What Is Content Marketing?

I FIT IT IN WHEN I CAN

There’s a lot of talk these days about Content, Content Marketing and Content Strategy, isn’t there? You’re busy, so it’s easy to ignore the formality of it. You write what you can, when you can, about what you know.

Isn’t it enough that you are squirreling away enough time now and then to produce something thoughtful about a topic that has been on your mind lately, or that is being discussed by the masses?

In a recent post on pipelinetorque called Adding Value To Your Content Strategy, one line stood out among others to me:

“Content can’t be done right if it’s being done in someone’s spare time.”

THINK ABOUT IT. ISN’T THAT TRUE?

This is your practice we are talking about, which is your business that you are out there managing every day. When you work on client projects, you are deliberate about your actions, know your deadlines, work toward solving or avoiding their challenges, and produce what will help your clients. You care about the quality of your work.

Why? Because it matters, that’s why. If you don’t care, and aren’t this deliberate about your work product, then your clients won’t care either. They will identify you with the output you provide, even if that’s sub-standard, and you will be hard-pressed to change their minds once they have lost confidence in you.

Content Marketing is much the same. Marketing and business development are a part of your job, just like paying the heat, AC, gas, electric, making sure your roof does’t leak, your sign looks good, you and your people represent the firm and its brand, on and on.

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?

Content Marketing is essentially a timely, organized, focused, methodical brain dump of all of your most important thoughts and processes, produced and distributed in such a way as to inform your target audiences about what you do, help them think through their own situations, and remember you when they have a situation that matches your skills.

If you don’t take the strategy, development, production and distribution of your content seriously, then why should you expect others to take it seriously?

You need to fit it in.

Read more: 4 Scary Content Marketing Snafus That Can Hurt Your Business – And How to Avoid Them