Every day consumers are bombarded by standard banner advertising, to the point wherein browsers can be ‘banner blind’ and ignore advertisements (Lee & Cho, 2010) This change in customer preference has lead to 9 out of 10 organisations going beyond traditional advertising and instead enhancing brands by publishing relevant information, ideas and entertainment that customers value (Justkowitz, 2014)
The New York Times also announced recently that readers spend roughly the same amount of time on advertiser sponsored posts as on traditional news stories indicating the value of ‘telling a story’ with your brand instead of merely a static advertisement (Tadena, 2015)
So, my dear small business owner – I bet after all these juicy statistics you’re wondering how you can utilise content marketing? According to Harad (2013) the majority of content marketing can be loosely classified into these three areas;
To Educate
Rendering of a complex concept into a more easily digested package, an example of this could be a ‘How-to” Blog post or an instructional video.
To Inform
To present a perspective on a subject, good examples of this could be a company blog based upon activities a company is undertaking.
To Entertain
Content that provides enjoyment, a great example of this would be a humorous picture posted by a company on social media.