Image credit: Illustration by Sam Manchester/The New York Times
Hello everyone. Here at Marketing Fundamentals Ltd we create Content Marketing for our Professional Services clients. Content Marketing is the creation of unique value added Content including blog posts, Social Media posts, white papers, infographics, slide share presentations, e-books, paperbacks and video posts to promote your company to potential customers. One question that has come up a few times in discussions is this, has Content Marketing replaced email? Or in my words, Did Content Marketing Kill Email Marketing? I want to state quite categorically that the answer to this is no. I want to say this even more emphatically – this Belgian Pop Duo has the right amount of emphasis – you can watch them here.
Primary Objective of Content Marketing
The primary objective of Content Marketing in the sectors we work is to build up rapport and a relationship with your potential customers. This is achieved through the creation and distribution of Content that your potential customers find valuable. Identify problems that your potential customers are having and offer them solutions via your Content. This is how you will build a relationship with them over time and they will become more predisposed to do business with you because in words most often attributed to Mark Twain*, “People buy from those that they know, like and trust.”
Content Marketing is Not Crystal Meth
Some business owners and marketers wrongly assume that one or two “hits” of great Content is enough for your potential customers to become hooked and rush into your offices to do business with you or purchase directly online. This is wrong – No Content Marketer is Walter White and Content Marketing is not Crystal Meth. Over time you build a relationship with your potential customers and at some point hopefully early on in the process they will feel comfortable enough to give you their email address.
The Beauty of Email Marketing
Permission based Email marketing has the advantage of being controllable to a greater degree that Content distributed purely by Social Media. You cannot guarantee that everyone saw your tweet or status update but you can get a clearer assessment of your audience’s behavioural responses to your messages with even the most basic email systems. So in many cases Content Marketing is an excellent partner to Email marketing. Really effective email campaigns contain great Content so the inter-relationship between the two is clear. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Content Marketing is only for front-line lead generation. It is also a great strategy for nurturing prospects within your email database and for delighting existing clients. Clearly, customer segmentation will play a part in your overall communications plan but delivering Content of genuine value will still be effective it’s just that the messaging will be different for each segment.
So there you have it. Content Marketing and Email Marketing are both alive and well and what’s more – they are working well together.
B2B Content Marketing Agency London
Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. I hope you have enjoyed this post.
If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation or have questions relating to Email Marketing give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com
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Best regards,
Mike Pitt
Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd
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* The ‘Know, like and trust’ quote has also been attributed to Bob Burg and Chris Brogan.
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