What is Content Marketing & Why Use it

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing has become such a popular trend.   You can't really read about anything in the industry without hearing about content marketing.  But before diving into the marketing industry’s favorite marketing buzzword, let’s start with a definition:
​
Content marketing (n.): The use of storytelling to build relationships with consumers by providing them with something entertaining or useful.

Why use Content Marketing?  

1.  First, from experience you should should use content marketing because it works.
2. Second: People love stories.   Companies have realized that telling stories that people actively want to watch, read, and listen to is way more efficient and effective than traditional advertising—in the moment, but especially in the long term.
3.  Third: Its a great long term strategy.   The content that you produce, publish, and share stays out there long after any sort of paid ad promotions go away.  

Not convinced yet.  Here's some statistics about alternatives to content marketing and their effectiveness:

• Standard banner ads on the Internet have a .12 percent click-through rate (CTR). (eMarketer)
• Adblocking is growing 41 percent year over year. (PageFair)
• 56 percent of display ads are never seen by humans—only by robots. (AdAge)
• 8.2 percent of people cut cable in 2014. (TechCrunch)
• 86 percent of consumers exhibit banner blindness, unable to recall the last banner ad they saw. (Adotas)
• You’re more likely to survive a plane crash or join the Navy SEALs than click on a banner ad. (HubSpot)

​
Now consider these statistics about content marketing:

• 75 percent of marketers generated positive returns from content marketing. (AdAge)
• Marketers who publish a blog are 13 times more likely to have a positive ROI. (HubSpot)
• 78 percent of CMOs think custom content is the future of marketing. (Demand Metric)
• 74 percent of readers trust educational content from brands—as long as it doesn’t push a sale. (Kentico)
• Kraft generates the equivalent of 1.1 billion ad impressions a year and a four-times-better ROI through content marketing than through targeted advertising. (AdAge)
• 77 percent of B2C marketers and 76 percent of B2B marketers say they’ll create more content in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute)

The proof is in the data above: Content marketing simply works.  Want to learn more?  Contact us today at Banyan Creative and we can help you develop the right content for your consumers.     

---