As a kid, you probably learned the phrase, knowledge is power. As a marketer, you prove its validity every day through your content that educates, informs, and inspires your audience.
But knowledge isn’t a static construct.
Perceptions and attitudes change, innovations emerge, and new insights and ideas arrive to shake up everything you thought you knew. (Before 2016, did you know an alternative to “facts” existed?)
To excel in the current conditions and opportunities, make sure these content marketing terms and definitions are part of your knowledge base.
Note: I’ve organized these definitions into best-fit categories, though many span multiple areas.
Strategy terms
Audience
In a marketing context, audiences are targeted, clearly defined groups of individuals and/or organizations that willingly read, listen, view, or otherwise engage with your brand’s content, assuming they will benefit from it.
Pinpointing the target audience(s) your content will serve is one of the three pillars of a winning content strategy. But remember: Content marketing is about building a trusted relationship. Your content should have human resonance and reflect their needs, preferences, and priorities to earn their attention and loyalty.
Definitive resource: The Marketing Mandate: Build Stronger Bonds With Your Audience
Buy-in/business case
A business case captures the organization’s rationale for investing in content as a component of its marketing strategy. Typically delivered to executive management as a document or presentation, it’s a helpful tool for building stakeholder understanding and support to execute the program effectively.
At a minimum, your business case should address:
- Why your company needs content marketing
- How it can help your organization meet its marketing goals
- Budget and resources
- Expected outcomes and estimated times to achieve them
Executive management may struggle to understand how content drives the bottom-line business goals. A little education can go a long way toward winning over “content-clueless” business leaders.
Focus your buy-in conversation on the benefits they could gain and support your argument with data and proof-of-concept examples. You can use content to strengthen your pitch. Share relevant e-books, newsletters, and other sources of content industry expertise — the more they consume, the quicker they’ll experience those light-bulb moments of understanding.
Definitive resource: How To Snap Out of Strategic Malaise and Get Inspired for 2024 Content
