What is Content Marketing?

By definition:

“Content marketing is 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.”

As a digital storyteller, this is essentially what I do, but the value of the content I produce is directly proportional to how you intend to use it and the goals you’re trying to achieve. You must have a goal that underwrites each piece. Trying out familiar metrics that are unfamiliar to this medium is a recipe for disappointment. The content element of marketing is a long-term asset with continued downstream returns. In other words, good returns take time. This is about communication, and that communication is about value — not a sales pitch.

Common goal and ROI:

A common goal in content marketing is to trigger an “I have call those guys” thought when the time comes for the customer to make a purchase decision. Chances are better, however, if you have fortunate timing. This means getting the content in front of the customer when the customer is ready to buy. Innovative thought processes and knowing where the market is heading improve this luck. The above-mentioned “valuable, relevant and consistent” elements cannot be ignored. They are more of a mandate than a goal.

There is a lot more involved than this would make it sound. Consider this one of those passé ‘tip of the iceberg’ ramblings, as content development has numerous phases and life cycles to coincide with the buyer’s journey and the buying cycles of various target personas. One thing is certain; there will be plenty of writing.

Want to see part of it in action?

A simple premise with good intentions can have the most significant impact. Simplicity is the best form of elegance, is it not? Recently, I sought to answer a question for my own purposes as to what the science of photogrammetry is all about. From that launching point, I realized that I was on to something great.

This piece added value to my workflows by helping me understand something adjacent to my responsibilities as an employee of a photogrammetry firm. As it helped me understand something, it also became a tool to help relatives, and other marketers understand just what it is my company does.

We shared it like any good marketer will do, but unlike previous socially driven content, this one took off. We saw double the average views through social analytics and host site Medium.com’s “stats” page.

As any good marketer will do with some success, we capitalized on it. We sent out an email to everyone relevant to our customer relationship management software. We saw an open rate double our average and a nearly sixty percent click-through rate. It is our best campaign to date.

Published here on May 1, 2014, as well as LinkedIn and Medium.com