Digital content marketing is the use of electronic mediums to share useful content with your target audience online. There are a number of types of digital content that you can utilize in your digital marketing strategy including search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, social media marketing, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), inbound marketing, and content marketing. Content marketing fis increasingly being utilized in digital marketing strategies due to its ability to increase brand awareness and create a stronger connection with your target audience.
What are the Differences Between Digital Marketing and Content Marketing?
Digital marketing and content marketing refer to two different tactics, but they do often overlap. Digital marketers focus on anything that is being promoted via digital channels, including websites, programmatic advertising, and content syndication. Content marketing on the other hand focuses on the information being created.
Digital marketing often includes content and content marketing is very important for most B2B companies. For content marketing, digital is usually a big component of their strategy. However, print materials used for trade shows and customer interactions are also part of content marketing.
Using the Power of Storytelling to Bolster Your Brand
Humans are connected by stories. Stories about what we did during our day. Stories from our childhood. Favorite tales shared by our loved ones. Every part of our day is tied to a story in some way, and as consumers this is even more true. In a world that is only becoming more dependent on the Internet for everything from connecting with old friends to purchasing a new car, consumers are inspired by stories and storytelling. Content marketing is all about storytelling, and it is the backbone of any digital marketing strategy.
Why? With strong content marketing, as well as copywriting, a business is better able to boost its brand awareness, increase engagement and generate more leads.
The State of Content Marketing Today
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “a strategic 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.”
It’s important to see your content marketing as a long-term strategy focused on building a strong relationship with your target audience. Not all content is created equal, developing quality content requires in-depth research on who your perfect customer is and what kind of content they consume.
In digital marketing, “content” is a broad umbrella term for anything produced by your brand either digitally or through more traditional advertising channels. This can mean blog posts, social media blurbs, podcasts, infographics, videos and/or billboards. It is important to note that social media and content marketing are different and focus on different strategies. Content marketing involves creating content and promoting that information across various platforms. Social media may be included in content marketing, but it is not the only channel. Again, the formats you use depend on how your consumers get their content, and content marketing allows you to optimize your content efforts to the best of your ability.
As with almost everything else, content marketing took a U-turn with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole world suddenly sequestered itself at home, making it hard for customers to interact in person with the brands that they love. Consumers turned online for almost all of their purchasing needs, and companies had to change up their digital marketing content strategy at a moment’s notice. In fact, according to a study completed by the Content Marketing Institute, a full 94 percent of B2B content marketers altered their strategy to adapt to the changing digital world ushered in by the global pandemic.
So how have digital marketers adapted to these changes? They saw the need for transition all over the strategy map; 70 percent revised their audience targeting, 64 percent updated redesigned their editorial calendars, 40 percent increased their content marketing budget and allocated more resources toward content creation, and 53 percent changed their distribution strategy.
As companies have had to change their marketing efforts, one thing has remained the same; content is king. No matter the format, content can serve as a great opportunity for any business to act as a thought leader in its industry. Overall, content marketing has and should continue to act as a vital supplement to your greater digital marketing strategy.
How Do You Create Digital Marketing Content?
Digital content needs to cater to your target audience in a similar way that print material would. It should be informative and provide value to end-users.
There are multiple ways to provide digital content, whether that be via PDF, a third-party byline, articles as part of a larger blog strategy, curated newsletters and emails or social media posts. However, no matter the channel, the asset should focus on customer pain points and deliver valuable insights.
How Does Content Supplement Your Digital Marketing Efforts?
With content marketing, you can reach your audience on a personal level with relevant information through a variety of channels. Using content marketing to support your digital marketing efforts will bring your business a host of different benefits, such as:
Meeting consumers at the beginning of the customer journey:
Salesforce reports that 87 percent of customers begin their journey on digital channels, so brands have a huge opportunity to target their audience at the moment they start the buying process.
Leading prospects down the marketing funnel:
Each stage of the customer journey requires a different type of content and messaging, which a content marketing strategy can help facilitate.
Connecting with consumers on a personal level:
Consumers want to know that there is a face to your brand behind the screen, and content helps put a personal spin on things. Some ways to do this may be by utilizing empathetic marketing, or authenticity in your marketing campaign.
Amplifying your brand exposure:
The more places you can place your brand, the better! Content allows you to do this seamlessly.
With these benefits in mind, why wouldn’t you dedicate your time and resources to creating a comprehensive content marketing strategy?
10 Tips for Getting Started with Digital Content Marketing
While each business’s content strategy will differ depending on its target audience, budget and channel, there are great content marketing best practices that will work to boost your brand, no matter your content goals. Here are some expert-approved tips for content marketers to use to support their digital efforts.
1. Find Your Niche Audience
Before you can create content, you’ll need to find your niche audience. Every one of your content goals should be focused with a specific customer in mind, right down to their age, gender, location and buying habits.
This may sound like a daunting task, but it really doesn’t have to be. Take a look at the consumers who are already interacting with your website content and social media pages. How are they consuming your content? These insights can lead to powerful results when determining your niche audience.
2. Use Content to Drive Leads Down the Sales Funnel
Content is the key to drawing customers from the awareness stage to the conversion stage. Here are some examples of specific content channels to use as a way to drive prospects down the sales funnel.
The Awareness Stage:
You’ll want to put your brand in front of as many people as possible by writing articles and advertisements, hosting webinars and creating podcasts.
The Interest Stage:
Pique your audience’s ongoing interest by thoroughly developing web content, newsletters and email campaigns. In this stage, it's important to offer educational and valuable content. You can do this by creating assets addressing client pain points, outsourcing content development, relying on industry leaders or by curating content.
The Desire Stage:
Make your consumers want more with e-books, white papers, licensed content, curated news and microsites.
The Action Stage:
Inspire consumers to convert by using case studies, testimonials and e-learning courses to your advantage.
3. Provide Free Information and Value Through Your Content
Consumers love to hear the word free, so consider adding value and oomph to your brand by providing them with free information. Providing valuable content as part of an educational content strategy can help your prospects address a challenge while augmenting your own brand resonance. This might be anything from an e-learning course to a free tool, and go far in achieving brand recognition and awareness.
4. Develop Key Performance Indicators and Content Marketing Goals
Without a specific marketing goal in mind, it will be hard to create a content marketing plan. After all, how will you know you are reaching your goals and having tangible success? Your KPIs and content marketing goals can propel your content strategy forward, and hold you accountable in the long term.
5. Know What Kind of Content Your Audience Wants
Not all content is created equal, and you need to know what kind of content your audience wants in order to be successful. Look at what your audience is already getting. Is it working? For example, if your social media posts are blowing up, but your blogs aren’t getting much traction, consider amping up your social media content creation. Don’t overthink this. Simply look at what is working and expand on it. It is also important to note that there is a difference between content marketing, copywriting and social media. Understanding the difference will help guide your marketing efforts.
6. Don’t Be Afraid To Explore New Channels
Get creative! You don’t always have to be conventional in your content marketing, and as you can afford to, add some imagination to your strategy. Your team can consider curating content from world class journalists and writers, or creating a newsletter campaign that targets your audience’s specific pain points. As long as you are producing consistent and educational content, exploring new channels has the capacity to bring your digital marketing efforts to a whole new level. So go ahead — try out podcasting, vlogging, graphic design and more!
7. Update Old Content
Just because your content is a bit out of date doesn’t mean it’s not still relevant to today’s consumers. Make it work harder for you by optimizing and updating the old material. This will help when Google crawls and indexes your webpage, while keeping your readers educated about recent industry news and updates. News curation can also be a great way to add topical content to your calendar. Your prospects benefit by receiving timely information, while you don’t have to expend valuable resources.
8. Don’t Make it Complicated
Your readers come to you to stay informed about your company and your industry, so don’t make things too complicated. The material should be easy to digest and created specifically for the intended audience. Someone lower down in the funnel might expect a more complex and in-depth article. But whether the topic itself is complicated or simple, your language should be clear and concise. The quicker a consumer can read your content without having questions or being confused, the better.
9. Be a Leader in Your Space
Producing content is the way you communicate with your potential customers, and your goal should be to create compelling material that solidifies you as an authority and groundbreaker in your space. You will want your consumers to come to you in search of information, and content is a great way to promote your knowledge of your industry, while establishing your brand as a thought leader.
10. Consider Licensing Content
If creating content sounds like a daunting task, consider licensing content from NYTLicensing. In doing so, you will harness the world-renown journalism of The New York Times while giving your readers the content they are craving. Using licensed material is a great way to meet all your content goals and entice readers to want more - without having to dedicate a ton of resources and assets, while enticing readers to want more. Additionally, licensed content will give you the opportunity to provide unique content to your audience. Since most content is found behind a paywall, viewers may not have access to this material outside of your blog or newsletter.
Examples of Digital Content Marketing
Interested in exploring the ways our expert storytelling can inspire your audience? Here are two content marketing examples from companies who used licensed content to boost their digital strategy.
AdvisorStream
AdvisorStream is a marketing company that helps financial advisers expand their practices by building trust and credibility. The company had a need for customized and curated content that would be highly engaging to its target audience, and chose to work with NYTLicensing to expand their offerings. When it delivered those high-quality, licensed articles, AdvisorStream found that it drove brand credibility while helping the company stand out amid a cluttered field of competitors. After just six months using the licensed content, AdvisorStream experienced a 200% increase in content views as well as a 260% increase in lead capture on its platform.
American City Business Journals (ACBJ)
American City Business Journals was seeking to bolster its original reporting methods, and turned to NYTLicensing for its content needs. With the help of The New York Times News Service, ACBJ was able to implement a one-size-fits-all editorial content solution across their large variety of niche publications. As a result, they experienced a 75 percent increase in digital subscriptions.
Final Thoughts
When a brand turns to content marketing as a better way to tell its story, it will almost surely be successful. After all, consumers respond to and look for stories that appeal to them during all stages of the marketing funnel.
If you’re looking to bolster your digital content marketing strategy by investing in licensed content, consider using NYTLicensing for all your content curation needs. We offer a variety of content packages, across an extensive range of subjects, to ensure that your marketing goals are always met. Check out our travel licensing, financial news, and health content licensing pages. Alternatively you can contact our sales team to learn more about using high-quality journalism in your content marketing plan.
