By Kenneth Middleton

If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

The broadly accepted definition of content marketing is the creation and dissemination of web content for the purpose of engaging existing and potential markets. In simple terms it means creating web content to spread the good word regarding your products or services to a current customer base and with a view to expanding that base. Basically what everyone wants to do in an online business – make sales using their website content as a marketing tool.

To better describe content marketing lets look at the fundamental differences between using content to market a product and conventional methods. One of the most common methods of marketing products is the ever more unpopular interruption advertising technique. An off-shoot of the mass media phenomenon, this marketing method relies on thrusting the material under the nose of as many people as possible in the hope that some will respond.

The TV ad at a crucial point in your favourite soapie and the “Hi! I represent XYZ insurance company” phone call as you are about to have supper with your family are classic examples of this archaic form of marketing. It is not respectful of market needs, it is intrusive, it breeds resentment – in short it is just not relevant anymore. Content marketing on the other hand is a prime example of what is known as permission marketing and is based on customer choice as opposed to saturation bombing techniques.

What can content marketing do for my business that traditional marketing can’t?

Hit the bull’s eye every time is what it will do for you. If your business sells swimming pool products you are unlikely to find someone visiting your site that needs aphid spray. And if the aphid victim should arrive at your site via a miss-directed web search they are hardly going to mentally blacklist your business as a result. The average visitor will, however, be looking for pool chemicals and even if they do not find the exact product they were looking for, they are likely to bookmark your site for future reference if they find it to be informative, helpful and attractive.

And therein lays the true power of content marketing. By allowing the market to choose its supply source according to its needs you cut out the hit and miss component of intrusive marketing and address the core demographic first time, every time. And by sharing your content marketing efforts through the practice of making the content available to selected audiences you can still reach even larger groups than conventional marketing.

So, far from being restrictive, content marketing can reach huge numbers of potential customers and most importantly large numbers of receptive customers. So forget about cold calling and let that killer content you have just put together reach the heart of your target market with every shot.

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