Content marketing is an essential piece of any digital marketing strategy, but it can be difficult to know where to start. What kind of content should you be creating? What topics will resonate with your audience? And how can you ensure that your content will rank well in search engines?
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll answer all of those questions and more. We’ll start by discussing the different types of content that businesses can create, then we’ll share 19 specific content marketing ideas that have been proven to drive results.
But before we dive in, let’s take a step back and define what content marketing is (and isn’t).
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Notice that we said “strategic marketing approach.” That’s because, unlike other marketing tactics that can be implemented on a whim, effective content marketing requires careful planning and execution. You need to identify your goals, research your target audience, and create content that appeals to them. Then you need to promote that content in order to reach the largest possible audience.
It’s also important to understand what content marketing is not. In particular, it’s not about selling or promoting your products or services. Yes, your ultimate goal is likely to generate leads or sales, but if you try to hard-sell your audience in every piece of content you create, they will tune out quickly. Instead, focus on creating valuable content that will help your target customers achieve their own goals. If you do that, they will be more likely to view you as a trusted resource — and they will be more open to doing business with you when they are ready to buy.
Now that we’ve answered the question “what is content marketing?,” let’s take a closer look at the different types of content businesses can create as part of their content marketing strategy.
