What is content strategy and how does content marketing work?
I’m no stranger to having a job too complex to explain. My wife joked for many years that my tech jobs were so esoteric and abstract, she just didn’t even bother trying to understand. But after 20 years of working in software and technology roles, I’ve made a dramatic change to an entirely different career.
Now I’m a “content creator.” I assumed content creation would be much easier to explain.
I was wrong.
When I tell people I “write content for other companies,” I hear two common responses and one surprising response. The common responses are, “What kind of content?” and “I need your help!” The surprising response is one that takes me aback every time: “What is content? I keep hearing people talk about it, but I don’t know what it is.”
The responses are fairly evenly distributed, too. About one-third of people I meet are the ones who ask what content actually is. So, let’s talk about what content is and how anyone benefits from it.
What is content?
“Content” is a general term for information made available in an electronic medium — though I think the term has been so genericized it can include physical items like books and posters. When I use the word “content,” I’m typically referring to:
Blog posts
Newsletters
White papers
Case studies
Website copy
Thought leadership articles
Videos
Podcasts
Social media posts and profiles
Website copy (the words on your website)
Like I said, “content” is a general term. Any and all of the above can be used to help raise awareness of a person, brand, company, project, organization, or movement. If you’re a business owner and you wash windows, then everything you put online regarding your business and window washing is “content” that search engines, content algorithms (e.g. social media feeds), and humans use.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a way of using these types of content to attract, retain, and engage an audience, according to Mailchimp. That’s a solid definition that I’ll supplement with this bit of wisdom from marketing great Dave Trott:
"Marketing isn't advertising. Marketing is about selling. Advertising is the voice of marketing. [...] Marketing's job is to get it right. Advertising's job is to get it heard.”
It might sound like content marketing and digital advertising are the same thing, but they’re not. Digital advertising is explicitly putting a product or service in front of a viewer’s eyeballs. Content marketing is more about educating, informing, or entertaining a viewer in a way that’s relevant to both their interests and your goals as the content provider.
For example, when I was looking to buy a new dishwasher last year, I watched every video on YouTube comparing dishwasher performance between different brands and across different models in various price ranges. (My wife loves our dishwasher so much, she wrote an article on Apartment Therapy about it!) I did the same when I was looking for a new $100 vacuum. And again when I was shopping for a new three-row SUV a few years ago. And yet again when I was comparing tools I needed for my kitchen remodel.
Here’s a picture of me destroying my kitchen.
Before purchasing anything, I ate up every piece of content available to inform, educate, and entertain myself. The various people and companies providing this type of content earned them subscriptions from yours truly and millions of other consumers. I even bought products these brands promoted through affiliate marketing links so they could make a little money for their helpful content creation work.
What is a content marketing strategy?
A content marketing strategy incrementally builds a library of pieces of content targeted at various personas and channels. These strategies can have different goals: brand awareness (top of the funnel), sales/conversion (bottom of the funnel), retention and interest (middle of the funnel), engagement, etc.
The strategy is separate from the implementation. The implementation may include YouTube videos, Facebook posts, Google AdWords, or social media marketing campaigns across various channels executed with marketing automation tools. Each marketing channel will have its own set of tactics that help the content successfully execute the goals of the marketing strategy.
As it goes with anything that will build a company, it requires discipline. We recommend using a content calendar, planning content in advance, and deploying it strategically so the content succeeds and doesn’t just sit there with no ROI.
Should you pay for content marketing and is content marketing worth it?
Content marketing is one of those things that “anyone can do,” but is a real pain in the butt. (Check out my article on why social media is so difficult.) Some people are naturals who know exactly what to post at the right frequency and on the right channels. That, however, is an anomaly.
In my experience, most business owners hate doing content marketing. It takes a lot of time, requires a lot of creativity, uses a lot of expensive tools (each with their own finicky success techniques), and takes a long time to return on the investment. Sure, you can find some dude on any social media platform who says, “I built a large following in the past 60 days,” but most small businesses are trying to keep their businesses online, their customers happy, and their employees engaged.
If you ask me — and I’m clearly biased because I run a content marketing company — it is absolutely worth it to pay for content marketing. We created content for one client that was acquired a few months later. We were told that our thought leadership articles had impressed the acquiring company leading up to the purchase.
Some people are already trying to do content marketing and it’s going nowhere for them. It’s hard and expensive. You’re not going to get away with much if you only spend a few hundred dollars a month, unless you put in a lot of sweat equity.
Why is content marketing so popular?
If you follow marketing topics on Twitter, every week you’ll come across some doofus telling you how easy it is to do content marketing. They’re also trying to sell you an online course about affiliate marketing or content marketing. What’s up with that?
Covid was a real turning point for content marketing. When in-person sales meetings were no longer an option, buyers were forced to rely on video calls (yuck) or online content to make purchasing decisions. With a billion people sitting on their couches using mobile devices during lockdowns and remote work, the need for a functional content marketing strategy became apparent.
Suddenly, brands who’d never invested in social media found themselves practically non-existent to customers. Salespeople were floundering. “I need documentation I can send to the customer! Why don’t we have anything on our website?” It was rough out there for several months and many companies had to close shop as a result due to lack of sales and revenue.
Here's an image of brands trying to play catch-up in the social media game:
In the meantime, tons of people lost their jobs and some opportunistic people found a way to make money online. They didn’t need a degree and their cell phones gave them all the functionality they needed to write clickbait posts and get people in on that sweet gig economy cash. “Become a freelance web developer,” “Learn copywriting and solve all your income problems forever,” and more. (We cover these types of posts on our podcast, Stupid Marketing Tweets.)
The thing is, tons of people can do content marketing, but that doesn’t mean they’re good at it. That’s why we wrote an article on how to best work with a content marketing agency.
How do I get started with content marketing?
As you can probably tell, content marketing is a discipline unto itself. It’s difficult, requires knowledge of various marketing channels (social media networks, email marketing, thought leadership articles, videos, podcasts, etc.), and can be time-consuming. We’ve seen lots of companies get started, but they either stumble right away or their efforts last for a few weeks and then fizzle out.
If you’re interested in content or content marketing, we’re more than happy to give you some advice, take a look at your current online presence, and tell you what we would do if we were you. There’s no obligation and we enjoy talking about this stuff. Just reach out to us and tell us you need some help!
