There are numerous reasons why companies apply content marketing solutions. Basically, these reasons are the same as in the case of any other marketing practice.
It does not come as a surprise that practically every company aims at winning customers (or maintaining the existing ones) and, as a result, at increasing the sales of its products and services. All actions within marketing are focused on this very objective. Content marketing is no exception.
However, if we assume that generating income is the objective, we will easily come to the conclusion that this objective is too obvious and too general. In particular in the context of the budget of the marketing actions, you must be perfectly aware of what the money is spent on and what effect you can expect. Precisely defined objectives will come in handy.
The major objectives of the marketers who decide to launch content marketing are as follows:
» Increasing brand awareness
» Lead generation
» Converting leads into customers
» Building the image as the industry leader
» Customer engagement
» Customer retention
» Website traffic
» Sales
Depending on the approach, the objectives can be defined more or less precisely. Some marketers agree that generating leads and converting them into customers are completely different actions. However there is a lot of truth in the opinions of those who simply reduce the objectives to three categories:
» Higher sales
» Customer loyalty
» Brand recognition
This list (whether in the short or full version) seems familiar, doesn’t it? After all, everybody wants to sell a lot and be recognized within the industry. Here the key question arises – if the objectives are the same as the ones of the traditional marketing, then why content marketing?
No need to look for the answer. Traditional methods do not always correspond to the real needs of the businesses. If you carried out a survey checking which of the above marketing objectives are not important for the company, you would learn that, regardless of the industry, company and market size or the turnover, everybody wants to sell and be recognized.
This is what we know. We also know that if several companies try to win the customer, this is quite a challenge.
Bombarding customers with advertising content is becoming less and less effective. The human brain becomes resilient not only to the number of outdoor messages, but also the more or less classic forms of display. There are more and more advertisements, but the number of them noticed by us is dropping.
As customers, we also rebel against spamming (as we see it) in spaces, whether public (a lot of cities introduce restrictions on outdoor advertising, especially in the tourist-attractive district) or private (filters blocking the ads in the internet browsers is a standard) with such messages.
Yet after all, the marketer wants the best for us. They just want to let us know about a new chance which we could otherwise miss. Like a hundred other marketers in a hundred other industries.
In consequence, the classic marketing often turns out to be ineffective, or at least insufficient. In principle, it focuses on the direct message put in front of the customer, which stands in their way.
It aims at stopping them in their tracks even for a moment and forcing them to react to the offer. While reading e-mails from our colleagues, we need to filter the promotions, and while visiting our favourite websites, we must look for the content among the aggressive banners. Can it work properly?
Inbound Marketing
An alternative – it is based on the assumption that the customers will come to us themselves and get interested in what we offer, if we provide them with an interesting content. Instead of irritating them and often misleading by manipulation with the ad, we make them find us themselves.
And it works best if we are able to offer them the access to what they are currently interested in and what they need.
It is difficult not to deem this approach ambitious, as effective implementation of content marketing is truly an art. However, the market enforces such actions and for some time they have already been a standard for many companies.
