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There’s a lot of talk about content marketing and how it’s an essential element of any marketing mix, but what actually is it, and will it deliver for your business?  Content marketing has been defined by the Content Marketing Institute as, “A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” This is actually very similar to the definition of PR, and that’s why PR and content are so now closely aligned.

It doesn’t matter what sort of marketing activity your business undertakes, quality content should be a key feature. Producing top quality content makes you valuable to your customers, instead of shouting “buy me” through advertising, content-based strategies provide your customers with something that is useful, entertaining or informative – and that they will want to share online. It has the added benefit of helping to improve your SEO – as Google loves fresh, new content.

In today’s technology-driven, busy, crowded and connected world, in order to achieve cut through, brands have to engage with customers on a personal level and capture their (increasingly reduced) attention.

Content can take many forms – articles, videos, blog posts, how-to-guides, images, infographics, to name just a few. The key things is to ensure the content you create resonates with your target audience – does it solve a problem for them?

The Content Marketing Association say there are seven elements that define successful content marketing:

1. It’s produced for a brand – Content marketing is ultimately a sales tool. It may take longer than some other mediums, but it still sells product.
2. It’s multichannel – Good content is designed to work across any channel (potentially in different formats). A channel could be your website, your newsletter or social media sites for example. Driving engagement with your target market via the channel using your content is the key.
3. It seeks to form a deep relationship with a consumer – This is no 30-second medium. Content marketing forms a powerful, long-lasting bond with its target audience, where you solve your customer’s problem.
4. It’s measurable – No measurement, no results, no point! All content platforms have a number of established methods for proving effectiveness.
5. It engages the consumer for a significant length of time – Content is all about sustained attention, gaining your customers’ trust by drawing them into your brand’s world for an enviable amount of time.
6. It performs a number of marketing tasks – Awareness, loyalty, sales, brand-building, engagement, cut-through, point of difference, and many more.
7. It’s effective – Countless studies have proved that content marketing consistently outperforms other media over a greater length of time.

In the online space, quality content is a key driving factor in building brand loyalty and attracting new customers, so make sure creating top quality, shareable content is on your business’s marketing plan this year.

Communication is critical to your business success, but it needs a strategy to be effective. Creating robust communication plans is what we love to do and it couldn’t be easier for you to tap into our expertise. Sign up to our Confident Communication Planning service and we will take care of the rest. Or, check out our free Revitalise & Grow session for more advice and tips!

We are PR experts and we don’t want you to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of implementing effective PR for your business. Your business will benefit from exceptional PR strategy and this guide will help you utilise PR with confidence that will benefit your business and your team. We understand that you’re busy and probably have many hats to wear each day. We also know that PR is one of the hats that doesn’t get worn as often as it should. Download our guide – PR For Small Business, and actively utilise the tools it offers for your business. We guarantee you’ll see results!