Why Businesses Need Content Marketing

Marketing is not what is used to be. Your customers can fast-forward past the commercials using their Tivos. Newspapers don’t use the ad revenue model anymore because the Internet killed it. Commercial-free web and satellite radio are replacing the old channels.

Your customers are skipping past what you have to say, not so much because they aren’t interested in it (if they’re your loyal or potential customers, they very well might be) but because they’re jumping ahead to the content they know in advance that they want—the next episode of their favorite TV show, breaking news in their hometown or music on their customized radio stations.

So how do you get their attention? By producing content yourself that they want.

There is a time and place for direct marketing, but your owned media—your company web site, newsletter and social media channels—provide the best platform for indirect  marketing that isn’t pushy and doesn’t read like it was written by salespeople. This is your chance to engage your current and prospective customers in a casual way when their guard is down so you can earn their trust and loyalty.

You don’t have to rent the media space, but if you want to engage, build and sustain an audience you’ll need to move beyond advertising. Think of your owned media like a company magazine.

Intel went all in and created IQ by Intel. It’s not “like” a company magazine. It’s an actual technology magazine published by their marketing department and edited and written by journalists. And it’s not all about Intel. It’s about technology in general. Intel is only a piece of it. In 2014, the site attracted almost six million unique visitors.

All magazines have ads, so go ahead and include them, but a print “magazine” consisting of nothing else will get round-filed along with the rest of the junk mail, and an online equivalent will just be ignored. An effective SEO strategy will get you plenty of hits from Google and Bing, but if the page readers land on isn’t engaging, they’ll click the “back” button in seconds.

Producing rich content, however, can help you attract new customers and turn casual customers into loyal customers. It can and should be related to your business, but the purpose is to educate and perhaps entertain people so they can get to know you, trust you, and make better informed business decisions.

If you produce relevant and engaging content, readers will want more of it. They’ll subscribe to your newsletter and won’t flag your emails as spam. They’ll follow you on Facebook and Twitter and look forward to your upcoming blog posts. They’ll share your content with their friends and family. Your business will grow.

So how do you do it? Stay tuned to the Reddbug blog to find out.