As consumers took more responsibility in the buyer journey, marketing tactics were forced to change. No longer can businesses simply tell consumers that they need a product … they must play a role in the buyer’s research journey to have the opportunity to earn the buyer’s business. You can be part of the consumer’s research journey by distributing content marketing pieces.
According to The Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is defined as:
“… a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
There are several key elements of content marketing that separates it from your other marketing tactics:
Valuable Information
Every line of your content marketing piece must tell the reader information he doesn’t already know. This accomplishes several things – he will feel like his time was not wasted while reading your content marketing piece and he will likely seek out your company for the solution to his problem.
Consistent Distribution
If you consistently distribute content marketing pieces, your consumer will recognize that you are a leader in your industry. Sporadic distribution will not benefit your company. However, at all costs, do not sacrifice quality for quantity. One information-filled, valuable content marketing piece per month is better than four, purposeless pieces per month.
Profitable Customer Action
Content marketing pieces can benefit your company when they are set up correctly! At the end of the day, you want your customer to choose your company over your competition for the solution to his problem. But until then, you can gain his contact information in exchange for the desired content marketing piece.
This is part one of our three-part series about content marketing. Stay tuned for parts two and three:
- Content Marketing 101: What is it?
- Content Marketing 101: Why is it important?
- Content Marketing 101: How to Put it Into Practice
Team With M&R Marketing
There should be a rhyme and reason to every content marketing piece you create and distribute. That rhyme and reason is laid out in your content marketing strategy. If you need a team full of people who are passionate about creating valuable content marketing pieces and distributing them effectively, partner with us. This is what we do. This is what we spend every minute of our workday thinking about. Are you ready to get started? Shoot us an email at hey@mandr-group.com!