Content marketing, inbound marketing, digital marketing…marketing, marketing, marketing. What’s a business owner to do when faced with all these sub-categories of promoting their business to potential customers? It’s enough to create a marketing madness that isn’t a positive one, but that instead has you wanting to digital your content and market it inbound, or something confusing like that.
It does not help that experts often use these terms interchangeably when they are actually distinctive arenas in their own rights and should be described and explained as such. Don’t be alarmed: there is a method to the marketing madness.
Content marketing is a key component of digital marketing. Simply put, without content, digital marketing does not happen successfully. Content marketing is sharing relevant content with potential customers without selling anything, but with the goal of increasing brand visibility and winning over business from the customers. Content marketing is usually performed through online routes that the business owns, such as through websites, blogs, and social media accounts.
For content marketing to be successful there has to be a constant source of high-quality material that is relevant and provides valuable information for readers. The return for this valuable content is a built up loyalty to the business brand. Making sure to optimize this content for the best results in the search engines helps businesses to reach a maximum number of potential customers for lower costs than typically spent on traditional marketing venues.
Once high-quality content is developed, it can then be used in digital marketing campaigns. Digital marketing is the group of marketing efforts made through digital means, such as mobile devices, social media, the internet, social media networks, and email. The content that is developed can be shared across these digital mediums and customers can then use these same venues for sharing that information and company brands which they deem important to share with their peers.
Inbound marketing is attractive to businesses and customers because it can help provide personal focus on the customer by sending customized correspondence via digital means that eliminates the sales feel of other types of correspondence where addressee names can be interchanged. Receiving this type of attention from a company helps that brand to remain at the forefront of the customer’s mind, especially when the business has not attempted to make a hard sell and rather gives something that is valuable to the customer.
Both content marketing and digital marketing can be combined to develop an inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing is a different take on getting sales by attracting customers to your business with high-quality content. Content that is developed with specific customers in mind will draw them towards your business. Dynamic information that changes as you anticipate your customers will change is a large part of inbound marketing, as is making sure your company brand information is available in the venues where people will find it.
So what do content marketing, digital marketing, and inbound marketing mean to a business and customers? Any digital marketing campaign begins with high-quality content to dispense via digital means. The existence of this content and focus on relevancy and change as the customer changes creates the opportunity to use this content in digital venues. In turn, these efforts lead to one branch of inbound marketing, because the efforts will draw customers into the company’s vision and expose them to the business brand.
These concepts can still be a bit muddled because they are so similar in purpose and work intricately with one another to create a larger picture. This is where search engine marketing services come into play. Effective search engine marketing services recognize that the first step to any digital marketing effort is in creating valuable content to market. These professionals can also analyze the current marketing strategies of a business and make educated suggestions on how to integrate digital marketing into inbound marketing.
