Content marketing has gained tremendous popularity in recent times. Why? Because companies who put their focus on content marketing are seeing 5x more leads than the others. Google has also confirmed that 56% of its online ads are blown right past by the customers in favour of the content that’s actually useful. Ad fatigue has increased, and marketers need to come up with new ways to keep the customer engaged. If you don’t use Google Analytics to chalk up your marketing strategy and social media marketing, you are missing out on the benefits of the search engine.

How do you explain content marketing to a 5-year-old?

Content marketing examples include educational articles, e-books, videos, and webinars, among others, to educate and entertain the audience. By following this content marketing strategy, you become an authoritative and authentic source of valuable information to your customers, according to Content Marketing Institute. The chances of getting discovered by the right audience on search engines increases manifold. Your customer relationships improve, and your online presence has a more active subscriber base, reflecting in your content marketing success.

Of course, creating a top-notch content is an important part of the search engine optimization process. HubSpot made their name in the market with detailed guides and free e-books, marketing kits, and user guides, among others. They even coined the term: ‘Inbound Marketing.’ They did what a content marketer is supposed to do as part of their content marketing efforts. From content strategy to content creation, including video content, you have to watch the Google trends and devise your marketing campaign.

BabyCenter is another example of a media company that provides information based on conception, pregnancy and birth. Run by Johnson & Johnson, the site is considered the number 1 digital pregnancy and parenting destination; eight in 10 new mothers and expectant moms online use BabyCenter every month. This approach not only created brand awareness through the medium of a blog post and quality content, but also appealed to its target audience.

What does content marketing involve?

Your content is not about your product, how good it is, or why people should use it. It is about the people, the audience and what they want and care enough to know about. How can you be the one to provide such a service to them? Content marketing is different from traditional marketing which are product and sales-centric. In content marketing, you focus on building customer relationships with more long-term goals, such as setting up a strong customer base. In digital media, email marketing plays a key role in a content marketing campaign. So does influencer marketing for small business.

Content marketing requires a content writer who has creativity and patience in equal measure. However, once you hit the mark with your valuable content, chances are that you’d be more than satisfied. Information is something that people are always seeking through search engines like Google and Bing. If you manage to be on top of the search results with good content, your business garners visibility. The more you answer people’s questions through blog posts, e-books, video marketing, and other marketing channel, the more will be your viewership.

Content marketing is for everyone 

TD Ameritrade produces its print and digital magazine, thinkMoney, for active customers, including those who traded over hundred times a day. TDA had earlier put the program under review to determine if it was even worth spending money on the magazine. After two years, they received confirmation of it’s value: Subscribers and readers of the magazine traded five times more, and hence were better customers for TDA, than non-subscribers.

Sainsbury is another example of outstanding return on investment (ROI) powered by content marketing. Sainsbury is the top cooking magazine in the UK with a paid readership of over 3 million. While this is payment in itself, a 2015 survey conducted by the company indicated that eight out of ten readers have bought a product from Sainsbury’s after reading about it in the magazine.

However, the content you put out is as valuable as its ability to engage the potential customers, subscribers, evangelists or ideally, all of them. It is important to keep up with every new technology. For example, Insurance Company built a content platform – Master This – to help people solve basic home and life challenges. While the firm’s point is to drive sales, the content focusses on the educational things that the customer will find useful. Today, it has expanded the sphere of the informational content by partnering with HowStuffWorks and Amazon’s Alexa to provide educational content through voice-activation.

Visual content has always proved to be an interesting content marketing plan. One best way is used by the watch making giant, Rolex. While most of the businesses try to provide some information to the audience, Rolex recognised that they couldn’t do that as watchmaking or any skills related to it are difficult to master or even learn. Instead Rolex has taken advantage of their social media presence to attract customers. Boasting a follower base of over 10 million, Rolex uses high-quality, showy photographs of their watches to engage the audience as  they understand that wearing watches is all about making a statement and it’s all about aesthetics.

The importance of engaging with people is demonstrated by Caitlin Doughty who has an experience of eight years in the funeral industry. Death is one of the more difficult conversations to have, and marketing funeral homes is that much more challenging. Therefore, in 2011, Doughty founded the Order of the Good Death, which is a death acceptance collective. She has written quite a few books on accepting death and moving on. Her business, Undertaking LA, gained exposure because of this and the entire ordeal has proved to be a great example of great content marketing.

Taking advantage of trending topics in content marketing is crucial. Hootsuite did just that. While otherwise nothing extraordinary, Hootsuite took advantage of an ongoing trend. Just before the new season of the insanely popular show Game of Thrones came out, they created a video with their own rendition of the iconic opening titles with credits. The video garnered over a million views and 11,000 likes. Hootsuite was able to tap in to the show’s fame with visuals that would appeal to the show’s massive audience.

For anyone who’s even barely acquainted with the marketing or advertising world, Coke’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign may not be unfamiliar. Coke used the age-old but often forgotten form of content marketing: personalisation. Starting with Australia where they took the 150 most popular names and added them to the labels of the bottles. Since then, the campaign spread like wildfire. Coke wasn’t being technical; they didn’t track online behaviour or look at the metrics. They played on the most important thing a person holds close: their name.

While a corporate giant like Coke took to personalisation, McDonalds opted for another basic quality their customers would appreciate: honesty. They took on the challenge of answering their customers’ questions: more than 10,000 of customers’ questions were taken and people loved  the transparency.

From industry giants like Coca Cola to the relatively unknown but smart businesses, content marketing has proven to be of help to almost everyone, and it is no surprise that 78% of Chief Marketing Officers believe that content marketing is the future of online marketing.