Why is content marketing important for brands?

It has been almost 30 years since Bill Gates' article titled“Content is King”In this article, Gates emphasized that as the internet becomes more widespread, the power of content will increase and that content providers are important for the development of the internet.

A person who was exposed to an average of 500 ads a day in the 70s is exposed to 5,000 ads today.On the road, on the subway, even in the toilet. In the midst of this advertising chaos, one of the most accurate elements of communication is what Gates emphasizes: Content.. 

Content marketing is a huge field with an annual market size of 500 billion dollars. In this blog, I will talk about the present and future of content marketing...

What is content marketing? What are the examples?

Marketing has dozens of different disciplines, and each has evolved over time. What started with communicating on giant billboards has evolved into technologies such as retargeting. But one thing that hasn't changed is the importance of content.

You may think that content marketing, which is globally recognized as content marketing, is a new approach. But its history goes back much further than the internet. The answer to the question "what is content marketing?" is evident even in examples that date back more than 100 years. Content marketing is the art of providing people with information that adds value, rather than a pile of advertising-oriented statements. 

• In 1895, the famous tractor brand John Deere's magazine, The Furrow, was published in dozens of countries and sold millions of copies. The brand did not think of this magazine as a "brochure" and did not advertise its products and services to its readers. Instead, it provided important information about agriculture, thus reaching its target audience. Because readers were both informed and felt valued. 
• Michelin reached out to drivers in the early 1900s with "The Michelin Guides". John Deere and Michelin were followed by new brands. 

The common point of the above examples is that brands care about the values they represent and create value without using sales language. In other words, the main thing is to build a story and create a concept that can attract the attention of the target audience. Of course, with the widespread use of the internet in the 90s, the concept of content marketing changed completely.

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The advent of the www protocol, followed by the building of messaging services like AOL and social networks like MySpace, heralded a new ecosystem. Concepts such as blogs and social media entered our world. Content marketing was first used in the early 2000s. 

Today, this concept can take many different forms, both in digital and print formats. It could be a news article you read in a newspaper, a video you watch on YouTube, a blog post on a topic you are curious about, or a piece of content prepared by a brand to reach you. 

One of the best examples of content marketing is Spotify's "wrapped" series, which is based on the data of the songs you listen to at the end of each year and which you share on Instagram. As millions of Spotify users share these content as stories, Spotify reaches billions of people without paying a single penny. And therein lies the secret to success. This marketing method can include the following elements:

• Press release
• E-book
• Blog content
• Social media content
• İnfografik
• Video
• Podcast

As people's content consumption habits change, marketing will of course open up new areas for itself. Ten years ago, you probably didn't know the concept of "podcast". But today, many brands are reaching out through Spotify or other services with special podcast series they have prepared for listeners.

Strategy in content marketing: Where should you start?

Content marketing requires the right plan, regardless of the medium. Having knowledge about SEO or digital ads and acting with several disciplines at the same time is the secret to success. In general, the roadmap to be followed in this process should be as follows:

• Goal: First of all, the goal should never be to produce content for the sake of producing content, you should have a goal. This goal can be strengthening brand image, gaining followers on social media or gaining subscribers to the mailing list. You should build your plan on this goal.
• Analysis: After creating a goal, you should analyze your audience and the channel where the content will be published. Research which format of content attracts attention and read the interests of your audience correctly.
• Plan: If you are going to create blog content, make sure to use keyword tools beforehand. If you're going to make an Instagram or TikTok video, look at discover trends. Then you are ready to create the content. 
• Distribution: Marketing is more than just producing the right content. You can create good content, but if you can't deliver it to your audience, it won't mean anything. Therefore, with the right plan, ensure that the content is disseminated. For example, you can work with influencers for a social media post or utilize SEO techniques for a blog post. 

Content formats may vary. But no matter what, your plan should have a goal, analysis and distribution strategy. 

The relationship between content marketing and SEO: How should you use SEO?

Blogs are one of the most important focal points of brands in their content marketing plans. Blog content is one of the best methods of reaching people searching for certain topics in the search engine. With the right topic selection and keyword plan, it is not difficult to produce blog content that appeals to your target audience. But without SEO, that content may not reach anyone!

SEO, short for search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing sites and content in accordance with the algorithms of Google and other search engines. Google welcomes billions of visitors every day, and users who want to get information about something or buy a product have a certain behavioral tendency. And that is to click on the result on the first page, or even in the first row!

Around 35% of users click on the first result, while 17% click on the second result. The total share of results on the second page and beyond is not even 10%. The takeaway here is that there is fierce competition in content marketing. In this competition, you can only survive with SEO. 

Source: SmartInsights

How should SEO compatible content be?

The main criteria to be considered in SEO compatible content marketing are as follows: 

• You should choose a good headline (but never a clickbait one, i.e. one that misleads the user). Apart from the title, the description, "Meta Description", which is the preview of the content on Google, should also be prepared correctly. 
• Conduct keyword research from premium SEO services such as Semrush or Ahrefs. Use keywords in the right proportion and never overwhelm the reader.
• Plan the h tags, i.e. the heading hierarchy, correctly.
• Be sure to use on-site and off-site links. 
• Increase the readability of the content by using bulleting, listing.
• Support the spread of content by placing social sharing buttons.
• Enrich the content by adding graphics, videos.

The methods and suggestions for producing SEO-compatible content can be extended. But the main conclusion you need to draw here is a good user experience. The best content is not the longest content. "Time on page", which you can access through analysis tools such as Google Analytics, is the basic metric to measure satisfaction. 

If a content page has a low bounce rate and a long dwell time, readers are finding what they are looking for on that page. However, if this data shows otherwise, you should definitely make a proper self-criticism. In SEO, the authority of the site is important as well as the strength of the content. For example, if the page opens slowly for technical reasons or does not have an SSL certificate, it can be a minus point. Therefore, an integrated approach is required on the SEO front. When you have strong content and an effective search engine optimization setup, it is no surprise that you will get great results.

The future of content marketing: Artificial intelligence and other trends

Content marketing has been a concept that has changed itself from yesterday to today. In the late 1800s, a tractor brand managed to reach millions by publishing a magazine. As we move into the 2030s, concepts such as artificial intelligence have become part of the content marketing process. The type of devices accessing the internet and content consumption habits laid the foundation for new approaches to digital marketing. So what kind of a world awaits us in the future?

• Mobile-focused content production is more important than ever. Mobile devices account for 60 percent of the world's internet traffic, and by 2025, over 1 billion devices are expected to be connected to the internet via 5G, increasing this rate (Whatsthebigdata)
• Video content production: The momentum of video content will increase, not decrease. Especially the vertical video format has been fully adopted across all channels. Reels, Shorts or TikTok, whatever you call it, shooting videos with this format will provide a serious profit for all brands.
• Artificial intelligence: Producing content with both artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is becoming commonplace. OpenAI's popular language model ChatGPT already has more than 180 million users, according to NamePepper!
• Blockchain: The concept of the Metaverse is perhaps not as exciting as it first sounded. But the next wave could see virtual reality and content marketing meet again...

In addition, the importance of personalized and interactive content will increase and different trends will enter our lives. But the one thing that remains constant is that the content marketing model is one of the most important forces for brands.