Summary
Content marketing is a marketing technique that focuses on creating and sharing content that is relevant to the audience and is able to engage people and build trusted relationships between the company and its customers. The first idea of this marketing approach is that it uses media content as the basis of all operations. The second notion is that such content can help the company to connect with its consumers and generate engagement. It is different from traditional strategies because it employs entertainment media to create brand value (“Content Marketing”). Currently, the public’s skepticism toward advertising becomes crucial to the success of marketing. Moreover, the number of brands continues to increase, which makes traditional advertising challenging. Many people use ad-blocking software, and the amount of advertisements unseen by people is growing.
Content marketing aims to remove the wall between media content and company messages – to make branded content that has practical or informational value, inspires self-improvement, builds relationships, or creases an exciting story. Previous studies revealed that the rate of engagement with content influences people’s interest and connectedness with the advertised product (“Content Marketing”). The key to executing content marketing is storytelling – using the essential elements of a story (characters, conflict, and resolution), a brand can design experiences and develop a thematic storyline that continually engages consumers. For example, Coca-Cola’s theme is happiness, and its advertisements and campaigns capture small events where positive emotions of the people are displayed, while Coca-Cola is present in the scene, thus connecting the brand and the message. At present, such questions as to how should one define brand messages and how content marketing affects the media channel still exist in research.
Application in the Steel Market
Content marketing can be used in virtually any industry that can produce relatable and engaging content for its audience. For example, a steel company may focus on information about building, quality materials, and safety. By leading webinars, creating videos and blogs, the brand introduces new knowledge to its customers that makes them interested in the brand and its products. Viral videos can make the company widely recognizable, and informative texts should provide the firm with an increasing number of loyal customers. The brand has to produce content that is easy to share and is appealing to people or businesses that purchase steel products. Thus, after customer analysis and segmentation, the companies can find which particular topics are the most engaging and use this data to create content. Regarding real-life events, seminars and presentations can be a part of the marketing process as well.
Works Cited
“Content Marketing: Using Media Content to Create Brand Value.” YouTube, uploaded by Marketing Science Institute. 2017, Web.