Content marketing refers to a marketing technique where the marketer publishes their own short or long-form content (in any format — written, audio, video) and pushes it out to their audiences in the hope that the intellectual property provides value for the reader. Content marketing can take on a variety of angles, such as beginner’s guides, educational pieces, infographics, thought leadership, research papers, buyer’s guides and more.
Content marketing stands in contrast to advertising, which is mostly paid marketing used to build awareness or persuade viewers to take action — the concept of intellectual capital is less pronounced in the advertising world versus the advertising world. However — they are very complementary in nature, since advertising can be used to promote and increase awareness of new content marketing pieces provided by the marketer.
Content marketing is distributed using a variety of methods:
a) Published on-site. Content marketing is often posted on the marketer’s website, and the marketer uses a variety of technique (paid advertising, organic social posts, email, etc…) to reach audiences and make them aware of the new piece of content marketing, and drive them to the site.
b) Published on 3rd party sites. Content syndication can happen in a variety of ways. A marketer may work with a trade association to publish their content marketing on their site (and other promotional channels, for example — content marketing may be disbursed to the 3rd party’s newsletters, etc…). A publisher may incorporate the piece of content marketing into their site as a “Sponsored Article” — which is a form of native advertising
