What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is fast becoming a central part of the marketing mix for small and large businesses.

It’s an important part of the way organizations communicate directly to the public through words and images linked to their core messaging. To make it work, a company’s marketers must emphasize the production of good content on websites, newsletters and videos with good marketing practices in social media and digital advertisement. 

In essence, content marketing is defined by Content Marketing Institute 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.”

Put another way: content marketing is a format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers and get them to endorse your services and products.

Content marketing is very different from advertisement. First, as Ad Age explains, content “resides on owned or earned media. If there’s a media buy involved, it’s advertising, not content marketing. Second, content marketing is a pull, rather than a push, strategy. Content doesn’t interrupt, it attracts. And it is attracting advertisers in droves.” 

In today’s world, consumers have largely cut off traditional marketing. They own DVRs to skip television advertising and have become so good at online “surfing” that they can find what they want without getting sucked into banners or buttons on the sides of their screens. 

Smart marketers understand that traditional marketing is becoming less and less relevant. 

And so content marketing has become the new art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling.

It’s what Content Market Institute describes as “non-interruption marketing.”