A few weeks ago, I was working with a client on their new website blog and they asked me an interesting question.
“Can you give me a simple definition of what content marketing is?”
Honestly, I was a little stumped. I do content marketing all the time, but trying to define it in a few simple words was tough.
(And maybe that’s the way those fancy marketing people want it to be.)
For example, here is the definition of content marketing from the Content Marketing Institute:
“Content marketing is 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.”
Seriously. What does that even mean?
I spent a lot of time thinking about what I believe content marketing is really about.
Here is the simplest definition of content marketing I can come up with:
Content marketing is when you give something away that makes a person want more of what you have.
Does that make sense?
Notice how it has nothing to do with engagement, distribution, relevance or any other buzzword?
That’s because at the end of the day content marketing is basically a smaller version of what you offer if someone buys from you.
In the digital world, content marketing has gotten really confusing. Because it is so easy to write a blog, create a PDF ebook, to record a podcast or video, etc, people get overwhelmed by it all.
They get content fatigue; meaning they don’t care about you or what you’re selling anymore.
Free Gigs and Demo Tapes
Back before there was Y
If they were any good, and people started to listen to them, then producers would find out about them. Or sometimes, they could find a way to get a demo tape into the right hands and someone would become interested in signing them.
I think free gigs and demo tapes are a good analogy for how content marketing works.
By sharing your knowledge, solving people’s problems, and doing things that are engaging it’s similar to playing a lot of free gigs. Eventually, people will start to dig what you are laying down (so to speak) and you will get signed.
So let’s return to the simple definition of content marketing: give something away that makes a person want more of what you have.
If you follow this definition as your north star when creating a piece of content (written, video, audio, software, music, etc) then over time you will gain followers, and eventually, people who want to buy from you.
The reason why people don’t do content marketing well is that it’s hard. It’s hard to write things that are valuable. It’s hard to create videos and podcasts and music that are interesting, entertaining and make you want more. It’s easier to churn out junk and call it content. That’s why the whole topic is so confusing.
But, just like a new band, if you keep doing good content marketing, over time you’ll get a lot better.
And soon, you will find people asking for more of what you have.
–Daniel Midson-Short