What is Content Marketing? Definition, Functions and Benefits – infomediaku.net
Carrying out the right marketing campaign or marketing strategy is the dream of all business people. Without an effective marketing strategy, there is little chance that small businesses will find the right customers and create a long-term business.
The development of the times that are all completely digital using technology. One method of a marketing campaign that is effective and worth trying for small businesses is to use content marketing.
For business people who are still starting from scratch, of course, this marketing strategy program is a little difficult to implement, in contrast to businesses that have grown large.
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The obstacles experienced by small business operators are being forced to stick to strategies with limited capabilities due to lack of funds and poorly trained marketing staff. Another difficulty is that they lack the experience and knowledge needed to strategize and implement their marketing campaigns.
With the many obstacles faced by business people who are still pioneering, there are experiences that make it develop at a later date. The solution to this problem is to implement a marketing strategy, namely content marketing.
Another advantage of content marketing is that it is cost-effective and has a considerable chance of being successful. For those of you who don’t know about content marketing, you should study it in depth so it’s easy to apply. The following will describe matters relating to content marketing.
What is Content Marketing?
In general, the meaning of content marketing is the marketing process of business activities to create and distribute relevant content to attract, acquire, and engage target consumers.
Another definition is a marketing strategy where you plan, create, and distribute content that is able to attract targeted customers, then encourage them to become customers.
Reporting from Forbes, content marketing is a marketing strategy in creating and distributing content that is valuable, relevant, and consistent to attract the attention of targeted customers.
According to Neil Patel, content marketing also aims to build strong relationships with customers over the long term. Therefore, the content that is made must be relevant in order to create a feeling of need from customers who ultimately have an emotional closeness to the content created.
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Benefits of Content Marketing
Surely there are many benefits from implementing this content marketing strategy. Being able to attract more consumers through social media is one of the benefits you get from content marketing.
This marketing strategy is very suitable for use by small businesses to attract more consumers. With an attractive content marketing concept, it will be a special attraction. Here are the benefits of using content marketing:
1. Building Brand Awareness
One of the main keys to the success of this strategy is to be consistent in terms of publishing new and unique content on your site and promoting it on social media, you are creating more opportunities for new customers to become your consumers.
If you make them feel good, they will probably help spread the word about your small business to their friends, and that will help you reach more people.
2. Increase Visitor Traffic
The purpose of increasing traffic here is your website visitor traffic and your sales traffic. When your potential customer has a particular problem or need, they will look for a solution.
Has a solution, whether it be information, helpful guides, or even entertainment, which means customers will visit your site. Consumers love it when content suits their particular interests or needs.
In fact, that’s why custom content is liked by up to 68% of consumers. By creating custom content for your site specifically tailored to the needs and interests of your target audience, you will build their trust and solve their problems.
3. Increase in Sales.
The more people who have visited your site and viewed your content, the more likely they are to convert into leads and eventually become consumers.
Even for small businesses, consumers rely on blogs and website content when they make purchase decisions, people want to know as much as they can before they buy.
Coupled with creating content that is relevant to your company’s products or services. It will help them understand what they will get in doing business with you.
4. Increase Engagement
The creation of compelling content will likely respond well to customers and it will open doors for you to engage with them directly. This gives you the opportunity to please your readers even more, either by continuing to entertain them or answering specific questions they raise.
Beyond customers, you should also engage with other industry leaders to discuss the topics you write about. Because this broadens your network and helps you build stronger relationships with other leaders, allowing you to establish yourself as an authority in the industry.
Content Marketing Functions Should Know
Besides having many benefits of implementing content marketing. There are also functions that you need to know to increase your knowledge of content marketing. One of its functions is to successfully build and maintain a brand identity associated with your customers.
Here is the function of content marketing:
- Competitively superior to small business competitors who do not use content marketing.
- Establish long-term and trusted relationships with your customers and business partners.
- Consistently generates more web and social media traffic used by your business.
- Turning more small business website and social media visitors into leads and leading to increased sales.
- Higher media visibility and better return on investment.
How to Start to Create Content Marketing?
1. Abilities
Before creating content marketing you must have the skills needed, such as storytelling, communication, writing, and others. If you feel you already have these skills, it is certainly easy to make them.
To lighten and help you create it, you can also form a team that can complement each other or has different skills.
2. Write
The form of content created in content marketing is writing. Whether it’s articles, copywriting, status on social media, or video script. You must be adaptable to write in a variety of styles to suit your target audience.
For writing practice, you have to read a lot from various sources and see which style is right for your product. Writing practice without reading various other sources will make your skills stop there.
Get as much inspiration as you can so that you can always be full of ideas and works.
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3. Developing a Story
Creating a podcast or video is one form of content that you can try in content marketing. So, to invite your audience to always watch videos or listen to podcasts takes skillful story telling.
If you have skills and talents in this area or want to hone them, take public speaking or radio classes. You also have to listen to a lot of radio, watch videos, or listen to other podcasts to know how to entertain your audience without the visuals.
4. Communication
Communication skills are essential for any job. However, you must be able to hone communication skills both orally and in writing (verbal and nonverbal).
This is because in this job, you will be dealing with many people. The content that is made must be able to touch many people.
Not only about content and audience, but you will also work in a team so that good communication must be maintained so that there are no misunderstandings.
Conclusion
Content marketing is indeed very suitable to be applied to businesses that are still small and even large ones.
The best marketing today is using social media because everyone is using it now. Make the content as creative as you are and try to have its own uniqueness compared to other content.
If by running good content marketing your business can grow, meaning that you are on the right track. Try to come up with new ideas so that your audience doesn’t get bored with your content.
Working with a team is also an effective way to increase your productivity. Brainstorming each other results in great content.