5 Reasons You Need to Use Content Marketing Today

Jul 8, 2014
3 min read

I don’t care who you are or what you do, you need to use content marketing and you need to start now.

You may think you don’t need to market yourself – you have a comfy job in the corner office with lots of perks but I guarantee there will be a time when you will either lose your job or become dissatisfied with the direction – or should I say non-direction – you are going and then you’ll need to market your skills, but by then you’ll already be behind the Eight Ball.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is using information your clients find relevant and valuable to help form a relationship, establish yourself as an expert and drive your business.

If this was a marketing course there would be a much fancier definition but for simplicity’s sake that is the definition we are going to use for this blog.

Content marketing usually comes in the form of a newsletter, an email, a short ebook or a blog like this one, and it’s designed to establish an emotional connection between yourself and somebody you want to do business with – and that can be an employer or a client.

So now we’ve established that, are you ready for the 5 reasons you need to use content marketing?

5) Nobody pays attention to other types of marketing anymore.

With today’s technology you can PVR T.V. shows or stream them off a website, which effectively blocks out all the advertisement. I can’t remember the last time I sat through a minute and a half of commercials and I bet you can’t either.

Many companies still use banner ads but now people download programs to prevent these popup ads on their computer. With Facebook you can block ads from showing up in your feeds.

That pretty much leaves billboard ads as your final option and sure they are effective up to a point, but that can also be expensive and only target relatively few people.

It’s safe to say the old ways of marketing are dead and buried and trying to apply them to the way we use social media now is just foolish.

4) You dictate what is said about you or your company.

One of the best things about content marketing is you don’t have to rely on third party spin to get your message out so you don’t have to worry about it being misinterpreted or sexed up for the wrong reasons.

With content marketing, you have already built up that relationship with your customers so when something negative comes out (the internet is filled with nasty rumours, my precious!) then you have a chance to explain it before a newspaper or another blog does it for you.

3) It’s the cheapest form of marketing there is. (ie it’s free!)

You don’t need to pay any fancy advertisers or buy ad space. All you need to do is get a blog or email your contacts.

It’s that easy.

Of course the better content markets have spent hours and hours putting together their content – probably by paying somebody – and they spend money hosting a website but really it is peanuts compared to what some companies spend on advertisement.

2) It’s the best form of marketing out there.

I have heard arguments that content marketing will go way of the dodo bird. Their argument is that consumers just don’t have time to process all the information out there and therefore it will fall on deaf ears.

That is very true, but as with anything else, the best content markets will rise to the top. People will listen to them because their knowledge is valuable. The marketers with the best and most useful information will be the most trusted and the go-to people.

1) Google is King of the Hill.

Unless people know exactly what they want, they use Google to make a purchasing decision. In fact, according to a poll done by Fleishman-Hillard, 89% of people use a search engine to buy or make a business decision. That’s a crazy amount of people!

And the way Google works, the company or people with the newest, most viewed content will appear at the top of the search. Research shows that most people won’t go past the first five search results so you better be at the top.

So what are you waiting for?

written by Joel Mark Harris

Joel is an award-wining freelance writer, editor and consultant. He has written two novels and produced and wrote an award-winning film that was sold to Shaw Cable. Email him at contact@joelmarkharris.com to hire him for whatever your writing needs are.