‘What is content marketing?’ – A general user of Internet, after hearing the words ‘content marketing’ will have this first question in his mind.

"Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action." As described under wikipedia entry for content marketing.

In a layman’s language, whenever you read, see or listen to something that interests you, the content that engages you, whether it be a post on a blog, an article published on a magazine, an informative video, an interesting menu card in a restaurant, the striking headline in your local newspaper that fetches your interest, the newsletter or the content in a website, is a form of content marketing.

Importance of Content Marketing:  The USP (Unique selling point or quality) of content marketing is, its unique and your very own engaging content, that talks distinctly about the entity whether it be you, the company, or the product/services you want to sell. This USP really is important as well to engage your customer/visitor reading something new & interesting and making you stand out of the rush of other related product/service providers. The content marketing, if its USP is retained, helps you positioning your business as the trusted resource in you niche.

"Marketers may use content marketing as a means of achieving a variety of business goals, such as thought leadership, lead generation, increasing direct sales, improving retention and more." says Wikipedia page for Content Marketing, this itself shows the importance of content marketing in retaining your customers.

Another important USP of content marketing is that it is permissive not interruptive to consumer. Unlike the old interruption marketing, content marketing is based on the user permissions, if a user want, he/she reads or uses the content that might be on your blog, website, ezine, magazine, newsletter, white-paper, email, social media content or elsewhere.

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 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.

Yes, you really can create marketing that is anticipated and truly makes a connection! You can develop and execute "sales" messages that are needed, even requested, by your customers. To retain your customer, you need to have a successful content marketing in place and to market your content successfully either you should write content yourself, keeping in mind your targeted readers, customer base, or should take content writing service from such experts who really understands and knows your niche and knows what interests your customer base. The intriguingly written, unique content can help retaining your business customers as well as building the new consumer base.