Did you know content marketing is not a new concept?
In 1900 Michelin created the Michelin Guide. This is an actual book of content that was used to inform and educate customers. They created a value to customers and potential customers, which in turn created trust. The books included ways to maintain your car as well as travel tips and help.
Jell-O had an earlier start with their book of recipes in 1906. This may have been recipes they created or recipes from their customers. The effort helped Jell-O push their sales to over $1 million, which was quite an accomplishment at that time.
So, what’s different about today’s “Content Marketing?”
- The scale of how many people you can reach and how fast. The internet has made it easy to reach millions of people with out ever leaving your office. In the early 1900’s marketers were limited by distribution, how to get their books to the general public.
- The cost of producing content is much lower. With the internet, there’s no printing cost, no shipping cost and no inventory to try to move. You can produce content yourself and the only cost is your time. Of course time is money, so if you don’t have the time you can pay someone like us to create great content at a fraction of the cost of a producing a book.
- Search brings your customers to you. With the invention of the search engine, it is now possible to get your product in front of people exactly when they are looking for it. The original guides and recipe books may have sat on shelves for months until someone found them or the right person walked past the shelf where they were.
The big question: Why should YOU use Content Marketing?
- Content marketing is a great way to build trust with your customers and potential customers. Just thing about the Michelin Guides. If I’m an avid user of the guide books. I’ve seen that the tips they’ve given me about lodging, or the best tourist sites in Vancouver. Plus, I found great tips for taking care of my car during the long drive to get there. What company do you think will be top of mind when I need tires?
- Plus, when you start creating great content around your products and services, the search engines will start showing your content to searchers when they are looking for services and products like yours. This gives you exposure and because you created useful interesting content people are more likely to read your content as well as share it. This will keep them coming back and build the trust that makes them think of your company when they are ready to buy.
