Published Thursday January 31, 2013
Content Marketing is the key tactical communication trend for 2013. It's not new, but it's finally reached main street business, as we all continue to publish our expertise through many platforms media.
Content Marketing is creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat, long term buyers.
The type of content you create and share should mirror your values, what you want to be known for and yes, the services you sell. Content marketing does three important things to advance these goals.
- It helps you to educate people so that they come to know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.
- It builds your credibility in your field.
- It can inspire others to share and spread your information.
The relationship in business with your customer and community must come first. Content marketing is a very effective strategy to building and maintaining relationships with customers, community, friends and family.
According to the 2013 B2C Content Marketing Trend Report the top Content Marketing tactics being used are:
Social Media
There is NO ignoring this, doing it half heartedly or convincing yourself that it's not important. If you are a dedicated, business professional then using one or more form of social media - Face book, Twitter or LinkedIn is simply a must. Why? It brands you and your business as relevant players.
Aggregating Articles on Your Website
Making your website a hub that people frequent, enjoy and learn from will pay big dividends. Aggregating articles form key websites, bloggers or industry sources is a smart way to bring people to your site and keep them on longer.
Email Marketing Newsletters
Building a permission based, voluntary opt in email marketing list is one of the most effective tactics for building strong relationships that become loyal and responsive to your products, services and information you share freely with them.
Blogs
Blogs are one of the most effective tactics to build your credibility and authority in whatever field of expertise you want people to align your brand with. Writing articles or featuring other bloggers that educate and inform people is the best way to sell.
Two sites where you can learn a lot about content marketing tactics and strategy are the Content Marketing Institute and Brian Clark's Copyblogger.com.
AD Marketing takes a broad, blended and integrated approach to marketing your business with content marketing being a core part of their marketing strategy. Visit us and see what we are doing for our clients.