There’s a good reason why companies confuse blogging and content marketing: No two people seem to have the same definition of content marketing.
The Content Marketing Institute, a credible source, defines content marketing as:
“… [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.” ~ Content Marketing Institute
Very well then. How do your blogging efforts stack up against this definition? Consider:
Your company blog is actually an element of content marketing — a content marketing tool, technique or tactic (or however you want to phrase it).
A highly effective company blog knows its place in the overall content marketing strategy:
Blogging can be an effective content marketing technique — but not always. There are many other types of content marketing that will get you greater visibility with your target audience(s). Consider options such as:
If your blog is effective, it will have quantifiable results in terms of comments, leads generated, social mentions and backlinks. If you are not measuring these things, start. If you’re not seeing much in the way of measurable results, consider other marketing options, or developing a new blog strategy.
One way or another, content marketing should help your business grow.