Content Marketing vs. Context Marketing: How They Work Together

Content is an integral part of all digital marketing campaigns. There’s a reason why Bill Gates called it “King.”

Context marketing, as the name implies, incorporates context and timing into your marketing efforts. That is its most basic definition. Now, let’s dive a bit more into what exactly is content and context marketing.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a popular marketing approach in the digital space. It involves the creation and distribution of valuable and relevant content on websites, blogs, and social media accounts. The purpose of content marketing is to attract and retain a very specific audience.

The ultimate objective of content marketing is to drive profitable customer action. It’s a long-term strategy, requiring you to regularly create high-quality, relevant, and insightful content. Some examples of content marketing include:

• Infographics
• Blogs
• Webpages
• Podcasts
• Videos
• Books/eBooks

Check out some of our free resources around blogs, social media, and e-Commerce.

What is Context Marketing?

Context marketing is delivering the right content, to the right prospects, at the right time. At its core, it’s all about the timing. Having context around something allows you to market your product or service better to your potential prospects. Asking the right questions and receiving valuable answers will help create a more effective campaign.

Which is More Important?

There’s no right or wrong choice between content marketing and context marketing. However, adding context to your content marketing campaign can increase the ROI. So, it’s safe to say that a blend of context and content marketing is more important than any of the two alone.

Context helps you add personalization to your content, making it more unique and relevant. Today, many people want more personalized content that is tailored towards them.

Here are two major reasons why context marketing is important:

1.   Having context provides more personalized content

When marketers have context around relationships with the leads, they can create more personalized and relevant content. They can target their needs and make offers at a time that would benefit their prospects the most.

2.   Targeting the needs of the audience is more effective

Having context around communication with your audience enables you to create marketing content that targets their needs. When you address their needs, and your marketing aligns rightly with their interests, it results in increased effectiveness of your campaign.

Let’s say that you know one of your leads has downloaded one of your software tools off of your website this month. They’re now considering buying more sometime later this Fall. Considering that Fall is only two months away, you could send them an email encouraging them to sign-up for updates regarding your newest product that is slated to be released in that timeframe. That’s the kind of content your prospect is more likely to convert on.

Things You Need to Know for Context Marketing

If you’re creating a new context marketing campaign, you need to consider some important elements.

The five fundamental components you need to consider include:

1. Audience
2. Answers to Key Questions
3. Keywords
4. Your Objectives
5. Analytics

Get a Broad Understanding of Your Audience

Whether your business is B2B or B2C, it is important to identify the specific needs, hopes, and priorities of your prospects. Today, brands are beginning to realize that the most effective communication involves an element of empathy. You need to get to know their needs on a more personal level. 

If you want to create highly-relevant content and develop an empathic connection with your audience, you need to know the following information:

• Demographics
• Needs, Preferences, and Likes & Dislikes
• Issues/Problems
• Consumption Habits
• Content
• Questions They’re Asking

Once you have gathered all of the right information, you can begin to create content that is relevant to them.

Content that Answers Their Questions

A major part of context marketing is to know what questions your targets are asking and what they’re searching for on the internet. Organic search is one of the first things online consumers engage in when they begin their buyer’s journey.

Your content should address any questions they have. When coming up with your responses, make sure to understand the intent behind their search and then create your content accordingly.

There are three types of intent:

1. Do (When the user wants to do something, such as making a purchase)
2. Know (When a user wants to learn about something)
3. Go (When the user is searching for a brand or site they want to visit)

Knowing what exactly your consumers are searching for helps you write the exact type of content they need, which will be presented to them by the search engine at the right time.

Keywords

Keywords are still the primary input for searching for something on the internet. When you know your audiences and their search intent, it’s easier to figure out the ideal keywords you should incorporate in your content.

You need to perform comprehensive keyword research to figure out what keywords you should use to get your content to the right people. You can use a paid or free keyword tool to aid you in your keyword research.

Determine and Set Your Objectives of the Content

Your content needs a purpose or goal, which should be based off of the search intent of your prospects.

Let’s assume your audience’s search intent is ‘informational.’ Your content should aim at providing them comprehensive and accurate information about what they are searching for. Writing content without goals is just like running in the sand; most of your effort gets wasted.

Measurement

Measurement refers to measuring success. Based on what goals you have set for your company, you would want to know if you’ve achieved them or not. Therefore, you have to make sure you are keeping track of the campaign’s performance through metrics and KPIs.

Conclusion

Both content and context marketing are important to digital marketing campaigns today. The world has turned to a more online-based format, which is why it is important to know what type of content your audience wants. Finding out what they are looking for, how they are looking for it, and when, is very important to the success of your digital marketing campaign.