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What is content Marketing?

04.12.2015 by Adam //

Consumers have shut off the traditional world of marketing. They own a DVR to skip television advertising, often ignore magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online “surfing” that they can take in online information without a care for banners or buttons (making them irrelevant).

Smart marketers understand that traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute, and that there has to be a better way.

You’ve just heard someone mention “content marketing” and you get the idea you should already know what it is, but you’re too embarrassed to ask anyone. Congratulations, this post is for you.

But what exactly is content marketing?

The Content Marketing Institute, an online resource for information on all things content marketing related, defines content marketing thusly:

Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media, not renting it.

The key word here is “valuable.” It’s what changes this definition from one that could describe almost any form of advertising or marketing. You can tell if a piece of content is the sort that could be part of a content marketing campaign if people seek it out, if people want to consume it, rather than avoiding it.

Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.

However, the definition of content marketing further depends on your viewpoint and background. A B2B marketer, looking to generate and nurture leads, for instance, might look differently at it than a brand marketer, looking to cause a shift of brand perception, or a search engine optimization practitioner, trying to increase organic ranking of content in search engines. Moreover, the rules of good content marketing and essential strategies and principles are very much alike in most cases.

In fact, at the basis, content marketing is a customer-centric and integrated approach, part of a broader marketing view.

One of the key similarities in all the different ways of looking at content in marketing is that the customer experience and needs, preferences and questions of people and so-called target audiences are at the center.

At this point, despite this definition and explanation, you’re probably still wondering what exactly content marketing is. We can get more clarity by considering a few examples.

Infographics
Webpages
Podcasts
Videos
Books

Learn more on: Forbes.com

Entrepreneurship: The next “big-thing”

04.11.2015 by Adam //

Well if you think of it, you can actually formulate your own ideas on what is going to be the next “big thing”. Personally, I would like to see those future cars in the movie, flying and having their hyper-drive. This might sound silly today but we might not know the possibility considering the evolution of today’s technologies.

Moreover, I also found out this interesting thread and selected some of Stefan Von Imhof’s answers on Quora, he said:

There’s nothing I love more than thinking, talking & writing about the future. Here’s a list of some things I’m excited to see develop in the near future & over the longer-term, along with my predictions for when each will start to happen.

Next 2-5 years:

Augmented Reality I’ll start here because it’s the obvious choice. Google Glass, mobile apps, etc. A ton of chatter, but certainly also a ton of opportunity.

Wireless Power We still have way too many cords, cables, and electronic devices that need to be physically plugged in or connected. This doesn’t need to be the case, and is a big enough pain in the ass that the market should step in soon. The technology already exists. I don’t know all the ins & outs, but this seems like a big opportunity not many people are talking about.
Internet of Things: This is an old idea but it’s gained a lot of traction recently, because it’s a good one. Connecting & linking not just computers, phones and tablets, but all of our devices through the cloud. Fridges, remote-locking mechanisms, coffee-makers, etc. Most consumer products can be Internet-enabled for less than $20. The only thing holding it back is the fact that the management infrastructure is not in place yet. We’ll need ways to manage and utilize these networks of smart devices and objects that are in our homes and lives. This is an area that is very fragmented – yet any widely utilized application or platform will need to work across many different devices, platforms and suppliers. Many companies in the cloud storage/data management space are in a good position here.

~5-7 years:

Graphene No nano-material is thinner or stronger than this stuff. We just need to figure out how to affix it to other materials and an entire new world opens right up.

Mobile Payments I still can’t believe this hasn’t taken off in the US. With rapid evolution of mobile phones, there is such a big opportunity for replacing money transactions with either an existing, or a new form of electronic currency on a very wide basis. Of course there are lots of examples of both alternative currencies and mobile payment systems today – but they are all still based around credit cards, bank accounts, etc. What we need is a whole new protocol. No one seems to have hit upon a business model that is universal and popular enough to displace physical money. And whatever emerges could replace a lot of conventional advertising as well.

~7-10 years:

Driverless Cars Plenty has been said about this already. The technology is already here, but it will take time to let the legislation/infrastructure/free market catch up.
3D Printing

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