Content marketing is the new buzzword. Everyone is talking about it. But do you know what it means?
For some people, content marketing is about creating online content, slapping it on a website somewhere, building links to it, and sharing it on social media. I happen to think it’s a little more involved than that. This approach is sort of like looking for a spouse by going on as many dates as you can with as many people as you can and hoping that one of them proposes. They might, but would it be someone you’d like to marry?
Content marketing is really about two things – pushing and pulling.
The “push” is when you create content that you want to be seen. You put it on the Web and push it out. It can be on your blog or website or it can be a guest post somewhere. It might even be something you share on social media. But it’s something you distribute on the Web.
The “pull” is when you use your content to draw people back to your website’s landing pages in hopes of closing the sale. That requires that your content have some emotional appeal.
If you want people to move beyond your content to get to where you can close them on the sale, then you have to appeal to them emotionally. You need calls to action to get them to click your links and go to your sales pages. Then you need to impel them to buy. You have to pull the trigger. It’s not about links. It’s about making an emotional connection.