Content Marketing FAQs

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a broad, overarching term that describes the creation and distribution of online media to develop an audience. This bubble encompasses nearly every form of visual material, including social media posts, email campaigns, videos, blogs, how-to guides, infographics, and more. 

Depending on their goals, businesses and brands can design content marketing strategies to engage, entertain, educate, or attract audiences. Or achieve all of those things at once! Generally speaking, brands focus on providing valuable media that accurately reflects their ethics and services, making conscious efforts not to “spam” customers with irrelevant information or gaudy advertisements. 

Effective content marketing allows brands to explain the “why” behind their businesses, convey their expertise in the field, establish an identity, and showcase their uniqueness. Consistency is key–customers continue supporting businesses they feel they can trust and turn to for advice.

All Right, What Is B2B Content Marketing?

B2B content marketing aims to convert other businesses into customers.

Unlike B2C, B2B aims to attract targeted companies by appealing to their current needs, potential challenges, and future goals. Brands often use longer forms of content (i.e., case studies, tutorials, white papers, or webinars) that truly demonstrate their experience and reliability.

What Makes B2B Content Marketing Different?

B2B is a little more in-depth than B2C. Customer-focused content marketing is often easily digestible, fun, and engaging–the goal is typically to establish brand awareness and an emotional connection with customers. 

Conversely, B2B focuses on exhibiting expertise, knowledge, and usefulness while helping other businesses find solutions to major issues. This form of content marketing is less emotional and more fact-driven, so customers know exactly how you can save them time and money as they strive for success.

Why Is Content Marketing Effective?

Properly executed content marketing is highly effective for multiple reasons. Businesses and creators can leverage digital media to draw attention to their brands, build authority in their field, facilitate trustworthiness, and boost SEO. 

Targeting a specific audience with tailored content offers education or solutions to their questions. You show consumers you are a reliable source of information, one they can continually turn to for advice. 

In the same vein, quality content builds a relationship with audiences by showcasing your empathy and understanding for their challenges. You exhibit a genuine interest in their lives and offer realistic support to help guide them. This connection ultimately fosters brand loyalty and, thus, future success. 

How Can I Measure Content Marketing ROI?

Return on investment (ROI) in content marketing provides valuable insight into how your customers are responding to your efforts. This percentage shows how much revenue you have generated via campaigns compared to the financial investment [(revenue - investment ÷ investment) x 100]. 

Remember, content marketing does not necessarily turn profit immediately. It's a long-term investment in your business. In many cases, you may wait months before seeing a direct monetary return on investment. This gap is normal, as you must allow customers to find, engage with, and buy into your content before measuring ROI. 

What Is the ‘Funnel’ in Content Marketing?

The marketing funnel is an analogy for the customer journey from their first encounter with your business to their first purchase or action. These plans help organize customer direction into three stages–top of the funnel (TOFU or Awareness), middle of the funnel (MOFU or Consideration), and bottom of funnel (BOFU or Decision). 

Essentially, TOFU refers to initial brand awareness, or when customers come across your business, campaign, or service. MOFU is when they start interacting with your digital media (i.e., website, blog, social media posts, etc.) as they contemplate whether or not your business can meet their needs. Finally, BOFU is the action phase in which customers fulfill some form of call to action (CTA).

By using content to target a specific area of the funnel, you can measure the gaps in campaigns based on where customers fall from the conversion process. With this knowledge, you can rework your efforts to better align with customer values, ultimately boosting sales, generating new leads, and building trust.

How Does Content Marketing Drive Sales?

Eye-catching and interesting visual content marketing draws attention to your brand. However, finding ways to keep an audience is what makes or breaks a marketing campaign. Once you’ve mastered quality content creation, you can see a marketing ROI of 177%!

Content marketing drives sales by generating awareness, interest, and relevancy. Interacting with your audience creates ample opportunities to prove your value to them as a business entity and directly influence their buying decisions. When you meet or exceed their expectations, customers will continuously gravitate toward you for future purchases.

Another way content marketing works is word of mouth. Customers who are happy with your service may share their experience with friends, family, coworkers, or even complete strangers in conversation. These interactions can generate new leads as traffic to your website, interest in ebooks, follows on social media, and so much more.