What is content marketing? Content marketing involves the development and distribution of relevant, informative, and consistently engaging content that conforms to journalistic standards in order to attract and engage a brand’s target audience. The goal is to build brand authority and foster customer loyalty.

How does content marketing work? Brands use content marketing to its audience through a variety of media formats, such as blog posts, articles, infographics, videos, and podcasts. Distribution channels include: branded websites, social media, email/newsletters, YouTube and more.

How to measure content marketing:

Content marketing can be measured according to:

• Website traffic: The number of visitors to your website.
• Lead generation: The number of leads generated from your content.
• Sales: The number of sales generated from your content.
• Customer engagement: The number of people who interact with your content, such as by sharing it or commenting on it.
• Customer retention: The percentage of customers who continue to do business with you after consuming your content.

Why is content marketing important to marketers? Content marketing provides engaging information to a brand’s customer base that inspires trust and credibility in the marketplace. It’s a soft sell, not a hard one and it takes some time to demonstrate effectiveness. However its use can differentiate a brand more than any other kind of marketing, even as it provides traditional benefits like generating leads, driving sales, and improving customer retention.

Who needs to know what content marketing is:

• Digital marketing manager
• Paid search specialist
• Social media manager
• Content marketing manager
• Affiliate manager
• E-commerce manager
• Product manager
• Marketing analyst
• Brand manager

Use content marketing in a sentence: “The benefits of Content Marketing are truly unique: you get to talk directly to your desired audience and the market you operate in. And it’s all based on "why," “how,” and "purpose" instead of just sales and transactions.”