Creating Content is NOT Content Marketing Part 1

Let’s face it, every company is blogging, posting and authoring. But why?

Not long ago, SEO held the title as the “it” buzzword in marketing. Suddenly, the race to first place meant that established sites needed to be the best at slipping in those high-frequency search terms sprinkled throughout existing copy. When SEO exploded on the scene companies were packing the paragraphs with as many keywords as they could muster to secure preferred placement in search results – until one day when they weren’t.

The individual keyword-is-king concept was being eradicated by new search engine algorithms forcing marketers to re-examine their text. We ushered in a new age of smarter search, one that would analyze phrases, sentences and full paragraphs.

And with that said goodbye to the sole keyword and hello to “content marketing” – or so we thought.

Content marketing was poised to become the savior of organic SEO. Companies scrambled to write copy, produce articles and publish anything and everything with keywords that would potentially garner the attention of the search engines. The more you generated, the better chances you had of rising to the top of list– getting first crack at new clients and customers. And while this was true for about a second, it didn’t take long for search engines to create even more technology that would not only identify, but reprimand companies that tried to pull the wool over their eyes. Companies were spending exorbitant amounts of time and money that produced little revenue and even fewer search results.

Marketers, like the algorithms they were up against, needed to become smarter and more strategic with their content creation.

Effective Content Marketing
Content by definition is substance, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to effective marketing. With the rose-colored glasses now off, companies have started to analyze content being produced and strategize to make it more useful, not just for SEO, but for their own ROI.

Purposeful blogging, meaningful editorial and measurable collateral that offer factual data has replaced the corporate op-ed. And while the trusted principle of grow your content to grow your customers still rings true today, having a strategic content plan and editorial calendar in place makes this content practical and profitable in a way that it wasn’t before.

When implementing a content marketing plan you need to ask the following?

1. How can the content produced help a prospect or target market?

2. How is the content supporting the company’s mission and objectives?

3. Will the content be valuable to the current customer?

If you’re not offering beneficial information or a solution, then what you should be asking is why you are producing that content at all?

This new breed of content requires more creative structure as well. The use of compelling headlines, the power of positive messages, piggybacking on social trends, and parsing out information are techniques that effective content marketers use when developing original material.

Now that content marketing has evolved it has become an integral component of companies’ inbound campaigns. It’s no longer just for SEO, but rather a powerful sales tool used to generate and qualify leads, fortify retention efforts and increase brand loyalty.

Take a more holistic look at your marketing plan and how content marketing fits in. In our next blog we will discuss “Why Your Inbound Strategy Needs Content Marketing” and provide tips on producing material that will increase engagement and support the sales funnel.

Wondering if your Content Marketing is where it should be? Part of our assessments is to review content and the gaps that may exist, click below!