The Question, ‘**what is Content Marketing**‘ is one that 21st-century entrepreneurs (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/10-daily-habits-of-successful-entrepreneurs/), small business owners (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/product/sell-anything-make-money-instagram-ads/), and Career Professionals (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/online-colleges-worth-check-list-free-affordable-ones/) need to understand. It remains relevant in 2018, 2019 and beyond. Understanding Content Marketing strategy is important to grow your brand whether you are in paid employment trying to build your career or you are a start-up entrepreneur or small business owner.
This is a question that is being asked all over the internet in places like quora, nairaland, facebook, twitter, linkedin, reddit, etc. An understanding of it would go a long way in utilising it to boost your brand.
Before we proceed to answer the question: What is Content Marketing (http://theinspireddream.com.ng/), let’s understand the root words – **Content** (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/need-a-website-blog/) & **Marketing**.
**What is Content Marketing?**
This is the real deal (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/25-inspirational-motivational-quotes-dreams-can-share-friends-social-media/). Content Marketing is an important part of marketing. With an in-depth understanding of what content is, mixing the two together brings us home to how and why content marketing is important.
So many people have explained what content marketing is and how to maximize it to boost your brand. OptinMonster (https://optinmonster.com/content-marketing-examples/) says content marketing is all about using content to attract and retain visitors, and eventually turn them into customers. Kunocreative (https://www.kunocreative.com/content-marketing) is of the opinion that content marketing is a strategy that leverages content, tailored and distributed to a specific audience, to attract and convert better-qualified leads and keep customers engaged long-term.
According to postcron (https://postcron.com/en/blog/content-marketing/), **Content Marketing **aids the ***attraction of interested people towards your brand’s proposals***, and it also ***transmits your business’ identity and values ***while enabling you to secure a spot in these people’s daily lives through the use of Social Media (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/trending-amazing-artist-sparks-up-social-media-with-pencil-art/).
Content Marketing is a part of Online or Digital Marketing where digital tools are used to market over the internet. Content Marketing cuts across the various channels of online or digital marketing (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/6-free-online-marketing-tools-every-blogger-social-media-marketer/). Digital Marketing simply has to do with the use of online tools (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/6-free-online-marketing-tools-every-blogger-social-media-marketer/) to reach your desired audience. This includes email marketing, social media marketing, google adwords, Whatsapp marketing, etc.
According to Investopedia (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketing.asp), as of 2015, approximately 70 percent of U.S. adults shop online at least monthly, and 33 percent shop online every week. Experts expect online sales in the United States to increase from $445 billion in 2017 to over $600 billion in 2020 and over $1 trillion by 2027. This tells us that online marketing is big and getting bigger by the day.
**What is Content Marketing Strategy?**
When it comes to marketing, to achieve success, there has to be an effective (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/10-ways-to-communicate-with-your-teams/)**strategy** (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/10-ways-to-communicate-with-your-teams/) (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/10-ways-to-communicate-with-your-teams/)employed. An effective strategy is what differentiates the results of successful people from failures. Value is a very important aspect of great content, so in formulating an effective content marketing strategy, you need to ensure that you use relevant and valuable content to attract the readers.
In formulating an effective content marketing strategy (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/10-daily-habits-of-successful-entrepreneurs/), you need to be consistent and understand keyword research. if you use keywords that people are searching for in your niche, when they search, they will find it. Your job is to consistently write on what people need and help them, in so doing you would also achieve your own goals.
Among other things, Content Marketing does 2 things:
1. Help your organization stand out as a credible, reliable and trustworthy provider
2. Attract a steady flow of qualified leads, and nurture them through the buyer’s journey
**What is Content Marketing and SEO**
Since the evolution of content marketing to what it is today, it has added Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as a major component. Most people distribute their content through social media, but SEO is equally as important.
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/3-reasons-list-business-website-blog-online-directory/) as it is generally called is a sure way to get your content ranking on Google’s Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).
SEO is very important because it helps you get found by those that are looking for you through the keywords they search on google. Also, if you set up your content for search well, they’ll enjoy free traffic to your site.
Read more here (https://theinspireddream.com.ng/what-is-content-marketing-strategy/)