Content Marketing: The Ultimate Guide (2021)

If we say ‘Content Marketing’ is the backbone of digital marketing, it isn’t fabricated at all. 

Content Marketing, certainly, is the spine of online marketing. It plays a vital role in channeling the online traffic to the respective brands and converting them into customers.

According to one of the most powerful media of digital marketing, Semrush suggest the following comparative value of content marketing in numbers:

• Content marketing provides 97 percent more backlinks.
• It brings 55 percent more traffic.
• It indexes 434 percent more pages on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
• Content Marketing costs more than 60 percent lesser than traditional marketing.
• Content Marketing has 13 times more potential to generate ROI.
• It directs five times more leads. 

The above-mentioned statistics are brazen proof that Content Marketing offers more potential branding and marketing opportunities to businesses as compared to any other marketing media.

The effective, valuable, appropriate, and targeted content can improve online reputation, increase visibility, enhance customer engagement, and grow a community around the brands and businesses.

What is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is a form of online marketing. It is the type of inbound marketing that involves the whole process of planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing the relevant and targeted informational as well as promotional content that brings brand awareness, enhances visibility, draws more traffic, increases sales, reaches to more audiences, improves customer engagements, interactions, and loyalty.

Content Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is a holistic approach to new-age marketing that uses digital platforms to market the product, perspective, service, brand, personality, or any. It can be outbound or inbound. 

In general, digital marketing is a term often used for online marketing. 

Content marketing is a subset of online digital marketing.

The other components of online marketing include Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Digital Branding, Affiliate Marketing, and Email Marketing.

Content Marketing, one way or another, plays quite a critical role in every type of online or offline marketing.

What Does Content Marketing Mean In 2021?

After the COVID-19, the world isn’t the same, the economy isn’t the same, society isn’t the same, so does the business processes anywhere across the industries. The post-pandemic universe is more connected through the internet and social media cords. For all their needs, their strings are attached to their digital devices hence the need for the variety of content to address the concerns of the people in their language, in their ways, and in the ways that convert them into customers are changing the landscapes of inbound marketing.

Content is required in a way that without developing the idea of intrusion conveys the marketing messages in the forms of education, information, instructions, and awareness. 

The businesses need effective and informational content in every form that their customers, leads, and audience are looking for in the digital spaces. This content must have the ability to reach out to their audience through organic and natural means and influence them without disrupting their needs.

Harnessing the power of Content Marketing along with other marketing channels helps the online marketing teams and managers to increase conversions, improve brand awareness, boost revenue, lead tracks, and more.

The Different Types of Content Marketing

Content is required for any of the online or offline marketing media. Characters, Letters, Words, Sentences, Paragraphs, Languages, etc.—these are all the weapons in the arsenal that are required to win the battle of winning over the customer and provide them the brand awareness in the forms of education, information, or entertainment. 

These are some of the most common types of content marketing that have their structures, challenges, advantages, restrictions, and liberties that cater to the audiences of the respective platforms:

1) Blogging

This is the most known, most common, and most powerful type of content marketing. 

It is a type of inbound content that allows room, creativity, and efficiency to the content creators to address the topic, purpose, and concern to their audience, effectively.

Blogs are the online pages of the digital or online notebook that lets you say everything, décor it with tools like links to other sites or blogs, social share buttons, images, videos, and more.

These are the one-stop platforms that can accommodate a range of media—from text and quotes to images and videos to comments and feedback.

Today, blogging exists in many forms. From the marketing perspective, it can broadly be categorized into:

• • On-page Blogging
  • Off-page Blogging
  • Guest Blogging
  • Link-Building Blogging
  • E-Books Blogging

2) Social Media

It is the second-most important type of content marketing. As many as social networking platforms are, as many are the types and tones of the social media content marketing types exist.

The content marketing tips, tricks, and strategies for social media are different from the content marketing campaigning for Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Snapchat, or any.

Social networking sites draw more traffic than any other medium and this is why these are the most effective as well as attractive platforms and businesses from across the industries and of all sizes invest hugely in social media marketing.

Short and crispy text, long paragraphs, essays, documents, slideshows, tabular data, images, videos, infographics, boomerang, etc.—content on social media exists in all forms.

3) Infographics

The visual display of the content is infographics. 

Infographics contain information, numbers, facts, and images in logical and graphical format.

It contains crisp slogans, short sentences, digits, vivid images, demonstrative illustrations, or workflow diagrams that together effectively not only communicate,  they also summarize the information.

4) Podcast

What in earlier days the radio writing and marketing was, is called podcast content marketing in 2020—2021. Reading requires active attention. When we are busy and cannot pay attention to reading, we go for listening.

Studies suggest more than 30 percent of the U.S adults listen to the podcast every day while they are traveling, cooking, gardening, driving, or doing any other job.

Podcasts are a huge marketing opportunity as disseminating messages through a listening platform is easier. Podcasts can be run 24/7/365. They are available as a short series of few episodes or are channelized as the long episodes of a few days.

Based on the purpose, audience, and marketing strategy, content for the podcasts can be created and communicated, effectively.

5) Video 

Today, marketers are agreed that video marketing is the most effective marketing. Video content marketing efficiently works behind success while materializing the convenience of communication through visual means.

Short platonic videos, infographics videos, step-by-step guide videos, or any—all sorts of video content marketing are popular these days.

6) Website Content Marketing or Copywriting

Technically, copywriting is totally a different field, however, online marketing blurs the lines of content marketing for websites and copywriting. It includes writing for websites, landing pages, product descriptions, reviews writing, newsletters, on-page guides, documenting knowledge base, and more.

7) Email

Email marketing is a different type of online marketing and has so many other dynamics that are a separate topic to discuss, but the journey of email marketing also begins with the content. Email templating to personalized emails to professional B2B emails, all are examples of email content marketing.

8) Paid Ad 

Search engine, social media, or digital branding—ads are everywhere with slogans, images, videos, and illustrations. These paid ads are examples of the digital age copy which is a potpourri of all the multimedia ingredients.

How to Promote Content in 2021

Creating content is super easy, but it will take time and, of course, a tedious task when you promote in front of thousands of people.

If you have a question like “Why should I promote content in 2021?” then the most straightforward answer is you will get thousands of traffic, shares and FREE links.

Here are the most popular promotion techniques that I used to promote every blog this year.

1) Collaborate with influencers:

Why you should start with influencers because they have a pre-built audience into the niche.

Let’s take an example: When you create a fantastic guide about SEO and if you want to promote that in front of thousands of eyes.

But your fan following is not that much. You have to collaborate with some SEO guys who have thousands plus Facebook page likes, Twitter followers and linkedIn family.

They will share your content on different social media and you will get tons of traffic.

2) Ping journalists about your research content:

If you are writing something on research, find the publications or journalists and ask them questions about what they will cover in future blogs. Write down answers to their problems and share them with them.

This technique can help you to build high-quality links for your blog.

3) Content Repurpose:

If you have written an excellent listicle article, then you can repurpose your content in infographics, podcasts, PDF, PPT or Video.

This will help you to attract more visitors from different channels.

4) Share on Social Media:

Social Media is an untapped source of traffic. You can share it on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

5) Send an email to your list:

If you have built the email list in your niche, then you can broadcast your newsletter within 1 minute and announce something big you have published.

This can grow your traffic instantly and get more social shares free of cost.

6) Paid promotion:

FREE traffic is always good but sometimes paid is better. If you want instant traffic on your blog, you can’t wait for Google because it takes time.

You can get targeted traffic from Facebook ads or Instagram ads.

The Content Marketing Trends in 2021 

The latest trends in content marketing suggest pushing actions and attention in certain areas that are insanely serving the goals and are producing marketing and sales results for all the brands and businesses across the industries. Some of the leading content marketing trends for 2020—2021 are:

• Videos
• Content Repurposing
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Guest Blogging
• How-to Guides
• LinkedIn Blogging
• Informational Blogging On Emerging Topics

The Content Marketing Management

Content Marketing Management involves a two-step organization and control. These are:

• Selection of content marketing automation and management platforms
• Devising an effective content marketing strategy

The marketing automation and management tools like HubSpot, InfusionSoft, ActiveCampaign, Buzzsumo, Clickfunnels, Zoho Social, Mash Share, and others are some of the great content marketing management tools that serve other types of inbound marketing management as well and streamline the whole landscape of online marketing.

The other important factor that influences most content marketing management deals with the content marketing strategy.

The content marketing management tools help devise and channel the content marketing strategy, but it is the content creator or content marketer who must have the knowledge, experience, and flair for the product, platform, and performing indicators.

The robust content marketing campaign requires the following step-by-step strategy to measure, monitor, and manage the health and the performance of the content:

• Setting up the time-bound, specific, quantified, and logical goals.
• Selecting the appropriate channels for the content marketing.
• Identifying the content types based on the needs and interests of the audience.
• Sieving the best tools and resources.
• Identifying the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Setting the budgets.
• Creating, recreating, or repurposing the content.
• Measuring and analyzing the impact.
• Optimizing the content.