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Content marketing. It seems like everyone’s talking about it. But what exactly is it and what can it do for your business?
Odds are, if you’re doing any marketing at all — you’re at least accidentally dabbling in content marketing.
First — it goes by many names. Some people call it custom publishing or branded content. Other people slap the label of social or digital marketing on. And all of those names are accurate.
Content marketing is a broad term for any marketing technique that creates and distributes valuable, helpful and relevant information that demonstrates that you know your stuff. These tactics draw the attention of people who are already your customers or could be your customers and they consume, share, and value the content.
The ultimate goal of content marketing is to create a sense of trust and comfort that will lead to someone making an initial purchase, making an additional purchase or referring you to someone who’s ready to make a purchase.
There are other benefits as well. It’s a powerful way to establish yourself as an expert, to shorten the sales cycle, to impact SEO results and depending on your business – to educate, entertain, and inspire your audience.
I found an infographic from Visual.ly that I think does an excellent job of not only demonstrating many of the different possibilities when it comes to content marketing — but also gives you a sense of which tactics deliver what outcomes.
Check it out! (click here to download larger version)
With all those possibilities — are you confident that you’re doing all that you can to harness the potential and the power of content marketing?
Are you doing some things that you could be doing better? More often? More intentionally?
I want to challenge you a little — are you really leveraging this marketing strategy to the extent that you should? If not…why not?
