Final answer:
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach to create and distribute valuable content to attract and retain customers. It differs from traditional product advertising by providing desirable content instead of interrupting consumers. Content includes various forms such as articles, videos, podcasts, and it leverages new media for a unified marketing message.
Step-by-step explanation:
Content Marketing Defined
Content marketing is a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Unlike traditional product advertising, which interrupts consumers to get its message across, content marketing provides content that consumers want in exchange for permission to market a product or service. It stands in contrast to other strategies like real-time marketing, which focuses on current events and trends to engage customers, mobile marketing, which is tailored to reach customers on mobile devices, and social media marketing, which utilizes social platforms to communicate with potential customers.
Content marketing takes many forms, including articles, videos, podcasts, and social media posts. These content pieces are designed not only to attract and engage but to also educate potential customers about a product or service. For instance, a blog post on gardening tips can subtly highlight a company's line of gardening tools. The rise of new media with interactivity at its core means that individuals and companies can now create a wide variety of content tailored to their audiences' preferences and capable of building robust communities around shared interests.
Through effective, intentional composition, marketers are able to present a unified message across multiple platforms, as exemplified by Naomi Klein's critique in No Logo. By harnessing various modes of new media and ensuring their content is both compelling and informative, companies contribute to the attention economy, where they compete for the limited attention span of consumers.