powerful content marketing is.

Content marketing is a relatively new form of marketing. The primary reason why marketers use this marketing strategy to reach people where they are: on the Internet.

A recent study by Statista revealed that there are 4.6 billion Internet users worldwide, and that figure is increasing every day. This means that more than half the world’s population is online, which makes it a big market.

Now, you might be thinking, not every Internet user is a content consumer. While that’s true, you’d be surprised to know that 8 out of 10 people identify themselves as blog readers, according to The Content Marketing Institute. As a result, companies with blogs generate 67% more leads per month than non-blogging firms.

Looking at these stats, it’s clear that content marketing is a powerful tool that plays a crucial role in a company’s success.

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Different Elements of Content Marketing

Content marketing comprises of the following elements:

Creating valuable and relevant content (consistently)

One important thing about content marketing is that it pays off in the long term. It’s not like you can create content once and get over with it; you need to make it consistently if you want to reap its benefits.

Also, just creating content isn’t enough. You need to consistently create valuable and relevant content that educates your target audience about their pain points and offers a solution instead of focusing on what you do or sell.

Distributing the content

One of the significant challenges that you’ll face when pursuing content marketing is a whopping competition. There are almost 3 billion posts published every day, so how do you make sure that yours stands out and reaches the right audience? By strategically distributing the content.

A good thing about the Internet is that you get multiple platforms – social media, your website, and third-party websites. You can use these platforms to publish different types of content, but make sure you do it right.

Ideally, your blog posts should go up on your website (or any other high-ranking site), infographics and videos on social media, and podcasts on streaming platforms.

Targeting the right audience

The first step to creating relevant content is to know exactly who you’re making it for. This is known as a buyer persona.

Buyer personas help you understand your target audience’s problems, the platforms they use, and what factors they look into when making a purchase decision. All of this helps in turning consumers into customers.

Besides this, content marketing is also about keeping your existing customers happy by providing them valuable content – something that adds to their knowledge and/or that they can resonate with.

Turning viewers/readers into customers

While content marketing isn’t exactly a “hard sell,” it’s still a part of marketing intending to have a potential customer buying a product or avail a service. Are you wondering how you can achieve that goal? Through original, data-backed, and well-written/executed content.

Although content marketing aims to turn viewers/readers into customers, marketers (or content creators) should focus on product high-quality, search engine optimized content. The higher your content ranks, the better chances you have of attracting new customers.

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How to Design An Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Did you know that you can multiply the benefits you get out of content marketing by ten folds by making a proper plan? That’s right.

Creating content without a plan is like driving without GPS; you’ll eventually get there but will take a few wrong turns on the way. If you want to reach your destination earlier without any hurdles, you must plan and create a fool-proof content marketing strategy.

If you’re new to this field, then you might find this task very overwhelming. But don’t worry, Digitorm is here to save the day.

DIGITORM is a 360-degree digital marketing agency offering a number of services. No matter what the size of your business, our team can help you create an effective content marketing strategy that’ll result in a high ROI.

To know more, get in touch with our content specialists today!