Content marketing attracts leads and prospects and moves them down the conversion funnel towards becoming customers through the creation and sharing of valuable free content. Content marketing also helps to create and sustain brand loyalty, educates potential customers, and fosters a good relationships for future brand interactions. This relatively new form of marketing does not involve direct sales. Instead, it builds trust and rapport with the audience.
Unlike other forms of online marketing, content marketing relies on anticipating and meeting an existing customer need for information, as opposed to creating demand for a new need. Content marketing requires continuous delivery of large amounts of content, preferably within a content marketing strategy.
When organizations pursue content marketing, the main focus should be the needs of the prospect or customer. Once an organization has identified the customer’s need, information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video, white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, podcasts, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, blogs, etc.