Received an update from the good folks at General Assembly a few weeks back. Their top featured was a short and punchy guide to Content Marketing for beginners by Alicia Morgan.
It’s one of the clearest articulation of marketing that I’ve read in recent times. Definitely, something wannabe and practising marketers should embrace.
Here’s what Alicia has to say:
Marketing is not about selling — it’s about the relationship you create with your target customer. Like in any good relationship, marketers need to first forge a connection, and they do this through creating and distributing content that potential customers want to consume, use, and/or share. The idea is that the consumption of content signals an interest that marketers can develop into more meaningful interactions — including sales and increased brand loyalty. It’s like giving someone a single chocolate to make them want the whole box.
And here’s why Content Marketing should be your secret weapon:
Content marketing encompasses the creation, editing, and distribution of content to help a specific target customer along in their journey toward a business. It’s marketing that simply looks like content.
Some of the most exemplary companies, including (the links direct to the respective companies’ content hubs) L’Oreal, Dollar Shave Club, Square and Goldman Sachs’, are investing serious time and money towards their content marketing efforts.
The examples above and of many other highly successful companies with a solid content marketing practice highlight the following core attributes:
They created content audiences want.
They publish new content regularly.
The content is authentic to their brand and related to their marketing objectives.
Now that’s a strategy that’s both simple and doable. It’s definitely a great place to start if you don’t have a content marketing strategy in place yet. And it’s definitely more doable than the 379 “hot” tactics that your favourite digital marketing guru sent you this morning.
Your turn.