What is content marketing? The Content Marketing Guide

In this article, we will put some basic pieces in place, based both on research and expertise in the industry. Next, we will tackle the subject from different perspectives. By familiarizing ourselves with the subject’s many nuances, we will gain an understanding of how a content marketing strategy actually works.

We will look at the following: What does content marketing mean, and does it work in practice? What advantages and disadvantages do you have as a business owner in relation to the implementation of such a marketing strategy? What are some of the ethical dilemmas that arise around this relatively new form of marketing? Finally, we will look at what the research and the industry think about the effectiveness, before we conclude by assessing what increased digitization could mean for future marketers and consumers.

Content marketing definition

Content marketing is based on attracting customers by producing high-quality content. The content can be based on images, text, film, podcast or live events, and it has a value beyond the product or service being marketed. The content is given away to build lasting customer relationships.

This is SEO blog ‘s definition of content marketing. The marketing method differs from traditional marketing in that it attempts to sell indirectly. In traditional marketing, it is more common to use direct pitching of products or services, as many like to associate with “typical Norwegian advertising”. Content marketing’s strategy, on the other hand, is instead based on engaging potential customers. Once interest is captured, it becomes easier to sell products afterwards.

Often the products are sold because the company has established good relationships with its potential customers. Such a form of lead generation, where you constantly ensure that customers enter the company’s “circle” and then convert to sales, is called inbound marketing . This is a business model that is often used together with content marketing. You can read more details about inbound marketing by following the link above.

Digital content marketing is, as you have probably realized, content production that is produced or published digitally. Because digital products are cheaper, more accessible and easier to produce, it is mostly digital production that we refer to when we talk about content marketing today.

Examples of content marketing

Remember that content marketing is not about genre. Different types of texts, films and images find their place in such a strategy. What is decisive is what function the content has, what context it is placed in and what it communicates.

Below you see an advertisement from the TV2 news. It differs markedly from what we traditionally associate with advertisements because it has content that is interesting to read for a specific target group. A lot of work has gone into this article. Among other things, they have interviewed a number of people and found a lot of useful information that can be interesting in itself, not just for those readers who are considering buying an electric car. The advertisement appears as an ordinary article on the same lines as other articles in the TV2 news.

We call such advertisements “native advertisements” , or “native ads” in Norwegian. At the same time, this is an example of content marketing. In such an advertisement, the marketers use the same style, tone and form of communication as the other content on the website.

This article is a classic example of content marketing that most of us see every single day.

The next example is from the Norwegian advertising agency “Ted Bates”, which in 1987 became famous overnight with the following phrase:

Telegram is a well-known messaging app telegram database that is famous for fast and secure communication. Although Telegram emphasizes security, there are concerns about how users’ data is being used. Telegram has gained a lot of recognition for commercial work. Now you can earn through Telegram, as a result of which Telegram is becoming more and more popular day by day.

The song “out to lunch” is a good example of engaging content, even for those who were unaware of its origins. So this is also a typical example of content marketing.

If you want to see more examples of content marketing, you can take a look at this blog post with 10 ideas for content marketing for your company in different industries. This is our editor’s first phase in a brainstorming session. The ideas can therefore be developed further and used in the industries for which they are intended.

Content marketing, or content marketing as we like to say in Norwegian, is a specific form of marketing. In order to understand how content marketing has developed into what it is today, we must therefore understand the basic principles of marketing on a general basis.

All business is based on deciding on four pillars: Product, price, outlet and promotion. The market strategy, i.e. the overall strategy for the entire company, says something about how the company relates to these parameters. How should the four P’s be integrated with each other and with the overall goal?

By developing a marketing strategy that takes into account the above parameters, the marketing will produce better results because it is more focused. It is wise to do this in a way that will enable you to measure the results of what you publish.

Read more about basic principles for marketers!

The 5 pillars of content marketing

A good content marketing plan is based on following certain criteria, and can help us get more in return for the investment we make in marketing. To understand what content marketing is, it may be helpful to examine its basic principles.

Steven McDonald wrote in 2015 about what he refers to as the 5 basic pillars of content marketing. In retrospect, these have often been regarded as normative for the subject.

The five pillars of content marketing are:

• An understanding of the target group
• Mapping of content in relation to where in the purchase process the customer is
• Create content and publish
• Promote the content
• Measure and analyze the results in order to improve the marketing strategy

Before the process of content production and marketing can begin, the company should conduct an SEO audit . This will reveal mistakes, shortcomings and how the marketing budget can best be converted into sales.

Pillar 1: Target group:

In all types of marketing, it will be important to have a certain understanding of the target group you are addressing.

With content marketing, this this physics principle is also the same as how your … is taken a step further when, in phase two, you begin to map how close a customer is to conversion, and then create content adapted to this perspective.

Distribution of what you have created can be done through outreach marketing such as posting it in social media, other relevant digital channels, or more indirectly through the search engines. Inbound marketing, which we talked about earlier, only promotes to potential customers who have already made contact or who find the company on their own. This means e-mails, optimization for the search engines and by sharing information and knowledge with existing customers.

Pillar 5: Measuring resultsToday there are many tools for digital analysis of companies on the Internet. These are used to find out which methods work and which fail. With the help of strategic planning, we can constantly analyze, discard what doesn’t work and try new things.

Read more about the five pillars of content marketing!

Pros and cons of content marketing

Content marketing’s criticisms are not as widely discussed as its positive aspects. Here we will address both. Learning more about the pros and cons of content marketing can give us a better insight into this business strategy. Here follows a summary overview of the potential benefits many Norwegian companies experience with digital aqb directory content marketing:

• Often results in increased sales (more catchy marketing attracts more leads)
• Cost-saving (less advertising)
• When new customer groups (those who ignore traditional advertising)
• Often produces loyal customers (customers who spread the good news)
• Builds digital authority for your company’s website
• Provides a greater overview of marketing (tracking of marketing on own platforms)
• The content produced has an intrinsic value (the domain can be sold)
• Employees can work more creatively

Read in more detail about the benefits of content marketing under the auspices of the company.

We can summarize content marketing’s potential issues as follows:

• Is resource-intensive (costs money or time)
• Requires a clear strategy that is carried out purposefully
• Results take time
• Increased number of content marketers makes the competition increasingly fierce

Read more in-depth about the disadvantages of content marketing!

Morality and content marketing

The advertisement for the electric car above was taken from TV 2 news. Although the post is marked as “advertisement”, there are many who claim that this is a form of hidden advertising where the reader is misled by the fact that it appears as a news report. In the media, the issue linked to content marketing has been debated: What should be defined as product placement, advertising and content marketing? Where is the line, and what should be allowed in Norwegian society?

Learn more by reading this article that discusses the ethical implications of content marketing. There we take a deeper dive into the issues today’s marketers have to deal with! Here we meet, among others, Jens Barland as a gatekeeper at the intersection between content marketing and journalism.

Why Content Marketing? Critics argue that it creates a lot of noise in the form of content that no one has the time or resources to digest ( source ). Our own study on content marketing found no research to support this claim.

As content marketing is a relatively new phenomenon, there is admittedly not an overwhelming amount of research in the area.

To find more details about its effect on potential customers, the Content Marketing Guide undertook a meta-study of scientific literature in the field of content marketing’s effectiveness. As a result of this study, we wrote our own professional article which can be read by clicking on the link above. The study showed that content marketing is more effective with potential customers than traditional marketing.

Why does content marketing work?

Now that we have shown that the available research leans towards content marketing giving better results than traditional marketing, we will look a little at potential reasons why this is so.

Ever since we humans began to communicate with each other, we have told stories to capture attention and engage each other. Storytelling is therefore used in many different ways when selling products. In content marketing, stories are one of the main reasons for its success.

Two of the surveys in our bibliography showed that catchy content in social media gives a greater chance of the brand being remembered afterwards ( source ). The fact that potential customers know a brand in turn makes the probability of purchase even greater ( source ).

Another reason why content marketing works effectively is that pop-up and ad blockers have become standard in many browsers. This means that advertisers have to find new and alternative ways to reach out. In addition, many people have started to automatically filter out advertisements and advertisements where they appear in everyday life. Content marketing works because it hits us via an interest or a need we seek to cover, and it is therefore not perceived as advertising and ignored to the same extent.

Thirdly, it is obvious that many companies solve problems for their potential customers. It is most likely information or resources that are given away for free. This creates goodwill on the part of the person who gets their problem solved.

We have talked about the next item on the list before; namely that content marketing addresses a limited target group that is selected through analysis of data and implementation of personas. The better you hit your target group with your marketing, the better use it is of the company’s resources.