Blog Post By: Emily Martin, Marketing Intern
Since the early 2000s, content marketing has been a buzzword among marketers and advertisers. Prior to this, traditional marketing that focused on the Four Ps principle (product, place, price, promotion) had dominated the industry with TV, radio, magazine, and newspaper ads. These ads were designed to interrupt a consumer’s life with a brand’s message and lacked interaction and connections with consumers. Since the amount of advertisements a consumer is exposed to is growing, consumer-brand relationships are that much more important, which is why a combination of traditional and content marketing is needed for success.
Content marketing is any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers. Content marketing fills the gaps of traditional marketing because it is used to create a relationship between a brand and consumer. The key to content marketing is to provide relevant and valuable information. Content marketing gives the consumers a reason to pay attention to a brand. For example, Lauren Luke, an English taxicab dispatcher, wanted to increase her online make-up sales-so she started creating “how to” video blogs on YouTube. Her videos were so successful that she launched her own make-up line “By Lauren Luke”, and it is now sold by many big name stores like Sephora. She was successful because consumers found value in her videos and gained her trust. This ultimately gave Lauren brand-loyal customers. Today, Sephora’s traditional ad campaigns continue to enhance Lauren’s marketing strategy, giving “By Lauren Luke” the ultimate combination for marketing success.
Overall, content marketing keeps readers’ attention, improves brand loyalty, generates leads, and increases direct sales. When businesses use both content and traditional marketing, they are setting themselves up for success by promoting their brand name and products through TV, radio, or magazine ads and then building customer relationships through social media with content marketing techniques.
Below are some easy content marketing tactics that you can incorporate into your business’ marketing strategy:
1. Social Media-67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from brands they follow.
2. eNewsletters- The average return on email marketing investment is $44.25 for every dollar spent.
3. Videos- 62% of marketers use videos in the content marketing strategy.
4. Blogs– 37% of marketers believe blogs are their most valuable type of content marketing.
Sources:
http://www.newzsocial.com/content-marketing-vs-traditional-marketing/
http://www.getspokal.com/top-11-most-powerful-content-marketing-examples-by-small-businesses/
http://kapost.com/content-marketing-facts
http://www.demandmetric.com/content/content-marketing-infographic
