Content marketing - definition, relevance and successful strategies

Content marketing has many aspects and is steadily gaining in importance.Companies and marketers talk about information overload, ask themselves whether advertising is even noticed. After all, behavioral scientist Werner Kroeber-Riel and advertising researcher Hans-Rudolf Esch say that advertising must reach the heart and brain of customers to be effective, but only a fraction of the advertising message is perceived. How has the market changed and what is causing the fragmented media landscape? How do consumers inform themselves today?justified questions. A great deal has changed, and we are facing a major transformation. And an important step is going in the direction of content marketing: Consumers need added value, entertainment and relevant content in order to make purchasing decisions. And companies are automatically asked to deliver this content. Advertising takes on a new significance. What is content marketing anyway and why is it so relevant today?Advertising is perceived as annoyingIn recent years, most industries have changed from sellers' to buyers' markets. Companies have to hold their own against the competition and differentiate their services and products from the variety of offers. The consumer is being dealt with more and more intensively, but feels more and more pressured and reacts indifferently and reactively. Only a fraction of the countless advertising messages are consciously perceived. On the contrary, advertising is perceived as annoying. For good reason, the expressions "banner blindness" and "adblocker" exist. Behavioral researchers Werner Kroeber-Riel and Andrea Gröppel-Klein explain that humans develop strategies to cope with the large amount of information that thunders at them every day. This is associated with the deselection of stimuli, as a natural process to protect oneself from stimulus overload.Hard-fought attention"We're living a revolution!" write Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah (literature: "Inbound Marketing: Attract, engage and attract customers online"). This refers to a revolution in the way consumers find products and companies to engage with. In the past, people were more receptive to direct sales and advertising campaigns because they had no other option to find out about them. Today, the Internet is undoubtedly the first source of information and, just importantly, the consumer wants to decide for himself how and when he wants to consume what information. Flexibility is desired, as well as more sophisticated and intelligent content (cf. Publisuisse study "Media of the Future 2020"). Search, information and decision behavior has undoubtedly changed. This makes content marketing relevant, because attempts are being made to gain the hard-fought attention of the clientele via valuable and helpful content.One important aspect is Google, which dictates the relevance of good-quality content. A company's Google ranking can improve tremendously with quality content and quality website (SEO). And the website is the heart of most industries, which reflect the personality of a company. The following saying comes to mind: "You never get a second chance of a first impression". And in connection with content the famous motto of Bill Gates: "Content is king - and the website is his kingdom!Definition of content marketingThese reasons move the market and companies to deal with content from their thematic world. How is content marketing defined in the first place and which tools and topics are related to it? Content marketing is not new. The trick nowadays is to use it correctly. The term content marketing is not subject to a truly valid definition. Everyone defines it similarly, but the most cited definition is Joe Pulizzi's:"Content marketing is the creation and distribution of relevant, useful content with the intent of attracting, engaging, and inspiring action from a clearly defined target audience - building profitable customer relationships"(Source: translated: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/).Content marketing and inbound marketingThis is where the term inbound marketing comes into play. Inbound marketing originated in connection with telemarketing. Originally, it was about processing numerous customer responses by phone in a short period of time regarding competitors, references in advertisements, etc. With the advent of new technologies, the Internet and social media, the term acquired a new meaning and is used in connection with online marketing. In the literature, the term is referred to as an efficient method of working with active clientele to promote dialogue. Correctly applied inbound marketing, as opposed to outbound marketing, supports customer acquisition by leaving the initiation of the relationship to the customers themselves in a cost-effective way. Whether content marketing is part of inbound marketing or vice versa is a matter of debate. Inbound experts at Hubspot call content marketing a sub-discipline of inbound marketing, but inbound without content doesn't work at all.The term social media, mentioned in the previous paragraph, is often equated with content marketing. The difference is that content in social media is prepared accordingly so that it fits the context of the social platform. Thus, social media is a part of content marketing.Content marketing in B2BThere is a clear trend towards content marketing in B2B, which is not yet fully developed but will play an increasingly important role in future B2B marketing strategies. In B2B, a professionally managed and well thought-out content marketing represents an enormous potential. Content adapted to the target group, which solves their problems, provides assistance in decision-making and satisfies needs. B2B decision-makers have a wide range of interests and are often technically savvy buyers of business products. These demanding and often critical consumers must be guaranteed a high level of expertise regarding all interactions. And how does a company that offers exactly this kind of product manage to do that? By communicating their expertise in terms of content and, in the best case scenario, developing thought leader status through the content they publish. But this requires a clear positioning of the company, a well thought-out strategy, and a large portion of diligence and perseverance.Competent contact persons in demandI work in a successful media agency and recognize that media agencies are facing major challenges due to the strong fragmentation of the media, the countless possibilities and the rapidly growing offer, the long tail, especially in digital media. Customers urgently need competent contacts who can accompany them through the jungle of online media and work out the right solution for them. For traditional media agencies, the journey is moving away from traditional media buying to becoming a strategic partner. Larger media agencies, but above all smaller specialized online marketing agencies, which are given the chance to position themselves in the market and to be noticed with the digital development, possess an enormous knowledge of the online world, which is based on experience. The task now is to cleverly spread this enormous potential of knowledge on the internet in order to show the competences. Excellent and value-added content from a company in all forms helps customers see that the craft is understood. Now, of course, this applies not only to media agencies, but to virtually all business sectors, which can certainly develop numerous contents from their thematic world to entertain their clientele and convey their valuable knowledge to them.ConclusionIn summary, it can be said that it is imperative for companies to deal with changing consumer and information behavior and changing framework conditions before they address the content marketing strategy for their company. Another prerequisite is a clear positioning of the company, from which the relevant topic world crystallizes. And as Namics likes to emphasize: "Less is more, quality over quantity!"