If this was a typical content marketing article it would be titled something like "17 Top Content Marketing Secrets For Guaranteed Overnight Success Online", but the truth is there's no secret recipe for success online—just writing and lots of it.

Lately it seems the whole internet is a buzz about content marketing, and rightly so, because as a marketing practice it's proven itself to be extremely effective. To make our point we could scrape the internet and come up with a list of 10 Content Marketing Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind! but we prefer to cut the buzzwords and jargon and keep it simple.

So what is content marketing and what can it do for you?

Content marketing is simply a new term for the very old practice of writing original content and publishing it under a brand to be consumed by an audience. Large companies have been doing it for centuries in the form of sponsored articles in print newspapers and magazines.

Johnson & Johnson are credited as the first content marketers. Back in 1888 while selling bandages to doctors: "the company published Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, a text used by physicians for many years."
— Johnson & Johnson History

With the introduction and cost effectiveness of digital publishing the practice has taken-off online. Now anyone with an audience or customer base, big or small, can get started producing and sharing content.

In the early days of the web, marketers concentrated their attention on online advertising using animated banner and block ads; plastering them everywhere. The thinking was that even if people quickly learned to block them out, the logo impressions would somehow seep into the minds of viewers and at the very least would help increase brand awareness. Plus, who knows, 1 in 500 people might even click on them!

Click-through rates for banner ads have fallen over time. When banner ads first started to appear, it was not uncommon to have rates above five percent. They have fallen since then, currently averaging closer to 0.2 or 0.3 percent.
— Wikipedia

So with banner ad performance plummeting, marketers started considering new and better ways to engage audiences and the answer was simple; content. 

People don't go online to engage with ads, they're searching for and consuming compelling content that is relevant to them. Content is why people check their favourite blogs, websites and news portals regularly, and it's this content that they're sharing on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Content is why people go online and with new generation mobile devices we're never really offline.

“Content is King. Promotion is Queen”
— Bob Mayer

So to stay relevant and continue to engage our current and future customers/clients/shareholders an increasingly effective strategy is to create and publish content aligned with their interests. The more original, interesting and/or educational, the more likely they are to keep seeking it out and sharing with others. That's the essence of content marketing—current, relevant, engaging content with the potential to be highly social.*

We shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that content marketing is the the be-all and end-all of marketing efforts. The best marketing strategies are created by experts in the field and consist of a variety of complementary campaign types, including traditional media and print, as well as more contemporary digital advertising, such as pay-per-click ads. But as part of the media mix, content marketing is an increasingly relevant and effective form of promotion, and is becoming a larger percentage of marketing spend for many. Key advantages of content marketing are:

• When done well it doesn't feel like marketing, so is more likely to be trusted (and shared!)
  
• With the right tools, content creation and responsibility can often be done internally, providing cost effective and powerful promotion. 
  

How Hail can get you started and set your content marketing alight

Content marketing is all about creating value outside of the stuff that you sell and requires the creation of a steady stream of material to become recognized as an expert in a particular field. 

Expertise quickly builds trust and repeat visits. The challenges depend on the type of organization and target market to be engaged.

If you're an individual or part of a team creating and publishing content within a school it's not going to be difficult to be the main content source for students and parents/caregivers to keep up to date with the school's latest news and activities. The same could be said for a company or non-profit publishing to a group of shareholders or subscribers.

These captive audiences have few other expert sources outside of the organization that can compete for the target market's attention, all you really need are great tools that enable the team to create and collaborate on content. That's where Hail comes in, Hail packages up your content into beautiful standalone or multiple-article publications, so you don't need in-house design or web expertise to get your messages out. (Just because they're captive doesn't mean they don't deserve up-to-date, compelling content in flexible formats for reading on any device).

The constant stream of content builds trust, which builds loyal customers who are engaged and may even evangelize your brand...

Things are a little harder for businesses entering broader markets with many competitors. 

For example, a husband and wife team opening a small gluten-free store and ecommerce shop in a medium sized city. They are likely be competing with other local businesses and supermarkets, as well as numerous online shops. Their audience is anything but captive, but by writing and publishing original, relevant content they will start to build an audience that associate them as the gluten-free experts. Publishing content (such as gluten-free recipes and news) helps potential customers find them online, encourages sign-ups to their social media channels and ultimately converts to sales. 

Creating a constant stream of quality content builds trust and loyal customers who are engaged and may even evangelise your brand through social media sharing. This phenomenon is the exact reason why more and more sites and online stores are becoming editorially driven.

The beauty of content marketing over other forms of advertising is that it empowers teams and individuals to create real, meaningful connections with their audience, which can have a much larger return on investment. When compared to traditional interruption marketing, such as print, TV, mail and banner ads; creating quality content builds brand loyalty, engages audiences and ultimately converts to new and repeat custom. 

*When a content marketing campaign really takes off it's called viral, because it spreads and multiplies in a completely unpredictable and social nature.

The Hail team are passionate believers in the power of great content, which is why we brought together all the tools to create, collaborate and publish amazing content in one user-friendly app. If you'd like to join us on the content revolution sign up for a 30 day free trial and get started producing your very own content marketing today.