Why Webinars for Content Marketing?

What is Content Marketing?

According to the Content Marketing Institute (or CMI), 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.”

The purpose of content marketing 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.”

CMI says that basically, it’s 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.

(From CMI’s blog post: What is Content Marketing)

Why Webinars for Content Marketing?

According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, content marketers who are finding success with webinars are broadening the scope of how they use them and are applying them across the full spectrum of the buyer’s journey.

<< Download the full report here >>

From demonstrations and training to education and thought leadership, content marketers are engaging their audiences earlier in the buying process and increasing their chances of closing new business.

Among content marketers who are not using webinars, 78% said that they have never tried them! Certainly there are a myriad of reasons for that (budget, staff, other priorities, etc.), but the bottom line remains: these folks don’t know what they’re missing out on!

Use of webinars for content marketing can really be broken down into two buckets: MARKETshare and MINDshare.

MARKETshare speaks to the size of an organization’s footprint in the marketplace (e.g., Apple owns a large piece of smartphone MARKETshare).

MINDshare speaks to the size of an organization’s footprint in the mind of customers and potential customers (e.g., Apple also owns a large piece of smartphone MINDshare).

While the two aren’t always linked like they are in the case of Apple, it makes sense that if you have MINDshare, you should have (or be able to get) MARKETshare.

Right now, consumers can get more information more quickly than ever before, and it’s in providing that information via content marketing that organizations are going after MINDshare. White papers, “build your new Toyota and get an instant quote”, demo videos and webinars, etc, are all ways of engaging a target audience early on in the buying cycle.

Different types of content might be used to target buyers at different parts of the funnel, but the ultimate goal for all content is the same: get them to the bottom of the funnel – to the close – and secure more MARKETshare.

Content marketing is also used as a means of proving yourself as a thought leader in a given space and thereby reinforcing MIND and MARKETshare.

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