What Is Content Marketing and Why Does It Matter?

Content marketing has become more than just a buzzword, it's all anyone's talking about in marketing everywhere you turn. It's not new, some companies have been doing it for decades, everyone else just came in late to the game and realized with the abundance of social media, it's become critical to create and share VALUABLE (key word here, folks) content. 

Content marketing can fit into almost industry, as well as B2B vs B2C. Everyone's tired of advertising, they want valuable information that may not even be just about you and your company alone. 

It's a great way to attract new or current customers if you're creating content they consume and use, plus it's owned media, not paid media (unless you count hiring copywriters, etc). Content is absolutely the present of marketing and it's only going to get bigger. Customers would rather visit your Facebook page or blog where you're talking about a variety of topics relevant to your industry but not necessarily your company than visit your website alone. It's almost impossible to have an engaging social media strategy without planning a great content marketing strategy alongside it, which can overlap into other channels as well. 

If you haven't yet gotten into content marketing & strategizing based on what your customers want and need, not just what you think they want - it's time to make the switch.

Omni-Channel Is Everything

Content strategy is important. Email marketing is important. So is your social media strategy. Your web & mobile strategy is too. BUT the newest and most important one is going to be your omni-channel marketing and strategy.

Omni-channel is important because the customer's experience needs to be seamless no matter what channel they're on, and it needs to make sense on various channels as well, whether their journey starts with a TV ad, a tweet, walking into your store or downloading your app. Customers are exploring multiple channels when they make decisions, I find this is extremely apparent when they're booking a vacation or searching something travel-related and it makes sense. 

Say you want to book a vacation, you don't know where. As a woman, I may start by searching on Pinterest for gorgeous vacation locations, where I find myself inspired by some photos, which I click on. I then travel to a blog talking about their favorite destinations, perhaps offering tips on which hotels to book, what restaurants to try. As a millennial, I then turn to twitter, where I tweet said vacation destination asking for tips and I also search those talking about it as well as hotel twitters and social media accounts to browse their photos... If those photos aren't engaging enough I may move on to the next hotel, if they are, I'll be clicking to their hotel website next - and if I don't find an engaging website on my tablet, it's over. 


Bottom line, there is a plethora of ways your potential customer can get to you, and you need to be prepared on all fronts, with a strategy on each channel that offers a similar experience that's going to make a positive influence on them.

The Year of The Visual

I've begun to notice a shift... a big one too. Long gone are the days of images being upload to Facebook, and hours upon hours spent only on Facebook to find anything and everything. The younger generation has left Facebook in the dust, and fast.

It's a great thing they acquired Instagram, otherwise they'd be in real trouble. The younger generation usually seems to become enamored with a new app/social media channel quickly, then all of a sudden you hear it's the new "place to be".

I'm not sure if Facebook's focus on imagery wasn't enough, or if we've all become so overloaded by information and status updates that we want to get back to the time where a picture was worth 1,000 words! Between Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat, if you're not collecting inspiring visuals and focusing on image-heavy content... you're doing it wrong.

Eventually, there will be another new and hipper channel (videos? wearables?) but for now, images rule the web.. and for good reason too!

2014 Digital Predictions

The Digital Marketing/Digital Advertising Field is constantly changing and evolving, especially lately. Earlier last year I decided to take a look at all 2014 trends that seemed to be emerging, as it's become apparent for certain industries that the marketing game is changing (if you hadn't already noticed) and everyone needs to shape up or ship out.

Social Media used to be quite the joke, and now it's finally emerged as a a revenue-generating channel, as well as one that's great at conversion assists. Content marketing has also become the latest revenue-generating fad over traditional online advertising, as it's much more helpful with conversions.

Mobile and tablets haven't come out of nowhere, but it seems that mobile and tablet conversions will skyrocket this year, as consumers have all felt comfortable enough to begin researching and purchasing on their devices, thanks to enhanced websites that are mobile-friendly, and reward programs such as Starbucks that allows them to pay through phones.

Take a look at the other predictions below, do you agree?