What is Marketing? Definitions, Concepts, and More
What is marketing and why does it matter? You don’t need to be a marketing expert, but learning some key marketing terms and why marketing is important for the literary community can help you be better prepared for your efforts.
Let’s go over some definitions (we’re word people, so why not?).
Just note that while it’s good to be aware of these terms, concepts, and strategies, you don’t need to be an expert in each of these to connect with your audience and build your following. They’ll all make sense as we build and execute a marketing strategy.
What is marketing?
Marketing is simply telling others about a product, service, idea, event, or something else you’d like them to know about. If you just opened a bookstore, you want to tell others about it. If you’re hosting an event, you want to tell others about it. If you’ve written a book with your big ideas, you want to tell others about it.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is telling others about your book, idea, or event by creating content around it: social media posts, blog posts, a newsletter, a video, or a graphic. This content isn’t just an advertisement. It educates your audience, provides them value, teaches them something, entertains them, or otherwise engages them in who you are and what you have to say.
What is inbound marketing?
You may sometimes hear content marketing referred to as inbound marketing, and vice versa. This is because content marketing is a strategy that attracts your audience to you. As you post content on your website, your social media accounts, and other places, you’re essentially erecting a lighthouse that broadcasts to others what you do, what you’re saying, and what you stand for. Those who are interested will then follow your light to your lighthouse — essentially, they’ll head inbound to you.
Conversely, outbound marketing is when you go out to find people who might be interested in what you do. Think of this like a door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson. You may have a great product, but you may knock on a hundred doors and only find one person interested in purchasing. Instead, you could’ve stayed put, built a lighthouse to beam out content about your great encyclopedias, and had interested buyers come to you.
What is digital marketing?
This simply refers to marketing through digital channels, like social media, website, and email, as opposed to analog channels like print mailings, fliers, or physical advertisements. We’ll just be focused on digital marketing here.
What is organic marketing?
There are two types of marketing that you can do: paid or organic. Paid marketing channels are when you pay to have your message put in front of a specific audience. When you think of advertising — like an add on Facebook, in a magazine, or on TV — this is paid marketing. If you’ve ever seen a sponsored post come up in a social media news feed, or receive an email newsletter that was sponsored by a company, this is also paid marketing.
However, organic marketing is using free channels — social media, email, blog posts, websites — to share your content and build your audience. While organic marketing is a more long-term strategy than paid marketing because you’re inviting your audience to you instead of paying to go to them, it’s a more sustainable way to build an authentic audience who is genuinely interested in you. It’s also much easier to get started with free channels, especially when your budget is tight.
What is a marketing channel?
A channel is simply the vehicle for your content to get to your target audience. This can be your website, your newsletter, social media, a podcast, or other platforms or methods.
What is a marketing funnel?
A marketing funnel, a purchase funnel, a sales funnel, a customer journey, a nurture sequence — they’re all names for a simple pathway that describes how we typically purchase something.
A marketing funnel or customer journey typically begins with awareness. You have to know something exists before you purchase it, like becoming aware of a newly released novel.
Once you’re aware, the next step is consideration, or weighing whether you want to make a purchase or not. You may do this by reading the book’s summary or reviews, or learning more about the author.
Finally, you make a purchase, also known as conversion. At this stage, you’re convinced enough that you want the book that you purchase it. Or you go shop at that bookstore you’ve heard about. Or you donate to that literary non-profit you learned about.
Sometimes this journey happens very quickly — you grab those literary socks at checkout — or it happens very slowly, like in the case of evaluating whether to apply to an MFA program. But too often people assume that someone will buy something without putting the effort into raising awareness first place.
Awareness: Your reader or audience becomes aware of who you are and what you do, offer, or write.
Consideration: Your audience learns more about you as they evaluate whether to buy or engage.
Conversion: Your audience decides to buy the book, enroll in the class, or purchase a ticket to the event.
What helps a customer travel through this funnel? Content. Let’s take the example of the MFA program. You may become aware of an MFA program by seeing it on social media or finding its website through a Google search. If it catches your interest, you’ll start to consider the program by reading through the website, requesting a brochure, or attending an online webinar hosted by the program. Right before making your decision to apply (conversion), you may meet with faculty, read their work, listen to interviews with them, or read student testimonials.
As you can see, there are different types of content that are created at each level. Top of Funnel (TOFU) content focuses on awareness and educating the customer about what the product or solution is (that an MFA program exists). This could be a newsletter, social media posts, blog posts, or a website.
Middle of Funnel (MOFU) content dives a bit deeper into why the audience needs this product or service and how it can solve their problem. If you’re a writer who wants to improve their craft, an MFA program would be the solution to your pain point. This type of content could be more in-depth blog posts, podcast interviews, webinars, or other material that helps a customer learn about the product.
Finally, Bottom of Funnel (BOFU) content is what helps a customer make that purchase. This could be student testimonials of how the MFA program helped them, or even an infographic comparing the value of this MFA program to other programs.
TOFU: Content focused on raising awareness about who you are and what you do/write/offer.
MOFU: Content focused on educating your audience and increasing their trust or interest.
BOFU: Content focused on getting your audience to that final sale, donation, sign-up, or other action.
What is a call to action?
A call to action, or a CTA, is a directive asking your audience to take an action. A CTA could be asking your audience to sign up for a newsletter, download a lead magnet or free resources, visit a website, register for a class, or purchase your book. A CTA can be present at any point in the marketing funnel or customer journey.
What is thought leadership?
Thought leadership is a strategy where you create content centered around ideas or topics related to your brand that those in your industry are interested in hearing about. Instead of promoting products or services, thought leadership content demonstrates your expertise or knowledge, and positions you as someone that others should look to and follow for new ideas.
For example, if you run a non-profit focused on childhood literacy, your content should not only focus on your activities and services, but around greater topics, challenges, and discoveries related to childhood literacy. If you wrote a cli-fi novel, your content should not only focus on selling your novel, but can also include discussions about climate change, activism, and impact.
What is a content marketing strategy?
A content marketing strategy is simply a plan for:
What content you’re creating
Why you’re creating that content
Who you’re creating that content for
Where you’re posting that content
When you're posting that content
A content strategy is a roadmap that takes the stress and guesswork out of your marketing efforts, helps you be more confident in those efforts, and allows you to see the direct impact of your efforts. It’s much better when you know what you’re posting each week and how those posts will make an impact, rather than scrambling to create something from scratch each morning.
Even just having an understand of definitions can clarify and help you feel more in control of your marketing efforts. Next, we’ll look at “Why Content Marketing is Important for the Literary Community.”
Hi! I’m Jessica, and I help literary businesses, organizations, and authors build and execute their marketing strategies. If you'd like to learn how to do this 👆, come work with me!
