The Demystification of Content Marketing: A Field Guide [Infographic]

If you asked 100 marketers to answer the question “What is content marketing?” you would get more than 100 answers. On a personal level, creating content to help drive our business has been successful beyond our wildest dreams. Besides being the engine that drives our sales, we’ve been able to help tens of thousands of real estate agents and brokers become better marketers as a result of the content we create. Take a look at our Real Estate Marketing Academy to get a taste of what that looks like. This entire process has inspired me on a journey to fully understand the different flavors of content marketing and how they work together. While many marketers think content marketing is just blogging, or talk about it in terms of paid, owned and earned media, I think businesses just want to know how to use content to efficiently drive sales.

When you dive deeper, you discover that there’s so much more than just ringing the register. Great content marketing is all about creating useful and meaningful experiences in a brand’s voice to attract, engage and inspire target customers through the buying cycle, from awareness to purchase to advocacy. Content can sway opinions, provide a helping hand with customer support and build relationships with people who don’t yet know you exist. There’s no need to agree with me on the definition of content marketing. We can just agree that it really works.

Let us know what you think of these definitions. Do they work for you? Are you utilizing some or all of them? I’d love to hear about your personal experiences. You can comment below, send me an e-mail or find me on Twitter at @sethstuff.

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