What Is Content Marketing? [Simple Definition + Starter Guide]

What Is Content Marketing?

Content selling is the process of planning, creating, and sharing invaluable contented to pull and prosecute a circumstantial audience. To physique relationships that yet lend to concern results.

It focuses connected solving problems and answering questions. Not needfully straight selling products oregon services. 

Common types of contented include:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Podcast episodes
• Infographics
• Ebooks
• Newsletters
• Social media posts
• Webinars

The goal? 

To physique spot with your assemblage and found your expertise. So that erstwhile your assemblage needs a solution you offer, they'll beryllium much apt to crook to you first.

For example, look astatine however Dove uses contented marketing:

Their blog contains articles connected assemblage positivism and self-esteem. Their inspirational YouTube videos situation quality stereotypes. And their Instagram showcases real, unedited photos of women of each shapes and sizes. 

Each contented benignant serves a circumstantial purpose. But together, they make a level of empowerment and self-acceptance. 

This attack helps Dove physique a loyal assemblage and positions their marque arsenic much than conscionable a soap. 

Which means:

When idiosyncratic shops for idiosyncratic attraction products, they’re much apt to take Dove.

Key benefits of contented marketing include:

• Higher hunt motor rankings: Publishing and updating website contented that’s created with hunt engines successful caput tin assistance you look prominently successful hunt results
• Increased integrated traffic: Having your contented look prominently successful hunt results often leads to much website visits
• Enhanced lawsuit loyalty: Providing contented that your assemblage finds invaluable tin foster spot and loyalty
• Increased conversion rates: engaging contented tin person visitors into loyal customers

Further reading: Content Marketing Statistics You Need to Know

How Does Content Marketing Work?

Content selling works by reaching the close assemblage astatine the close time. Which is mostly astir targeting each signifier of the selling funnel—from consciousness to decision. 

Awareness 

At this stage, contented selling is each astir creating consciousness for your marque and your products oregon services. 

Your imaginable customers are conscionable realizing they person a problem. And your extremity is to drawback their attention.

You should make contented that provides high-level acquisition and has wide appeal. To pull arsenic galore applicable radical arsenic possible. 

Effective contented types for this signifier tin include:

• Blog posts
• Infographics
• Ebooks
• Social media posts

Example: The Squarespace blog helps businesses and entrepreneurs larn however to physique their ain websites.

And their blog brings successful astir 14.9K monthly visitors from integrated hunt alone. 

Image Data Source: Organic Research

Consideration 

In the information stage, you tin nurture leads and impulse them to see your business. Because your assemblage is actively researching solutions. 

Your champion stake is to make in-depth contented that’s persuasive and explains what makes you basal retired from the competition. 

Effective contented types astatine this stage:

• How-to guides
• Comparison articles
• Webinars

Example: Podia’s “alternatives” webpage with in-depth accusation astir however their merchandise compares to their closest competitors. 

Decision 

In this 3rd and last stage, leads are acceptable to buy. So, supply leads with contented that solidifies your worth to springiness them the last propulsion toward taking action. 

You privation to make contented that instills a consciousness of urgency, addresses immoderate objections, and makes it casual to instrumentality the adjacent step. 

Effective contented types:

• Success stories
• Product demos
• Customer testimonials

Example: Gong’s YouTube transmission highlights however existent teams and businesses person benefited from utilizing their tool.

How to Get Started with Content Marketing 

What does contented selling really involve?

Let’s spell implicit the main steps:

1. Define Your Goals & Audience

Before creating immoderate content, you request to cognize 2 things: your goals and your audience.

Your goals are the circumstantial outcomes you privation to execute with your contented marketing. 

For example, you mightiness privation to summation tract postulation by a definite percent oregon thrust a circumstantial fig of leads successful enactment of a larger institution goal. 

Your audience is the radical of radical you privation to scope with your content.

For example, you mightiness privation to people bloggers successful the nutrient manufacture oregon caller assemblage graduates seeking internships.

This measurement is critical.

And here’s why:

• Defining your goals and assemblage guides your full contented strategy
• A coagulated strategy helps make contented apt to resonate with your audience
• Impactful, applicable contented leads to amended ROI

You tin rapidly find your people assemblage by analyzing rival audiences with One2Target. 

Enter up to 5 competitors’ domains, and the instrumentality volition stitchery accusation astir their audiences’ demographics, socioeconomics, and behavior. 

Like this: 

Here are immoderate further steps you tin instrumentality to specify your goals and audience:

• Review your existent performance. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your opportunities and threats?
• Create your perfect customer personas. Who are they? What are their symptom points, needs, and desires? How tin you assistance them?
• Conduct a competitor analysis. Who are your main competitors? What are they doing good and poorly? How tin you differentiate yourself from them?
• Set the close types of goals. Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals marque it casual to spot whether you’re connected track. For example, a SMART extremity could be: “Increase integrated postulation by 50% successful the adjacent six months.”
• Choose cardinal show indicators (KPIs) that measurement progress. For example, communal KPIs for contented selling are sessions, bounce rate, mean engagement time, societal shares, email subscribers, etc.

Further reading:

• Target Audience: What It Is & How to Find Yours [+ Examples]
• 16 Marketing KPIs You Need to Monitor

2. Choose the Right Content Formats

You’ve defined your goals and audience. Now, you request to take the champion contented types for your contented selling efforts.

We discussed immoderate of these earlier, including:

• Blog posts
• Ebooks
• Videos
• Podcast episodes
• Webinars
• Case studies
• Social media posts

Don’t cognize wherever to start?

A large mode is to reverse-engineer your competitors’ contented strategies. See what’s moving for them and replicate it successful a amended way. 

Open Organic Research, participate immoderate competitor’s domain, and caput to the “Pages” tab. 

This is simply a database of your competitor’s pages, conveniently sorted by the estimated magnitude of integrated postulation they bring in. 

Click the icon adjacent to the URL to spot the existent page:

Browse done respective of their apical pages. And repetition this process for your main competitors. 

As you bash this, look for patterns.

For example:

• Do they usage tons of ocular assets?
• Is the contented mostly long-form oregon short-form?
• Are the URLs mostly landing pages, ebooks, lawsuit studies, oregon thing different?

Follow a akin process utilizing Social Tracker to spot what kinds of societal media contented your competitors post. And what resonates with their audiences the most.

Again, reappraisal the contented to look for patterns and inquire questions. Then, usage the answers to usher your contented choices.

Here are immoderate further tips for deciding which contented types to use:

• Align contented types with your goals. Different contented types person antithetic purposes and benefits. For example, blog posts are large for driving traffic, ebooks are large for generating leads, and videos are large for expanding engagement.
• Align contented types with assemblage segments. Some contented types entreaty to antithetic segments. For example, immoderate audiences similar ocular content, immoderate similar audio content, and immoderate similar interactive content.
• Experiment and optimize. You don’t request to instrumentality to 1 contented type. In fact, you shouldn’t. Mix and lucifer to spot what works best. Track KPIs and set accordingly.

Further reading: 17 Types of Content Marketing to Use for Success

3. Determine Your Content Topics

Start with keyword research to find contented ideas that are applicable to your brand, popular, and imaginable to fertile highly for. 

An effectual mode to bash this is to participate a taxable related to your marque into Topic Research. 

Then, click “Get contented ideas.” 

The instrumentality volition amusement related contented ideas sorted by “Topic Efficiency.”

These are topics with precocious hunt volumes (a precocious fig of mean monthly searches) and debased keyword trouble (a debased people that indicates you tin feasibly fertile for a fixed term). 

Click “Show more” connected immoderate paper to spot the hunt volume, trouble score, fashionable headlines, related questions, and related searches for that topic. 

Like this:

Use these ideas to make antithetic contented types astir fashionable topics. 

4. Create High-Quality Content

You’ve done the hard enactment progressive successful planning. 

Now, it’s clip to make immoderate high-quality content.

This tin disagree by platform. But astir high-quality website content is:

• Valuable to your audience
• Original and unique
• Well-researched and accurate
• Well-written and casual to read
• Well-designed and visually appealing
• Optimized for SEO and conversions

Once you’re acceptable to write, get assistance with the SEO Writing Assistant.

Start a caller papers by penning your contented straight successful the editor, copying and pasting it from different document, oregon importing it from a URL. 

Then, capable retired the remaining details and click “Get recommendations.”

The instrumentality volition analyse top-ranking pages and supply recommendations regarding readability, originality, code of voice, and SEO. 

Adjust your contented according to these recommendations. 

And arsenic you do, the instrumentality volition update its assessment. 

Here are a fewer options for creating different types of content:

• AI Social Content Generator to assistance you make and people societal content
• AI Video Marketing Automator to make videos utilizing AI
• Landing Page Builder to physique and motorboat landing pages astatine scale

Further reading: SEO Writing: 16 Tips for Creating SEO-Optimized Content

Great contented needs to beryllium seen to bash its job. Which is wherefore promotion is truthful important.

Effective contented promotion tin summation visibility and pull imaginable customers. 

Some contented promotion tactics (many of which are contented types themselves) include:

• Social media: Use your societal media platforms to stock stand-alone posts and beforehand contented connected your tract that you privation to thrust much radical to
• Paid advertising: Use Google Ads to rapidly get your contented successful beforehand of much people
• Email marketing: Send your subscribers caller contented and promote them to work and stock it
• Content syndication: Share your contented connected relevant, third-party sites to grow your reach
• Digital PR: Use tactics similar media outreach to get your contented featured successful different publications

Not each of these volition enactment for you. 

So, marque definite to prioritize the ones that align with your goals and your audience. And trial and iterate often. 

Further reading: The Ultimate Guide to Content Distribution (+ Examples)

5. Monitor and Analyze Your Results

Your last measurement is to show and analyse your results. So you tin spot however your contented is performing and whether it’s helping you execute your goals.

How?

Try pursuing these steps:

• Use analytics tools. These are tools that tin assistance you measurement and way your contented performance, specified arsenic Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Semrush.
• Use feedback tools. These are tools that tin assistance you cod and analyse feedback from your audience, specified arsenic SurveyMonkey, Hotjar, and UserTesting.
• Use reporting tools. These are tools that tin assistance you make and stock reports connected your contented results, specified arsenic Google Looker Studio, Tableau, oregon Power BI.
• Compare results with your goals. See however your contented is performing against your SMART goals. Identify what’s working, what’s not, test, and iterate.
• Make data-driven decisions. Based connected your results and analysis, determine what actions you request to instrumentality to amended your selling content. For example, you mightiness privation to make much oregon little content, alteration your contented types oregon channels, oregon optimize your contented for SEO oregon conversions.

Develop Your Content Marketing Skills

This usher gives you a coagulated start. But mastering contented selling requires continuous learning and the close tools. 

To physique an effectual strategy, you request to dive deeper into the nuances of contented creation, SEO, and assemblage engagement.

Semrush offers free resources to boost your contented selling skills. Pair these with a free account to enactment your caller cognition into action.