Content Marketing: where the bait is content

Oxford dictionary defines content marketing as a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

The main takeaway from the definition is that content marketers do not explicitly promote a brand but create content whose purpose is to stimulate interest in the company’s products or services.

In other words, the success of content marketing lies in second guessing the customer. That is why such marketing is also be defined as a type of inbound marketing where content is used as a bait to attract customers to a company’s products or services.

Content Marketing Institute describes this role beautifully when it states, “Instead of pitching products or services, content marketing provides relevant and useful content to your (read company’s) prospects and customers to help them solve issues in their work (B2B content) or personal lives (B2C content).”

This has a very positive resonance on the thinking of the customers. It builds trust and the customers start looking at the company as a valuable source of advice and guidance. This trust can give the company an edge over its rivals.

Content marketers work hard to ensure that their content ranks high in search engine rankings. If this happens the RoI on the content created by the company is very high. It is also possible that companies may use paid advertising to bring the customers to their content.

The content can be created as a word file, as an audio file, as an infographic or as a video. It can be created at two levels:

1. Basic content: These can be blog posts, videos, tweets, social media posts, etc. The goal of this content is to provide generic information.
2. Advanced content: This content is better researched, and is targeted at B2B customers. Examples of such content are e-books, white papers and information provided through webinars. Even B2C customers can find this content valuable.

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