Marketing to Women: Is Your Brand a Great Content Brand? Take the Quiz.

Take this little quiz to see if you have a great content brand.

1.  Do you know what “inbound marketing” is?

2.  Are you creating new and deeper customer relationships by providing information that your customers value?

3.  Are you active in blogs, e-newsletters, podcasts, video, whitepapers, SEO, ebooks, social media marketing, and/or other forms of content marketing?

4.  Does your content attract visitors and  convert visitors to leads and eventually sales?

Inbound marketing is the opposite of “outbound marketing” which includes all traditional advertising and marketing techniques such as cold calls, paid advertising and telemarketing.  Inbound marketing is based on the concept of earning the attention of prospects, making yourself easy to be found and drawing customers to your website by producing content customers value.  So the great content brands are those that provide really useful information to their audiences.  

Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing

Research has shown that 86 percent of viewers skip commercials and 44 percent of recipients never open direct mail.  For those companies that blog, they have 50 percent more website visitors than those that don’t, and inbound marketing leads cost 60 percent less on average.  See the infographic below for more statistics on inbound vs. outbound marketing.

Who are some of the great content brands?  Brands that are becoming thought leaders.  American Express, Mint.com, Hubspot and GE are just a few of them.  They have  been able to grow content development in-house and become thought leaders in topics that are of critical interest to their customers.  If you have ever read an Open Forum from American Express, you have experienced their actionable content for entrepreneurs.  American Express recognized the importance of hosting insightful and engaging content on running a small business.  This group is a very influential audience for American Express.

In marketing to women, we have to think about the content that is valuable to them.  Hospitals and healthcare, as an example, are missing out on a very important tool that content marketing would bring to their business.  Providing information, the most valued commodity, to patients and the families is a service that is just as important as patient care.  Marketers who can provide valuable content that allows customers to feel informed, smart and valued will be the winners in the future.