Despite the young content marketing term, the use of content for marketing is not a new thing and its examples can be searched even during the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press and before that.
But with the development of digital technology and increasing access to the achievements of information technology, content marketing emerged as a powerful tool and a specialized field and was able to take a special place among the activists of the digital field.
Content Marketing is actually one of the most important and effective subcategories of digital marketing .
Definition of content marketing
Content marketing is a process in business that produces engaging and persuasive content and distributes it to attract, attract and engage a specific target group of audiences, with the aim of inducing profitable actions in customers.
In the term of content marketing, the word marketing is a little more limited than what is known in the field of marketing, and often marketing here is closer to the concept of sales.
In other words, content marketing creates value for potential customers by quickly and instantly satisfying the need for information and attracts and engages potential customers with the product without pressure to buy.
Content marketing has a long history before the digital age. In addition, in the digital age, content marketing can still be done outside of the web and the Internet.
Launching a microwave cooking instructional DVD is an example of content marketing using offline digital content.
Also, offering a small book as a summary of 100 books published in a recent year by a publisher is an example of content marketing using written tools.
Reasons for the growth of content marketing
On the one hand, we insist that content marketing is centuries old. On the other hand, we emphasize that the last decade is the period of unparalleled prosperity of content marketing.
So, it is reasonable to ask, what is the reason that after several centuries, we suddenly see this rapid growth in a few years?
It is easy to provide a long list of reasons for the popularization of content marketing, which we will review only a few of these reasons.
Reducing the cost of publishing content
Today, any person or business can easily become a publisher, and it can be said that the most important cost required for this is simply time.
There is no cost to set up an account in social networks . Setting up a website is not cheap, but it is much cheaper than the cost of renting traditional media such as radio, television, magazines and billboards. Of course, keep in mind that here we are only talking about the cost of publishing and distributing content and not the cost of content production .
Increasing access to the Internet
Accessing the content and using it requires having access to the Internet, computer, mobile and other digital communication tools.
In the past decades, a small part of people had access to the digital space. For this reason , digital marketing tools faced a serious structural limitation.
If you didn’t make TV teasers for your product or business and didn’t publish ads in high-profile newspapers, sticking to the web meant satisfying a very small part of the target market.
Today, the story is reversed and in many products and industries, by relying on the web, mobile and social networks, you simply lose a small part of the target market .
Increasing the customer’s share of the purchase process
This is one of the most common marketing management topics .
Today’s customers, due to the competition of many industries, want to have more control over the product purchase process compared to the old traditional customers .
This more information is not only limited to product specifications and features, but even goes back to the product manufacturing process .
These days, it is important for many women that their cosmetic products are not tested on animals during the production process.
For clothing customers, it is important that the products they buy are not produced by young children.
Even in choosing between products with close competition, social responsibility and the way businesses play a role in society are also considered.
The amount and variety of information that customers consider in making decisions or at least show interest in them is much more than in the past, and content marketing can be a suitable tool to respond to these needs.
Increasing the cost of traditional media
In recent decades, many traditional media have become more expensive than before. Meanwhile, their effectiveness has decreased due to the spread of new media, or at least it can be said with confidence that they have taken a smaller share of the market.
On the other hand, the cost of renting traditional media has not declined and has grown like many other services.
Therefore, while the traditional media are gradually getting a smaller share of the audience pie, they have not been willing or unable to accept the reduction of their effectiveness and have also increased their expenses according to the general economic conditions of the society.
It is natural that in this situation, content marketing and the use of sales funnel in content marketing as a cheap, effective, trackable tool with a mass audience, has gained a double attraction.
In the end, I must say that for me personally, marketing in this field is more attractive when a content, regardless of whether it introduces a product or service, creates value for me. That is, after consuming the content , even if I don’t buy the desired product or service, I feel that my knowledge has been increased. I would be happy to share your personal opinion with us.
