We’ve all heard the term “content marketing”, it’s everywhere! You might think this is a new trend, but, truth be told, it is a concept as old as time.
Let’s talk about what content marketing truly is and the differences between two other similar terms:
Content marketing is, according to the Content Marketing Institute, “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” In other words, offer something of value and the audience will respond.
A Marketing strategy definition “refers to a business’s overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of the products or services the business provides. A marketing strategy contains the company’s value proposition, key brand messaging, data on target customer demographics, and other high-level elements.” (Investopedia)
This is the overall plan for all your marketing efforts to support sales, branding, awareness, demand generation, lead generation, and thought leadership.
Combining the two, a Content marketing strategy defines how the content will be used to improve interaction with the company’s target groups, and how this can help the company achieve its goals. (BBN)
As you can see, a content strategy is actually creating, managing, and publishing your content. So it’s obvious that we’ll need a good content marketing strategy in the first place, and then work towards our content marketing.
We know firsthand that each brand, and each project, is different and has distinct challenges. MarketLogic recommends an 8 step model that can help you design a winning strategy:
- Define your goals
- Develop personas
- Define the customer journey
- Create a content hub and assemble a content team
- Define a content strategy
- Create a content calendar
- Distribute your content
- Measure, analyze, and improve
Now that we’ve covered the basics and have a better understanding of content marketing, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start building the strategy. Read our next blog in the series: Defining a Winning Content Strategy (link to come)
At MarketLogic we have a multidisciplinary team ready to help you develop successful content marketing strategies and achieve your goals. Let’s have a conversation about your goals, your activities, and your ideas and how we can turn them into actionable results.
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