What is content marketing for beginners?

 Content marketing is one of the most prominent methods that are used to publish or exchange materials via the Internet, which have certain characteristics that must be adhered to in order for the content to be well marketed.

There are also several types of content marketing, and you can determine the right type of marketing for you by knowing some things that help you reach the right type for your target audience, all of this and more we will learn about in this article.

What is content marketing ?

Before getting to know any of the characteristics or types of content, we must first understand what content marketing is.

Content Marketing is a type of marketing that is based on exchanging or distributing materials through the Internet, and the content can be videos, texts, or blogs through social media.

Provided that the content is free from any trademarks as it is not published directly, but is content that encourages customers to take an interest in the product or service without having a direct promotion for it.

Characteristics of successful content marketing

Getting good content that can be marketed must have a set of characteristics to be at the required level, so that the characteristics are:

Easy to understand

The content must be understandable to different audiences by relying on simple terms.

It should also have value for customers as it helps solve their problem, or provide information that increases their culture.

Allows audience interaction

You must ensure that the content is allowed to be shared, and that the audience is interested in it in the event of a question or survey, because interaction helps to strengthen the relationship between the owner of the content and the audience.

A 'share' option should also be provided so that the audience can share the content with their friends.

Product related

One of the things that makes content marketing better is that the content is related to the product or service that you seek to provide, because this is evidence of the level of expertise in the field.

Because the main purpose of the content is to benefit the audience while encouraging them to get the product, rather than being a spectator to become a customer.

Unique Content

Because of the similarity of products and services in their content, creating unique content is not easy, but we must try to devise ways that are different from their competitors.

Because the uniqueness of the content is evidence of the company’s uniqueness in the product or service, provided that it is not promoted in an explicit way because the main goal of the content is to benefit the customer and not to sell the product.

Publication timing

One of the main characteristics of making content marketing special is the choice of publishing timing, because there are articles that are valid at one time and not appropriate at other times.

Attractive

What makes the content more widespread is that it is of high quality, because this is evidence of the extent of experience and competence in this field, and this is what makes customers trust the product or service contained in the content.

With so much information available on different sites, you have to create content that attracts the customer and makes them stay with you a lot.

Types of content marketing

Some may think that content marketing is through articles only, but this is a misconception because there are other methods, such as:

Blogging

It is the strongest and most famous type of content marketing, and it is characterized by its low cost, as companies provide writers who write various articles related to products, while providing information that benefits customers.

In order for these articles to provide an answer to any question related to the product or a solution to a problem in the product, companies compete for their article to be at the beginning of the search engine results.

Infographic

It is a visual representation of information that makes complex topics simple and easy to understand.

It is about converting all information or statistics into a graph that attracts customers, and it is one of the most attractive types of content marketing because the images and graphics in it help to communicate information easily, which saves time and effort.

Video clips

Its duration is between 2 to 5 minutes on a topic and this is what made this type the most popular, because it summarizes the content of the article in a video.

These videos are uploaded to the producing company's website or a social networking site such as YouTube .

Researches

They are numbers or statistics, and this is what makes the public trust this type of marketing, because they are a summary of the company's efforts, and if shared with customers, it is evidence of the company's professionalism, which increases customer confidence in the product.

Other content types

• electronic books.
• podcast.
• Meetings with experts or people related to the field.
• A directory is a user's guide to a topic.
• Polls.
• Webinars.

Ways to choose the right content

It is not enough that the content is suitable for the budget only, there are other things that must be ensured that it is appropriate, such as:

The target audience

As it is the future of the content, which differs between gender, age, and also the region that you want to address.

Type of product or service

Since the content is only an offer for the product or service, therefore all information about the product must be clarified, but without referring to the brand name.

Content publishing stages

Content marketing has stages, as the dissemination of information about the product is better to be initially based on video than on text content, also images have a better role in marketing in the advanced stages.

The importance of content marketing 

Content marketing via the Internet is the most used type in the current era, and for this it is of great importance, which we find in the following:

• If the content is effective, it increases customer confidence in the company and attracts more customers.
• Customer confidence results in an increase in the purchasing power of the product, which increases sales and thus profits.
• In content marketing, you can choose low-cost types such as blogging, which saves a lot of marketing expenses.
• In the event that the content is attractive and useful, it makes the customer stop for a long time inside the site, and this is something that is desirable for search engines, which increases the number of visitors on the site and thus they turn into customers who buy the product.
• It helps spread culture by providing diverse information in the content.
• The more useful and unique the content, the more customers trust the company, and it results in an improvement in the brand's reputation.

Strategies for using content marketing to increase traffic

The content marketing strategy can be relied upon to increase the number of visits on the site by:

• Affiliate marketing: By adding an offer to the network with marketing for a commission, which motivates marketers to create content of any kind to market your products or services.
• Ads: They are the things that help increase the number of visits, by adding another site to the content that can help the visitor turn to your site indirectly.

Thus, we have made it clear that content marketing is one of the things that must be taken care of in the event that you decide to market via the Internet, because it has several types. You have to know what you need to be able to choose the appropriate type for your product.