Why Content Marketing

When is the last time you saw a car commercial, jumped off your sofa, drove to the dealer and bought a new car?

The answer is probably never unless it was a really, REALLY good sale.

It's just not how we shop. In an age where we skip ads on YouTube, search for the "X" on internet display ads and fast-forward through TV commercials, the old model of interruptive marketing simply doesn't work anymore.

What does work? Meeting the customer where he or she is at, answering their questions and building long-term trust. Content marketing is one great way to accomplish all three.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the use of content--articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc--to help solve people's problems and build trust with your brand by educating them in a personal, non-preachy way.

Let's play the inception game and analyze the content marketing behind content marketing. Suppose you are a small business owner wondering what content marketing is, what would you do?

You would probably take the following steps:

1. Google content marketing
2. Click on one of the first three results
3. Keep clicking until you found a definition you understood

Suppose you landed on my site and read this article. What would you do next? You might very well click off and never come back again. In that case, I have mostly failed as a content marketer.

However, you might be intrigued by what you read and explore the site further. The more you learned about content marketing, the more you might consider implementing it for your own business--if not right away, than maybe eventually.

If you ever did decide to implement content marketing, you might be inclined to consult with me because we would have hopefully built a trusting online relationship by that point.

Look what happened there. Content not only answered your question, but it led you through a process of education and trust-building that eventually resulted in a conversion. There's nothing pushy about it. The content simply met you where you were at and went from there.

That's content marketing, and that's the wave of the future.

Get On Their Level

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising. Furthermore, Demand Gen found that 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics).

Through content such as blog posts or YouTube videos, you can engage potential customers as they search for a solution and gradually convince them that they should go with you.

True, content marketing can take a while to convert, but that's the reality of today's consumers. They want things on their terms and their timetable. Not yours.

At the end of the day, every business out there solves some kind of problem, be it through a product or service. Use content to get your solution out there in a non-promotional way. It's about talking to people on their level. You are there to serve them. Not the other way around.