Have you ever wondered why there has been an explosion in the number of blogs over the last five or six years? Content marketing, that’s why. Blogging, whether by intention or accident, is a powerful form of content marketing. Here’s what content marketing looks like to me:
Share your intellectual process
Through content marketing, potential business partners and clients have an opportunity to get to know you and the way you think before you start doing business together.
More traditional marketing and sales processes win the business and then get to know each other – which may not work out so well.
Manage and multiply your time
Think about it this way: The time you spend writing a single blog post is typically less time than you would spend on a single initial sales call. Yet, a single blog post has the potential to reach thousands of potential clients. Add to that the power of your body of work (months or even years of archived blog posts) and you have differentiated yourself from any competition.
Stand out from the crowd
If you and your competitors are utilizing content marketing, you’re helping each other and potential clients. Continue to write authentically about how you view the world and how you solve problems and you will never be confused with others in your industry. You won’t win all the business you pursue. You will, however, win business from the people you are best suited to work with to do work you are best suited to complete.
It’s precisely because of this win-win dynamic that content marketing is successful and growing.