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Content marketing has been around for many years but now is used more extensively in business and marketing. Content marketing has become a crucial element of digital marketing today. With increasing content consumption on different online platforms, it has become an effective medium to increase your brand awareness and communicate your message to your target audience. Content is everywhere! But when it comes to online marketing you are obliged to give the best content to stand out and grab the attention of your target audience. Due to a massive upsurge in online marketing and online ads, people tend to go through ad blindness and content blindness. It is significantly important for you to execute such a content marketing strategy that will not only grab attention but will help you gain trust and build a strong brand image. Many companies are popularly known for their excellent content marketing activities which have helped them to build an irresistible brand. What could be a better example than Zomato? What Is Content Marketing? What do you think of, when you hear content marketing? You probably must have thought of blogs, youtube videos, viral content on social media, and so on. However, it is deeper than that. Content marketing is a strategy used in marketing to grab attention, engage your audience and retain them by producing and distributing various suitable content such as videos, podcasts, blogs, and so on. It is a marketing approach that is based on creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to your target audience. This helps to retain your ideal audience leading to an increase in brand awareness. Hence, when you sell them, your brand is the first thing that hits their minds.  However, consistency is the key when it comes to content marketing. A good content creation and distribution strategy will help you gain authority in your domain. This will ultimately benefit you by making your audience take the desired action. How Beneficial is Content Marketing for B2B, B2C, and D2C? In a survey by Semrush, it was found that 36% of content marketers were focused on generating leads through content marketing.  According to Oberlo, 96% of marketing decision makers say content marketing has been effective for their brand. However, content marketing is effective not only for building a brand but also to drive website traffic. The marketing strategies for different types of businesses such as B2B, B2C, and D2C are different. Nevertheless, content marketing proves to be beneficial for all these three segments of businesses.  Let’s have a look at how impactful is content marketing for B2B, B2C, and D2C: B2B: Content marketing is an affordably excellent way to drive traffic and generate leads. It also helps to achieve B2B inbound marketing objectives. Unlike the B2C business where there are mass sales done, B2B businesses are niche-oriented and hence the value per customer has been much higher. Content marketing can largely help you to provide great value to your B2B prospects. At present, where ads are more of an interruption than ads for the audiences online, content marketing can help B2B businesses to build trust, increase brand awareness and facilitate natural sales.  A good content strategy can help you create valuable collaterals that can be used across all the channels of marketing. Apart from converting leads, content marketing is also helpful to rank your website high in the search results. B2C : By creating useful and engaging content, content marketing is one of the most effective practices to promote your B2C products and services. According to Heidi Cohen, 37% of marketers believe content marketing is effective for generating leads, establishing relationships, and increasing sales. The main concentration in B2C business is how can your product help the customers to solve their problems. Content marketing can educate your target audience and increase awareness about your products and services for generating interest to buy them. By increasing your organic traffic, content marketing can help you increase your sales conversions for your B2C business. This all sums up and ultimately helps you build brand awareness and improve ROI. D2C: Today the customers of the products are savvier than ever before! Be it any product, customers will first rush out to their trusted networks to find the reviews about a particular product. After satisfactory research, the customers shall make a buying decision.  Hence, only listing your products online and expecting sales is not just enough to generate sales for D2C businesses. Here is where content marketing can turn the table.  A robust content marketing strategy can help you to reach potential customers and also retain your existing customers.  A good content strategy will not only help you to build brand awareness but also keep them engaged and connected with your brand.  Buying decisions are mostly driven by the customer’s emotions. The more they feel connected with your brand, the higher the chances that they will stay loyal to your brand.  Apart from content marketing and branding you also need to make sure that your products stand out and are made to solve their problems. Types Of Content: Incorporating suitably different forms of content into your marketing strategy is significantly essential. Let’s jump on a few of such types of content below that can help you make your content marketing strategy a hit: 1.Blogs: Blogs are an excellent tool to generate inbound content.  Blogs are one of the best ways to educate your audience and provide valuable and relevant content to them.  This leads your audience to engage with your content and build trust. Eventually, you can provide information about your products and services in your blogs and generate leads.  Blogs also allow you to promote internal and external content.  2.Podcast: Source: Statista A podcast is a very popular type of content in this era of digital marketing. Globally, the number of people who listen to podcasts is rapidly rising. According to a Discover Pods survey, more than 55% of podcast listeners have purchased after hearing an advertisement.  Every year, more people

Podcast marketing has now become one of the most essential aspects of content marketing strategies for businesses. Podcast marketing is no more a new option to explore, but in fact, a popular channel for marketing your brand that you can add to your marketing strategy.  Many brands are now using this powerful channel to increase brand awareness and grow their audience. Podcast marketing is a great way to drive high engagement and build loyal audiences. The audio content of a podcast is easy to repurpose into written or video formats.  Podcasting is a great way to provide value to your customers by educating them. This ensures loyalty and trust. As a result, podcast becomes an influential way to generate leads. In other words, podcast marketing refers to creating a strategy to promote your audio content to expand your audience and brand awareness.  Nevertheless, there are several podcasts found today in almost every niche that you can name. It is competitive and so you need to create a solid promotion and marketing strategy, that will direct you to create and distribute your podcast most effectively.  Future of Podcasting Marketing Source: Statista The increase in the number of podcast listeners across the globe is rapid. A survey by Discover Pods, states that over 55% of podcast listeners have purchased after hearing a podcast ad. The number of podcast listeners and podcasters tends to increase every year. This paves an effective way for the brands to establish a podcast and reach more audiences by marketing and distributing their podcasts. Before diving more deeply into podcast marketing let’s try to understand what a podcast is. What Is A Podcast? The term ‘podcast’ is derived from ‘pod’ as in Apple’s iPod and ‘cast’ from the term broadcast. Podcasts are an audio form of content. What distinguishes podcasts from other audios is that they are broadcasted on the internet in the form of episodes. These episodes can be listened to online or even downloaded and heard anytime. Unlike reading or watching other content, podcasts can be heard anyway and anywhere passively. A report published by Infinite Dial in 2019 showed that almost 74% of podcast listeners are seeking new knowledge, while others are seeking entertainment, staying up to date, relaxing, and getting inspiration from podcasts. Suppose you are at the gym or just simply traveling, podcasts can be a go-to choice to consume content. On-demand audio is what a podcast is! Radio is often confused with podcasts. So what’s the difference? Well, it’s about convenience. Radio shows are scheduled and you have to adjust your time to sit and hear them.  But podcasts are something you can hear on-demand anytime and anywhere. This is what makes it popular. Today many radio shows are turning into podcasts, the reason behind this is a large shift in the audience towards on-demand consumption of content. In a nutshell, a podcast is nothing but an audio file just like any other audio file, uploaded on the internet, which can be heard anytime and downloaded on your device and you are allowed to subscribe to. How To Publish A Podcast? Creating and publishing a podcast is a whole process. If you do everything right you have an opportunity to leverage your marketing efforts. Before you know how to publish a podcast, make sure that you perform in-depth research on your niche and target audience and accordingly strategize a plan for podcasting.  Now let’s let jump in, to understand how can you publish a podcast. 1.Recording:  This is an obvious first step that you need to do. You can record your podcast on your phone or computer.  To record your audio on mobile you shall require: A recording app  A headphone/mic For recording apps, you can explore apps like Video Recorder HD which is available for both Apple and Android phones. For recording equipment, you can use good quality headphones. To record your audio on a desktop you shall require: A recording software A USB Mic A headphone You can try free recording software such as Audacity to record your audio on a desktop. Try good quality USB Mics that you can afford. You can try mics from Audio Technica, Maono, Rode, and so on.  2.Editing:   Try to edit and fine-tune the audio that you have recorded on your recording app/software. Make sure that it sounds pleasing, crisp, and clear. You can get hands-on to edit on the app or software by practicing it. Once done save the file as a Wav file. You can later export the Wav file as an MP3 file.   3.Hosting: Next up is choosing your podcasting host. This is where you will upload and store your audio episodes. The host distributes your podcast to different platforms like Apple podcast and Spotify.  Do in-depth research on your podcast host as this is very crucial. There are many paid and free podcast hosting platforms such as BuzzSprout, Podbean, Anchor, and so on. Choose the one that is suitable for you after a detailed study.   4.Optimize your podcast:  Research the keywords that your audience usually searches for. Write a brief, concise and relevant description for your podcast episodes. You can also include episode-specific tags in your description. 5.Promote: Lastly, you need to have a strong podcast marketing strategy to distribute your podcast. For instance, if you have a blog, you can embed your podcast link into your blog. This will drive traffic to your podcast. How Can Podcast Marketing Help You Grow? Podcast marketing is a significant way to distribute your content and strengthen your content marketing strategy to reach more audiences. Along with this, there’s a lot more than you can benefit from podcast marketing. Here’s how to podcast marketing can help you grow both your personal and company brand. 1.Drive website traffic: Listing your podcast on networks enables you to link back to your website. This way podcasting can help you drive traffic to your website. 2.A podcast can be consumed passively: A podcast is content that