Content marketing is an expression you hear a lot nowadays in the marketing world. We know it’s a good thing, we know we all need to do be doing more of it, but be honest, is everyone entirely sure why?

One of our panel discussions at our upcoming Amsterdam conference is a content marketing masterclass. With industry heavyweights from the likes of Sky and The Walt Disney Company taking part, it promises to be a fascinating session, with plenty of inspiration to help you develop a creative and effective content marketing strategy. To get you thinking in the meantime, we wanted to go back to basics, and look at exactly what content marketing has to offer.

So, why do we do it? What exactly are the aims of content marketing? Here are a few to get you started…

Become an expert in your field

What’s the key to winning new customers? Well, one of the most important things you need to build is trust, and content marketing can help you do this by giving you the opportunity to educate your audience without forcing direct marketing messages down their throats. Building up a bank of informative, useful articles and resources helps to establish credibility and expertise, showing customers that you know what you’re talking about.

Make your customers less defensive…

…and as a result, make your products or services easier to sell. When we watch a TV ad, we know it’s a TV ad, and that we are being sold something. When we read an article about how to incorporate education into play, we’re interested in the subject, and in being the best parents we can be, and the fact that we might get a mention or two of LEGO is just part of that experience. Our defences are down, and subtle marketing messages penetrate much more easily.

It’s cheap

How much does it cost to implement a successful content marketing strategy? Very little is the answer. The only real cost involved is the time spent researching and writing your content, and this makes it an incredibly accessible and cost-effective form of marketing for businesses of all sizes.

Increase traffic to your website

Content marketing does this in several different ways, proving again just how cost effective it can be. Having a lot of regular, fresh content on your site is great for your search engine visibility and domain authority, and gives customers more to look at once they’re there. Creating useful content that’s very sharable will also boost traffic from social media and other referrers – both through your own channels and hopefully through other people’s too.

Create a community

More traditional marketing has typically been very much a one way street, with little opportunity for customer engagement. As a result, there’s little scope to build any sort of real connection with your customer. Content marketing opens the doors for much more in the way of engagement, and gives you the chance to be a little more entertaining, or spark some debate. Whenever you’re producing content – a post for your blog for example – always think about how you can encourage interaction. This might be something as simple as asking readers a question, and actively asking them to leave a comment. That sounds basic, but you’d be surprised by how often people miss it!

These are obviously just a few of the benefits of content marketing, but they’re a great starting point to help you think about what you want to achieve with your content marketing plan.

What do you see as the main benefits of content marketing? Please leave a comment and let us know! (See what we did there?)

Content Marketing plays massive importance at all of our DMWF conferences – so much so that it has it’s own track.

Good quality content, distributed effectively across digital and social channels, can improve customer relationships, boost engagement and raise brand awareness. Join us on the 13 & 14 April in Amsterdam.

Photo credit: (c)iStock.com/motorenmano

The post 5 aims of content marketing appeared first on #DMWF Series Site.