One of the biggest marketing trends this year is content marketing; future predictions from marketing pundits place content marketing on the trend watch list for 2013 as well. I don’t think it’s as much of a trend as it is one of many examples of the paradigm shift in the way we market. A shift that parallels the way consumers are searching, finding and choosing to buy products and engaging with brands.
Content marketing (also called pull marketing, liquid content, inbound marketing) is really about getting your brand’s message out to your marketplace via social media, blogs, video, newsletters, ebooks, webinars, photo sharing, case studies, etc. Your content strategy includes all of the tools that you might need to build your tribe of followers and your community of brand evangelists.
“Every company needs to be their own media company.” – Tom Feremski
The continuous development of new tools for digitally sharing information has contributed to the shift in the way consumers purchase. Consumers have more access to information about brands; they have a voice and a platform for using it. They are having conversations and engaging like never before. This is forcing brands to be more accountable; a brand’s authenticity and integrity are questioned, transparency is demanded, and consumers expect a high level of service.
This doesn’t seem like such an outrageous demand. In fact, it sounds a lot like what I would expect from the personal and professional relationships in my life – accountability, integrity, authenticity…
So whether we call it content marketing, inbound marketing, liquid content, or pull marketing it’s really about creating exceptional content to share with your community, creating conversations and building relationships, providing solutions to problems, and delivering with extraordinary service and care.
People buy from people, after all.
Learn more. Watch this video on Modern Marketing: Turn Your Company into a Magnet
Content marketing = creating conversations and building relationships with your tribe.