What Is Content Marketing?

You may have heard about content marketing, but you’re not sure what it is or how/if it works. For businesses trying to keep up with consumer buying habits and trends, marketing can feel like a moving target. Content marketing is more than just a new approach. It is a way of thinking about marketing that can set your business apart from the rest of the crowd. In the following paragraphs I’ll share the basic idea of content marketing and why it’s such a powerful and essential marketing tool.

It’s About Sharing Valuable Ideas

Content marketing is not a new concept. It’s actually been around for as long as humans have been able to share and convey ideas. Imagine a more primitive time, when people were first discovering how to start a fire, or build a shelter, or build a weapon for hunting animals, in a world where humans hadn’t yet learned these skills. This is highly valuable information and the value of that information would be attributed to the individual who shared it. What makes this information valuable? At their core, these skills increase chances of survival.

Value Comes In Many Shapes and Sizes

In today’s world, people are still looking for the same thing, but they come in many different forms. Learning a new skill can increase your ability to make money, which keeps food on the table and a roof overhead. In addition, information that is considered valuable no longer has to directly meet a basic human need. Sometimes the value of something lies in its ability to provide comfort, entertainment, or inspiration.

If Something You Do or Say Makes Another Person’s Life Better, It’s Valuable

In its most basic form, content marketing is simply the public sharing of valuable information. In fact, people are constantly sharing valuable information without knowingly or intentionally doing so. Anytime a person shares an entertaining video, that’s value. Anytime someone shares an inspiring thought, that’s value. Anytime someone shares something they’ve learned, that’s value. The ones who learn how to share value intentionally and strategically have more control over how their audience responds to the value they are providing.

We Naturally Want to Avoid Social Indebtedness

In Robert Cialdini’s book, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” he talks about a social rule called “The Rule of Reciprocity.” This rule states that when one person gives a gift to another, the recipient feels social pressure to return the favor, not just in kind, but beyond the value of the original gift. Indebtedness has negative social implications for the individual, so we will go out of our way to make sure that we are not in any way perceived as being indebted to another. Certainly there are people who seem immune to this principle, but generally speaking, this is a rule most people follow. You can probably recall an instance where you have been subject to this rule and carried it out in your own relationships. Content marketing works because of this rule.

Sharing Value Consistently is Attractive

Regardless of what industry you’re in, if you provide something of value with no strings attached and you do that consistently, over time people will feel indebted to you and compelled to return the favor. Let’s go back to the more primitive world. Imagine that the person who discovered the ability to make fire had a way to share that knowledge with every other person on the planet. Then, the following week, that person shared a new technique for making shelter. Then, the week after that, they shared how to make a weapon for hunting and killing food. This individual would have the attention of every person on the planet. They would probably be granted special protection because the crowd would want to make sure nothing came between this person and their ability to share their next valuable idea. People would be on the edge of their seats, waiting for

The Givers Win in the Long Run

In today’s world, we have this kind of unprecedented access to people and the ability to share information with the world. People recognize the givers and value providers. They stand out in the crowd of marketers, advertiser, and takers. The givers of value are a light that consumers flock to. The givers of value are the ones who get people’s attention. Once you have people’s attention, there is strategy involved in how and when to deliver value and get your return on that investment most effectively, but the core principle for content marketing is the sharing of free, valuable information up-front. You want to be seen as the giver.

The 3 fundamental questions you want to be able to answer “yes” to when determining what to share for content marketing are these:

1. Is what I’m sharing valuable for my audience?
2. Does what I’m sharing reach my audience where they are?
3. When my audience sees what I’m sharing, will they see me as a giver?

I hope this understanding of content marketing, and these three simple questions give you the foundation you need to be a more effective content marketer, one who attracts the attention of others because you are seen as a giver, and one who provides the kind of value that builds an audience of people compelled to return the favor.