Is it time to expand the definition of content marketing?
In 2020, I posed that question. My argument was simple: Content marketing isn’t just about creating content for marketing — it’s also about marketing the content.
Four years later, this expanded definition is even more relevant. Great content without its own marketing strategy is like a product sitting on a warehouse shelf with no packaging, no sales strategy, and no audience to buy it.
Brands winning today market their content strategically to ensure that it gets seen, shared, and acted on. They actively target content delivery channels beyond websites and social media. They embrace concepts in the evolution of marketing, such as generative engine optimization (GEO) and artificial intelligence optimization.
So, should you revisit the definition of content marketing? Let’s explore how the notion of content marketing has changed and why marketing the content itself is just as important as creating it.
Content marketing isn’t just content creation
Content marketing has evolved into a full-fledged skill set. Marketers who assume their job is done once the content is published are falling behind.
Winning at content marketing today requires:
- Content distribution — getting content in front of the right audience
- Audience targeting — using data, AI, and personalization to attract ideal consumers
- Content repurposing — turning long-form content into multiple formats
- Performance tracking — measuring how content drives actual business outcomes
If content is the product, marketing the content is how it generates demand and drives action.
Market your content like a product
Previously, I suggested applying the classic four Ps of marketing — product, price, place, and promotion — to content strategy. However, since then, content and how organizations perceive it are taking a front seat. It requires businesses to adopt a more modern approach to marketing.
That’s why in my book CASH: The 4 Keys to Better Sales, Smarter Marketing, and a Supercharged Revenue Machine, I introduce Lee’s Ps — presence, perception, price, and profitability. These factors apply just as much to content marketing as they do to business strategy. Presence and perception are leading factors in content success, so let’s dig a little deeper into those two.
Presence in content marketing
Having content about your product or service is not enough. It must be present in conversations, social feeds, and communities to cultivate the desire for the product. Many great products have failed simply because the content about them wasn’t sufficiently present in consumers’ minds to foster sales growth. Despite the need for quality content, quantity is still important. Your content must be present.
Supporting this notion, countless products have grown in demand and sales, sometimes before they even existed. The mental and social presence of content pointing to the product is more important than the product’s availability.
In 2020, Nathan Apodaca uploaded a video to TikTok of himself skateboarding on the street while drinking Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice from a big bottle. It caught the attention of other TikTok viewers, including Jimmy Fallon, who did similar tribute videos. The video went viral, and juice sales increased — all without an Ocean Spray-initiated promotion tactic.
Brands must ensure that their content (or content about their brands and products) is present across multiple platforms, conversations, and formats to stay top of mind.
To build a content presence, you should:
- Be where your audience is: Distribute content across multiple platforms.
- Use multiple formats: Turn blogs into long-form videos, short-form videos, and posts.
- Leverage organic and paid reach: A combination of paid ads and social sharing ensures maximum presence.
Perception in content marketing
The perception of a product can rocket it into viral success or immediately cancel it. Perception rules buyer behavior, and content is what drives — or corrects — that perception. Every brand must shape, control, and amplify perception before someone else does it for them.
To shape content perception, you should:
- Position your content as authoritative and valuable.
- Leverage influencers and social proof to boost credibility.
- Use storytelling to create an emotional connection with your audience.
Content marketing is about how people feel when they engage with the content and that is more than just words or visuals.
Implementing the successful definition of content marketing
With that overview of amplifying your presence and perception, let’s drill down to some specific things you can do to implement a modern definition of content marketing.
How do you create all that content?
The days of relying solely on long-form content are gone. Speed and frequency matter. While crafting that high-quality 2,000-word article or polished video, don’t overlook the opportunity to repurpose it into smaller content pieces to keep your audience engaged. For example:
- A blog post can become a LinkedIn thread.
- A podcast episode can become short video clips.
- A white paper can become a string of carousel posts on social media.
AI-powered tools make remixing easier than ever, but strategy still matters. The best marketers think of content as a modular asset that can be reshaped and redistributed for maximum impact.
Consistency is key. Content that shows up often wins.
How do you get people engaged?
If-you-build-it-they-will-come does not work for content. Every piece of content needs a marketing strategy beyond distribution. To keep content alive long after it’s published, successful brands use:
- SEO and AI-driven optimization to ensure that content surfaces in search engines and personalized feeds
- Dark social, also known as private sharing (Slack, WhatsApp, direct messages), which plays a huge role in content visibility
- Interactive content, such as polls and quizzes, to drive more engagement than static content
What about organic and paid promotion?
Getting content in front of your target audiences requires a mix of organic and paid promotion. Successful brands allocate budgets specifically for content distribution, not just ad campaigns.
Establishing awareness organically includes unpaid avenues, such as search engine optimization, artificial intelligence optimization, social sharing, and public relations. Paid channels allow you to better target your reach using tools such as ads on LinkedIn and Facebook and influencer collaborations.
Should you gate the content?
Free content drives brand awareness and trust. Gated content must be worth enough for the recipients to be willing to exchange their contact details or pay for the information.
Instead of locking everything, many brands now use a hybrid model — providing valuable free content while offering exclusive premium insights behind a paywall or subscription.
Advancing the actions of content marketing
Content marketing works as both a noun and a verb:
- Noun: A strategic marketing 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
- Verb: Applying marketing skills and techniques to written, video, audio, or social content to provide the greatest possible reach, longevity, and effectiveness of that content
To make content marketing successful, you must embrace it as an expansive verb. Websites and social were just the start. Market your content to AI platforms, searches, and generative summaries. Recognize that your efforts need to encompass all the places your content should appear in order to create the proper presence.
And do it in a way that establishes positive perceptions for your content and brand.
That’s how you live the modern definition of content marketing.
Updated from a July 2020 post.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute