Content Marketing vs. Content Strategy: What’s the Difference?

These days, content marketing is a popular term buzzing around the business world. The idea behind content marketing is simple and effective: rather than bombarding your audience with traditional advertising, you create meaningful, educational content aligned with your messaging to draw them to your brand. The key is that the content is formulated to inform and entertain the consumer while presenting your company or brand as an appealing source of this information. Studies show by and large that customers want to know more about the businesses they choose to give their money to, and content marketing is an important step in achieving this goal. But, there’s another phrase that is talked about often: Content strategy. Content Marketing vs. Content Strategy: What’s the difference?

Types of Content Marketing Explained

The most common types of content marketing include:

Blog Posts: Having a blog page on your website that you consistently post to is an invaluable form of content marketing. Using SEO means customers will more easily find your content, leading them to a potential conversion to sales.

Webinars: Studies show that most customers want to see videos from the companies they trust. A great introduction to video marketing is the webinar, wherein you act as the expert on a certain topic relevant to your industry. Providing useful, instructional content is sure to bring views and eyes to your products.

Expert Interviews: Interviews are an evergreen source of collaborative content marketing. Interviewing a leader in your industry about a relevant topic provides engaging content as well as an incentive for the interviewee through additional press coverage. And all of this means more eyes on your brand!

PDFs or E-books: An educational PDF or e-book is a great marketing tool, particularly if you’re looking to generate leads for a future marketing campaign. Having it at the ready in exchange for signing up for an email list is a great incentive. Useful content includes how-to’s or guides relevant to your industry.

Content Marketing vs. Content Strategy

If content marketing is the content, content strategy is how you use it. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending time and effort making a great piece of content, only to have nobody see it. A content strategy ensures there’s a process for putting the right content in front of the right audience so that your work doesn’t go unseen. In fact, a content strategy can include ways of recycling your content strategically in order to save you time and maximize the return.

Placing yourself in the shoes of your potential customers and asking their questions like…

• “What sets this company apart?”
• “Why should I choose them?”

…will help guide your overall strategy. Create content to answer these questions, then a strategy on getting it to your customers. General strategy tactics include:

• Tracking success by doing A/B testing
• Ensure any visits to individual pieces of content have a clear path to your website, social media, product pages, or subscriber options.
• Streamlining content so that you can maximize its use across platforms – i.e. an email becomes a blog becomes a social media post.

Your content strategy will be unique to your company and your goals. Taking the time to outline a general strategic plan will ensure your hard work doesn’t go to waste.

Need help getting started with content marketing and a solid content strategy? Learn more about how we can help you build a content machine that will provide ongoing content to continue to build relationships with other businesses, establish your company as a thought leader, increase your brand awareness, and much more!