The Core Elements of Online Content Marketing

Today’s internet business is all about delivering quality content in hopes that the consumer will be impressed enough to want to open up their wallets and spend their hard earned money. It is now a well-known fact that content marketing is among the most effective ways to promote your business, but what type of content offers the biggest bang for your marketing buck? That really all depends on what it is that you are trying to sell, but essentially it all boils down to 5 core elements that are very much the glue that holds content marketing together.

1. Blogging – The trend that seems to have been picked up by everyone and their dog has become so popular that businesses are fully embracing it. Adding a blog to the main business website generally translates into more visitors and sales. Selling is all about building trust and creating a relationship of sorts with the consumer, and there is no better way to do that than via a blog. You can provide entertaining, informative content that your visitors and the search engines are sure to eat up.
2. E-Books & Whitepapers – There are just some things that cannot be neatly summed up in a 500-word article, which is where e-books and whitepapers come into the picture. Rather than essentially scratching the surface of a given topic, these allow the author to go into greater detail, which is often required when trying to show off a new product or service. As such, businesses will often give these away to customers for free, all in the hopes that learning more about what they have to offer will mean that the visitor will come back and make a purchase.
3. Webinars & Webcasts – There are few things that build excitement and capture the imagination in the way that a live event does. While obviously not at rock concert level, a live online webinar is a fantastic way to launch a product and build a huge amount of buzz in your chosen industry. Of course, not everyone can make it along to a live event, and that is where the webcast is delivered to appease everyone else. This is usually in a downloadable format that the consumer can watch whenever they have the time to do so.
4. Video – If you perform a search on Google or any of the other major search engines right now, you will likely find that results for videos very often appear at the top of the results. Video is a fantastic way to connect with the customer, and with the proliferation of cameras on mobile devices, is quickly becoming the way in which the masses get information.
5. E-Mail – Perhaps the oldest, but still one of the best ways to market your business to the masses. Being able to deliver content and other info about your business to thousands of people via a single e-mail is a marketing option that is hard to beat.

Mark Ford is the Owner of Red Website Design – One of the UK’s leading website design and internet marketing companies.