What is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is one of the latest buzz phrases being associated with Internet Marketing.  It describes marketing methods that use information, education and entertainment to make the sales process easier.  It is not a new concept though.  Many marketing efforts use these methods; Trade-show presentations, advertorials that are advertisements written as an editorial, and my favorite sales pitch from 1976 - Jim Henson's video to pitch the Muppet Show to the top brass at CBS.

This video definitely informed the managers at CBS what the Muppet Show was all about, especially as the the idea of putting a puppet show on prime time was incredibly risky, and it is entertaining.  While you do not need to be as creative, you can offer content that demonstrates your product, solves a potential problem or addresses an unknown need, without the "pushy" sales effort.

How to do Content Marketing?

Content Marketing refers to building information and freely sharing it with your audience to build a relationship of trust.  By offering content to them for free, you are qualifying your prospects, as only those that have an interest in your content, and thereby your product or service, will  opt-in to receive additional content via e-mail or other vehicles.  By offering this content for free, you are providing value that helps convert prospects into customers and promotes customers into frequent buyers.  Additionally the frequent and repeated exposure that the prospect has to you through the content marketing builds a relationship that provides multiple conversion attempts, rather than the "one and done" sales approach.  A successful Content Marketing program starts with a Content Marketing Plan

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