The saying “Content is king” is heard repeatedly in the online marketing world. Content is king because of its power to educate, inform, connect, and boost credibility, visibility, and sellability. This sound statement is also one of the more scalable ways to put the power of web marketing to work. Content marketing is simply defined as publishing content on the web that educates and empowers readers. Online content marketing can also multitask by attracting search engines. When it comes to healthy web marketing, you are what you publish.
Content marketing goes by many names, but according to a survey by Vertical Leap, while only 45 percent of marketers and business owners in the U.K. were aware of the term content marketing, 100 percent were already engaged in the development of content for marketing purposes. Applying strategy to current engagement can boost selling power.
Too many professionals erroneously believe that content creation via a blog will solve all their content marketing problems. But blogging is like limiting an organization to only one tool in the wild web toolbox. Content marketing goes above and beyond blogging. Content can live on a website, on a blog, as online press releases, on free article marketing sites, on social media outlets, in e-mail marketing, and more.
There are so many ways to attract eyeballs online. As you spend more time reviewing the competition, pay attention to the different ways they use website design and marketing messaging to serve current customers and attract new customers. How are they building awareness, distributing information, connecting with current and prospective customers, serving visitors, and selling products and services?
The good news about content marketing is that previously produced content can be repurposed in many ways to minimize new creation and maximize impact. The biggest fear of overworked marketers is that producing content will become one more daunting task on their already overbooked calendars. In many cases, the most brilliant content marketing comes not from an organization but from the website’s users.
Content marketing lives both on the originator’s website and on the websites of others. For example, a blog entry may have content echoed in online press releases, social media, article websites, e-mail marketing, video sites, and so on. Content marketing also exists in the “real” world with print materials, direct mail, events, and more.
One of the primary goals of online content marketing is creating as much inbound traffic as possible. Online marketing is most powerful when your content has made its way onto the wild, wild web and lures people to your main website where they can hit the information mother lode. Putting your content in some form on other sites creates more awareness, information sharing, connection creation, and traffic building.
Think of online content creation as the glue that brings the online marketing puzzle together for credibility, usability, visibility, sellability, and scalability.
Compelling content can be website text, images, video, blog posts, online press releases, social networking posts, podcasts, articles, and (ideally) a combination of several. The beauty of content creation as an online marketing tool is simple: authoring content creates authority status. Sharing ideas and bringing relevant web content to a target audience on a website, blog, or social site or via press releases or third-party article sites creates more web tentacles to help create connections.
Don’t forget the power of repurposing content. You don’t have to write everything from the ground up. Recycle content that was already written, engage guest writers, and “Tell them, tell them what you told them, and then tell them one more time” with content in multiple places to increase readability and visibility. Share content to serve, support, and ultimately sell your audience and embrace your inner web gemologist—start publishing and aggregating the “best of the best” content to help make a meaningful marketing impact on the web!
