Content Strategy vs Content Marketing: Key Differentiators You Should Know
Content has many forms and is not restricted to the written one. For example, social media short videos are also a type of content, and podcasts are another.
Content serves many functions, marketing being one of them. It has been at the core of marketing strategies for many decades. The first content marketing example dates back to 1912. John Deere created a news magazine to offer information to farmers on the different equipment the company produced.
Of late, there have been many discussions among marketers on content strategy vs content marketing.
While both may seem similar, they are different at the core in many ways. Here, we will look at the difference between them in detail. Understanding the differences will help you improve the content and achieve your business goals.
Let’s start by looking at why you need content creation.
Need for Content: The Core of it All
What if you want to buy a new pair of heels for the Christmas party? What’s the first thing that comes to your mind?
To search for the best designs and deals across the internet, right?
Every user searches for specific information on the internet, which is then fulfilled by content put out by different businesses. The search term or keyword determines the topic of need. This is the point where you need content to let your audience know about the product or service that will solve their problem or need.
Thus, content has become key for every business looking to engage an audience and generate leads. However, the form and style of the content are constantly changing, and that is where strategy comes into play.
Now that you know why you need content and a strategy to market it, let’s understand content strategy as a process.
Content Strategy
A content strategy is a set of principles that you need to follow for the production, maintenance, and evaluation of your content. In layman’s terms, it offers guidelines to connect user requirements with organizational goals through engaging content.
It involves,
- Creation of a roadmap for content marketing efforts
- Defining different campaigns
- Strategies for driving traffic to your website
- Setting conversion goals
- Identification of key profiles for target marketing.
Content strategy is what helps in translating business goals into a marketing plan that leverages the creation of different forms of content. From auditing old content, governance, planning, production and marketing, content begins by creating a strategy.
However, the entire content marketing strategy vs content strategy discussion becomes more interesting when you understand how they overlap to create a content plan. It is a specific path that marketers follow with pre-defined goals, brand voice, and styling according to the audience.
This leads us to the other contributing element of content planning, content marketing.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a series of practices used by companies to educate and inform customers about their products. They leverage content as a medium to bring attention towards the solution, which results in leads and sales and sometimes extend suggestions for choosing a specific service.
For example, social media is a powerful platform for content marketing campaigns. However, you will need targeted campaigns rather than random content to post on such platforms. That is where content marketing helps.
To understand how exactly content marketing helps determine the target audience, you need to have some knowledge of the sales funnel.
There are four parts of a sales funnel according to the level at which a customer is in the buying process.
1) Awareness = Leads & Opportunity
The first part of the sales funnel is all about spreading awareness of your product or services. Here, you can also look at the customer’s behaviour to decide on the content marketing strategy that fits the requirements. For example, the awareness stage relates to customers who are new to your product and will need little education about what your solution offers.
2) Interest = Sales Call & Connection
Once a customer gets to know your product, they may show interest, and this is when you can follow up with a sales call. At this point, you can establish a connection with your customers and build a sense of trust. It is also important to keep the timing of the follow-up in mind, and content marketing strategy comes into play here.
3) Consideration = Conversion & Obstacles
This is the phase at which your customers are still considering the purchase of products. Here, the obstacles are the multiple options in the market and the need for your product to stand out. A content marketing strategy for these customers will aim to create comparisons between the different options in the market, highlighting your product features.
4) Purchasing Decision = Sales & Persistence
The ultimate goal for any content marketing campaign is to convert leads into sales. At this stage, a customer knows your product and has considered other options too to ultimately decide what to choose. However, the biggest attribute at this point is a marketer’s persistence, which can lead to better conversion rates.
A content marketing strategy allows organizations to leverage these stages of the sales funnel to their advantage. Here, the content remains centerstage, conveying the vision of the brand and allowing customers to understand the product completely before making a decision.
Some examples of good content marketing are:
- Infographics: A visual representation of the data that helps with enhanced engagement for the audience.
- Ebooks: Often linked to a landing page, a classic form of content marketing that helps in lead generation.
- Whitepapers: A similar format to ebooks, but often shorter and conveying the technical aspects of products or services.
- Articles/blogs: All-time, classic articles that constitute one of the best ways to engage audiences.
Now that we know what content marketing and content strategy are, let’s discuss some significant differentiators.
Content Strategy vs Content Marketing
There are several differentiators that can help clearly understand content strategy vs content marketing:
1. The Intent
One of the primary differentiators for content strategy vs content marketing is the intent. When you employ content marketing, the intent is more on lead generation and sales conversions. For content strategy, the ultimate goal is still the sales conversion, but the focus is on how to execute content marketing efforts for better results. So, the intent for content marketing is execution, while for content strategy, it is governance.
2. Execution
When it comes to execution, the content strategy depends on content marketing. As it is a governing principle for the execution of content marketing campaigns, this reliance becomes paramount. Apart from that, the content strategy also involves the execution of content audits, planning, curation, and more.
3. Identification and Allocations
One of the most significant differentiators is how a content strategist identifies the target audience for the entire marketing campaign. At the same time, a content marketer allocates resources to cater to these profiles already identified by the strategist.
These resources involve content planning, research, creation, and distribution. So, content strategists identify the target audience through profiling for content marketers to create targeted campaigns aimed at maximizing conversions. Here a reliable content writing solution can help strategists and marketers achieve their conversion goals.
4. Demand vs. Lead
Content marketing focuses more on lead generation, while content strategy focuses on-demand generation. Lead generation campaigns will focus on generating leads on specific interactions, which is a little restrictive compared to demand generation that involves being the go-to solution for a user’s problem.
For example, demand generation allows you to establish your brand as an expert at specific solutions. So, whenever customers need a reference or a solution, they will look for your brand. At the same time, lead generation is about converting the interest of a user into sales, which does not necessarily mean that the customer will come back for another transaction.
Conclusion
There is no denying the fact that both content strategy and content marketing are essential for your business. However, when you think about content strategy vs content marketing and know the difference, you can drive higher conversions.
Understanding the differentiating factors allows you to analyze your current campaign and make adjustments to prioritize strategies for better success.
