What is the Role of Content Marketing?

Creating meaningful connection with your customer-base is difficult with so much noise and distraction in the digital space, clamoring for attention.

Consumers take-in remarkable amounts of information, which helps them make smart, seemingly informed decisions at the drop of a hat. But processing that much information also risks overload, and consumers quickly decide if information online is worth their time or not.

We skip video ads without pause, train our eyes to omit sidebar images—we’re good at shucking what we deem unimportant, and your message might get lost in the fray.

This is where content marketing plays an important role: it’s the idea that if you produce good content that passes our inherent online nonsense-detectors, you earn the trust of consumers.

The structure of your marketing strategy rests on the relationship you have with your audience. And you build that relationship through consistent, trustworthy content—which is easier said than done.

Understanding content marketing and the role it plays in your marketing plan will help you develop a relationship with your audience that you can lean on and grow from. Here’s how.

What is the Purpose of Content?

Content can inform an audience, drive a message, pitch an idea, develop personality, sell the merits of a product, or shout at the unlucky passerby—it’s your voice. And—good or bad, you leave an impression with how you communicate with your audience.

In content marketing, your content has to be valued by the audience so that they trust your voice and want to listen to more. That means creating content that serves a purpose for your audience.

Below are ways your content can provide value for your reader:

Inform

Can your content inform your audience with something they need or want to know? Infographics. Blogs. Whitepapers. How-to’s. Your content can have authority on a subject if research is done, you provide statistics, employ the knowledge of subject-matter-experts, and you create content that’s practical. Your audience values what informs them.

Connect

Do you create a sense of community with your content? Utilizing social media to share information, interests, and resources let’s your audience feel connected to more than a brand or product. Your content should be a place to connect.

Entertain

What are the elements of your content that consumers return to? You can develop your business’ personality by creating and publishing content that entertains. Often, content that is lighthearted or has a “soft sell” while being entertaining is more palatable to an audience that is already advertisement-weary.

What is Content Marketing in Digital Marketing?

When done well, digital marketing is the portal to reach your audiences on platforms where they already spend much of their time and where they already have vested interest.

Mobile apps, podcasts, social media, blogs and whitepapers—your audience trusts these mediums because they’ve likely already found content that they trust. Now you have the responsibility to create content in these spaces that’s also valuable.

Focus on the content, not the branding or selling points. For example, the long-form nature of podcasts requires you to develop thoughtful concepts for discussion, bring interesting voices into the conversation, and the content itself can’t be prescribed or self-obsessed. Organic, personable content will earn you more in the digital space.

Take social media marketing in digital marketing. What works better? The automatic, generic “Click-here-to-learn-more” repetitive Tweet that links to your website? Or the inciteful, relevant, quick-witted blog you shared about a movement occurring in your industry that you find thought provoking? Find where your personality can shine because you care about the content, too.

Benefits of Content Marketing

When you take the time and put in the effort to develop good content, you do more than publish a well-read blog, or garner lots of views on a video. Below the surface, you are creating a relationship with your audience that can extend far past one individual piece of content—and you break the ice to create interest in future content. Your audience sees you as a trusted source of information, connection, and/or entertainment.

Build off the content you’ve had success with. As you develop a voice—a specific type of post, similar topics, subject-matter expertise—continue to build off your content, much like you’d continue a good conversation, revisiting topics and exploring nuance.

That’s part of the importance of content creation and management: demonstrate your consistency and reliability in your content development, and show that you are an authority in your industry.

DemandJump offers you a way to research your audiences and give them what they want - with just a few clicks, track how content is received, and measure how well your marketing strategies are achieving your messaging goals. In doing so, you can make a real impact—on your customers, and your bottom line.

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