The Content Marketing Companion is a regular feature on the CMA blog. We take a content marketing topic and pull together all the best content on that topic from the Internet. Our aim is to provide you with quick access to great content to help you develop your content marketing skills.

Is it possible to communicate with your customers without selling?

Although content marketing has been around for along time, for most business owners and marketers it is a new concept.

It’s a completely different way to approach and think about how to communicate a message to a group of people.

This is my favourite definition of content marketing from Joe Pulizzi (‘The Godfather’ of Content Marketing):

“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 buyers more intelligent or perhaps entertaining them to build an emotional connection.”

You can watch this video and study this infographic for more on the history of content marketing.

Your companion

One of the most popular questions we get asked is “what is content marketing?”

For this edition of The Content Marketing Companion we have gathered the best resources to help you understand what content marketing is and what it means for your business.

If you don’t have the time to dig in right now please make sure you bookmark this article so you can come back to it later.

I really hope you enjoy developing your knowledge of content marketing!

What is content marketing?

01 – The Advanced Content Marketing Guide (Resource)

Just like the previous Content Marketing Companion, we find ourselves starting off with another remarkable resource from Neil Patel and Quick Sprout. They really know how to put together a resource!

The Advanced Guide To Content Marketing is for anyone looking to take their success on the Web to the next level: bloggers, business owners, eCommerce sites and even affiliate marketers. This guide provides you with dozens of actionable tactics you can put to work today to begin engaging your ideal customers with high-value content.

02 – Getting started with content marketing (Article)

I mentioned Joe Pulizzi earlier, he’s the founder of the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). Joe was the first person to really popularise the term ‘content marketing’. We really couldn’t discuss content marketing without signposting you to CMI resources.

The best place to start is with the ‘Getting started with content marketing article‘ which answers the questions below and signposts you to many more relevant articles. It’s worth the time to go down the content marketing rabbit hole on the CMI website to help develop your content marketing knowledge.

• What exactly is content marketing?
• How is content marketing different from other forms of marketing?
• Who is using content marketing?
• How do I get started?

Click here to get started with content marketing.

03 – “I don’t know where to start with content marketing” (Slideshare)

As you probably know, Marcus Sheridan from The Sales Lion is one of our favourite content marketers here at the CMA.

To be honest, there are a tonne of articles from Marcus that are worth sharing, however, this Slideshare is a different way to present content and a deliver a message in an engaging way.

• Click here to read more about the 33 laws of content marketing success.
• Click here to dive into our ‘getting started with Marcus Sheridan’ article.

04 – The four C’s for content marketing success (Article)

Are you curious about how to start your content marketing journey? Are you interested in how other people started their’s and became successful?

The four C’s map out the start of your journey to becoming a great content marketer. This is how I started my journey and how other’s I’ve spoken to have mapped out their own journey. The four C’s will help you develop your content marketing strategy, build your platform and help you communicate with your audience.

1. Consumer
2. Curator
3. Creator
4. Consistency

Click here to read all about the four C’s.

05 – What is content marketing? (Video)

In this video Marcus Sheridan hits it home with a clear, concise and grounded explanation of what content marketing is and what content marketing really means for small businesses.

Click here to watch this video on YouTube.

Your turn

1. What questions do you have about content marketing?
2. What are you doing within your business to embrace content marketing?
3. How do you think your business could benefit from a focus on content marketing?

Let me know what’s on your mind by joining the conversation in the comments section below.

Don’t forget to be awesome!

Chris.