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Slideshare is a great tool for learning about trendy subjects, be it marketing, business or economics to name just a few of these. I happened to have gone through a series of presentations on content marketing. Traditional ways of advertising products and services are fading out and creating engaging and relevant content for your target audience is the new way of generating leads and eventually getting people really interested in what you sell.
As it is the case with technology, the effects are pervasive, affecting companies all over the world. Whether you are a marketing manager in a developed or emerging economy there are statistics you can't just afford to overlook. In this post I am going to share three things (although there are many more things to say on the topic) I have learned so far from reading about content marketing and how it will change the way we advertise and market our products in the coming years.
9 out of 10 Organisations market with content
This is a data from the content marketing institute, and I am not sure the study is representative of marketing strategies worldwide. Still, what the data tells is, more and more Marketing managers are increasingly rejecting old marketing tactics to focus on content marketing instead. The content marketing institute define content marketing as:
"Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing
relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly
defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving
profitable customer action."
It is in a nutshell the art of selling without giving that impression. Traditional marketing techniques including tv and magazine ads and billboards or Internet pop-ups pitch information about products and most of the times this is annoying for you and me. Who does not switch between channels to avoid sitting through commercials? With content marketing your aim is to create a video, write a blogpost or share a link that inform your customers and help them make clever decisions about their purchases or the kind of producs or services they should buy.
Blogs are 63% more likely to influence purchase decisions
Your company should have a blog. Blogposts about your products or services indicate you know about your area of expertise. Blogposts tell your customers you want to make them more intelligent and blogposts tell your clients you are interested not so much about selling but about truly helping your customers understand how your company as a whole makes a difference. Blogposts finally are an indication you are a customer-centric organisation (you should better be) rather than a product-centric one, because you write about how your product or service help customers improve their lives
Customers who receive email marketing spend 83% more when shopping
It is time for your marketing department to formulate an email marketing strategy. Make it a goal to send an email to customers about an issue your organisation cares about or a problem you are solving. If you are a health care company send an email about the need to exercise and to remain fit for example. Let your customers know you know your stuff and interact with them on a regular basis to showcase your expertise and knowledge of your business sector.
Again as I said in the beginning, new analytics emerge everyday about content marketing and marketers are only beginning to realise the key to effectively using content marketing. For more information on the topic I recommend these two slideshare presentations:
1. http://fr.slideshare.net/BlogGrowth/18-useful-internet-marketing-statistics-that-you-cant-ignore
2. http://fr.slideshare.net/NewsCred/50-best-stats-presentation
Patrick Mayoh is a chief strategy officer at Aura Cameroon
