Welcome to our series Digital Marketing in a Noisy World. This content was originally presented in our breakout session at Breathe Christian Writers Conference 2015. (Check out our Prezi here.) We hope this information is helpful and encouraging for you. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

Last week we discussed what marketing looks like for authors in the digital world, an introduction to content marketing. (You can read it here.)

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What is Content Marketing?

By Lindsay Gustafson

Remember the definition we discussed last week…

“Content marketing is an 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.
It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media, not renting it. Basically, content marketing is the art of 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.” – Content Marketing Institute

Here are a few points to ponder as an author:

• Authors – you own your content for life! You should have a home for your content in the digital world (more on this later – we are not talking about social media here!)
  
• Publishers focus on your platform for the short term (which is wonderful), usually during the launch period of a book often using traditional marketing tactics with a specific goal in mind (and usually a budget – also good!).
• What about your content as an author during non-book launch times? Your content is MORE than a product – a book. Writing is your trade. Just like developing content in books, authors can also be developing content in digital spaces.
• Your content is personal, authentic, and immediate. No one can replace that. You write from a unique voice and purpose and there is a group of people out there who want to read it. Digital communication makes this relationship develop and grow very easily!
  
• Approaching marketing with the end goal of selling a book (or getting a book published) starts with the wrong goal in mind. Content marketing is the “creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience.”
  

As we discussed last week, all the digital marketing tools (website, social media, digital ads, etc) are amazing tools to be used by a writer! It is another venue (other than a book) to produce good content the author is passionate about and wants to bring others into. No time in history has an author (specifically) had such a opportunity to publish freely and influence BEYOND readership of a book. What author wouldn’t want to take advantage of that?

Next week Alexis is going to introduce a model that will help us guide the focus of this content – the why, how and what of writing good content. Because…content marketing does not work without GOOD CONTENT.

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Leveraging years of experience in marketing, the publishing world, non-profit development, and a passion for gathering tribes, Lindsay is co-owner, chief marketer and queen of detail of Apricot Services. When she’s not in the virtual world she can be found laughing with her husband, 2 kids and dog.

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Thank you for joining us on this series. Tune in next time to learn more digital marketing tips. If you need to catch up to where we are now, take a look back at the previous posts.