What is “Content” in Marketing?

When marketers say they create “content,” what do they mean and how is content used in marketing?

As marketers at FrogDog, we talk all the time about “content.” We use the term in a variety of contexts, without realizing that “content” is an industry-specific term with a vague meaning for anyone outside the marketing field.

Therefore, it’s a question we get asked often at FrogDog: When you say “content,” you mean what, exactly?

What Marketers Mean by “Content”

People often assume that “content” refers to the text found on a page or in a document. (For another industry term, marketers call this text “copy.”)

Yes, text on a page of any kind is content. However, “content” takes much broader form when it comes to marketing:

• Articles and blog posts
• White papers
• Case studies
• Videos (animated and live action)
• Graphics (including still and motion graphics)
• Charts, graphs, infographics and other types of data visualizations
• Slideshares and automated presentations
• Photography and photo editing (product, service, corporate, and beyond)
• Social media posts (which use photos, graphics, and text)
• Text, graphics, images, video, and other items used to populate websites, landing pages, advertising, and printed marketing materials

When marketers say that they will create content as part of their marketing effort, they refer broadly to the items bulleted in the list above.

In many ways, content is the most critical asset of any marketing effort.

How Does Marketing Use Content?

Marketers use content in a variety of ways, often reusing and repurposing one piece of content for multiple uses across marketing efforts and campaigns.

Marketers use content to create print and digital marketing materials of all kinds: White papers, case studies, direct mail items, infographics, leave-behinds, and presentations. Often, these materials use a mix of content that the marketing team has created, including graphics, photography, and text.

Marketers use content to populate pages on the internet, whether these pages make up a set of pages within a website, serve as a stand-alone landing page for a marketing tactic, or operate independently on the web as part of a strategic marketing campaign.

Marketers use content to fuel traditional advertising campaigns across print, radio, and outdoor (i.e., on signs and billboards) and digital advertising campaigns across the web from display advertising on websites, to social media advertising on platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn, and on through to pay-per-click and display advertising campaigns.

Marketers use content to fuel social media marketing efforts as well. After all, they need to create the items—text, graphics, and video—that goes into each social media post and to which the social media post takes people on the web when they click through or take the post’s requested action.

Smart marketers work hard to create quality content that has broad utility across multiple purposes. In doing so, they conserve valuable resources and maximize marketing’s return on investment.

Key Considerations in Creating Marketing Content

Creating successful content for marketing requires a high level of skill. As with everything, the easier the end results look, the more expertise required for its execution.

Successful marketing content considers—all at the same time—a broad swath of critical elements:

• the company’s goals and the company’s marketing goals
• the visual brand and brand promise
• the overarching key messages
• the value proposition
• the target audience
• competitor behaviors, positioning, content, and efforts
• the budget
• research into tactic, target audience, and market trends
• the best practice for each tactic and marketing channel
• quality measures
• possibilities for repurposing the content
• maximizing the content’s longevity and single-item value
• creating the optimal mix of newsy versus evergreen content
• calls to action
• return on investment per content item or content mix
• campaign metrics and measures of success
• search-engine optimization and ranking possibilities

Yes, this is a long list of considerations. Yes, meeting these requirements requires companies to have a team that knows how to create quality, effective marketing content. (Does your company?)

Professional Content Creators are Critical to Marketing Success

Professionals who create content in marketing get placed in a variety of roles, departments, and teams within companies’ marketing functions. Often, companies work with outside partners like FrogDog to fulfill their marketing content needs.

Regardless of their title or their placement in the organizational chart, professional content creators are critical to the success of any marketing effort.

FrogDog creates content of all types and for all uses as part of its marketing campaigns and as a key component of its monthly marketing packages.

Can we create content for you? Contact us today to learn more.

Image credit: Anthony Shkraba