Why content marketing is important for your organisation

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is all about creating, publishing and distributing content. The goal is clear: you want to attract your target audience to your brand or organisation. When you hear the word 'content', you probably immediately think of blogs, social media posts or videos, but it is broader than that. Magazines, commercials, webinars, podcasts and even e-mails fall under content. In short, content marketing is: any relevant information you share with your potential or current customers to ultimately generate more profit.

Why is content marketing important?

Every day, a wave of information comes over us. It is impossible to read everything. Consumers themselves search for messages they find relevant. Therefore, as an organisation, you need to look at communication and marketing with a different lens. Consumers today are looking for brands that tell a story, not brands that want to pull them in with a quick sales pitch. You want to tell an authentic story that gives readers relevant information and entertains them. In doing so, you increase your brand awareness.

Van push- naar pull- strategie

Traditional advertising feels pushy and no longer works. With content marketing, you move from a push to a pull strategy: customers come to your organisation themselves instead of you approaching them with your product or service. Take Albert Heijn's Allerhande as an example: consumers look up recipes on Google and end up on Albert Heijn's website that way.

Search Engine Optimisation

So content also increases traffic on your website, making you more findable online: also known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you become more findable by a search engine like Google, you will appear higher and higher in the search results. Getting higher in the rankings may sound very labour- and cost-intensive, but it is not. With a few tips and through SEO link building, your content will become more findable.

The media mix

It does not all have to be expensive, because with the advent of the internet and social media, you as an organisation can use owned media (your own website or social media channel) or earned media (free media attention you generate through, for example, customer reviews or PR) in addition to paid media.

What is a content marketing strategy?

While content marketing is about creating, publishing and distributing content, when you draw up a content marketing strategy, you go step by step and in a targeted way to determine how you will approach creation, publication and distribution.

We can divide the strategy into four steps:

1. You formulate your own business case: why content marketing? Why do you want to get started with it? What can you gain and what can you lose? Who is involved in the process and in what role? Etc.
2. Your mission includes the purpose of your brand. What you want to achieve should also be reflected in your strategy. What action should your consumer take and what tone of voice do you use?
3. Not only do you want to know what your consumer does or how best to engage your target audience, you also want to know on what channels you can find them. You have Instagram, Facebook and nowadays also TikTok, but you cannot forget niche media such as the trade magazine Vtwonen or the sports channel Eurosport
4. Last but not least: the customer journey. Ultimately, you want to sell your product to your target audience, but that involves a buying process. How can you create awareness? When does the consumer consider buying your product or when does the consumer drop out? And how can you capitalise on this with your content?

Outsource your content marketing?

Are you going to do it yourself or would you rather outsource content marketing? That is the next logical question. It is a matter of long term. This requires a solid foundation: the content marketing strategy. Does this seem like a hell of a task? Don't panic! We can guide you through it. So do you have any questions? Feel free to contact us!