What Is Content Marketing? Why Storytelling Still Drives Strategy

By Simon Kearney, CEO

What Content Marketing Really Means Today

Content marketing is the art and discipline of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and, ultimately, to inspire them to take action.

That action might be buying your product, subscribing to your newsletter, sharing your post, or simply remembering you as the brand that helped them understand something. 

It’s not advertising, nor is it interruption. 

This is about establishing communication that’s built on trust.

At its best, content marketing turns marketing into a service, one that informs, educates, and occasionally entertains. 

It’s how brands earn attention instead of renting it through paid media.

When I first started in journalism, the idea of “content” was synonymous with storytelling. Today, it’s become a measurable business function, but the principles remain the same. People remember stories, not sales pitches. 

As finance professor Aswath Damodaran once said, “Nothing sells better than a good story.”

That line has proved true across every brief we’ve worked on. 

Campaigns change, formats evolve, platforms come and go, but the work that performs best almost always has a clear, human story at its core.

That’s why, even in an era of AI tools and automation, content marketing isn’t just about “producing assets”. 

It’s about consistently telling the kinds of stories that your ideal customers will recognise themselves in, and then giving them a next step.

The Core of Great Content Marketing: Earning Awareness, Respect and Trust

Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz, put it perfectly: “The best way to sell something is to earn the awareness, respect and trust of those who might buy.”

That philosophy sits at the heart of every strong client relationship we’ve ever built. And it doubles as the foundation of good content marketing.

Here’s what it looks like in practice:

1. Deliver well.

Meet expectations and fill a need. Provide something useful, authentic and consistent.

2. Communicate well.

Clarity is underrated. If your audience needs to read a sentence three times, rewrite it.

3. Offer value.

Whether through information, education or entertainment, give readers something worth their time.

4. Make the process enjoyable.

Good content is easy to consume: clean layout, accessible tone, user-friendly experience.

5. Share success.

Celebrate milestones, collaborate, and acknowledge others. Content is community-building.

Trust isn’t earned overnight. 

But when you consistently deliver value without the hard sell, you build an audience that stays long after the campaign ends.

Over time, that audience becomes an asset in itself.

People who open your emails, respond to your LinkedIn posts, attend your webinars, forward your content to colleagues, and think of you first when a relevant problem appears.

That’s the real payoff of content marketing: not just leads in a spreadsheet, but a market that already knows who you are and is predisposed to trust you.

The Building Blocks of a Good Content Marketing Strategy

Gary Vaynerchuk likes to say the trick is simply to start. He’s right, but starting with strategy helps you avoid shouting into the void.

Think of your strategy as answering three questions: What, How, and Where.

Without those answers, it’s very easy to fall into “random acts of content”, like a blog here, a video there, a few social posts when someone has time: with no compounding effect.

What do you want to say? 

Keep it simple and honest. If you’re a creative agency, say you help clients tell better stories. Avoid jargon.

If you’re a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, say you help customers work faster or smarter. 

If you’re in finance, say you help people feel more confident about money. Strip it back until a non-expert could repeat your positioning in one sentence.

Everything you publish should ladder back to that core message. 

If a topic doesn’t support what you ultimately want to be known for, it probably belongs in a different channel, or not at all.

How will you say it?

Go with your strengths: writing, video, design, conversation. Then repurpose each piece: a blog can become a LinkedIn post, a podcast, or a short video.

One strong idea can live in multiple formats.

• A 1,500-word blog can become 3-4 LinkedIn posts
• A client interview can become a podcast episode, a written case study and a 30-second reel
• A webinar can become a series of short clips and a downloadable summary

Repurposing doesn’t mean repeating yourself; it means reshaping the same core idea for different contexts and attention spans.

Where will you publish it? 

Start with the platforms where your audience actually spends time. For B2B, LinkedIn and YouTube still win.

From there, layer in supporting channels like your website, a newsletter, maybe a podcast or a niche community. 

But always only at the pace your team can realistically sustain.

Consistency is non-negotiable.

In old media, missing a newspaper edition wasn’t an option. 

In content marketing, publishing when you say you will builds reliability, and that reliability becomes a positive reputation.

When people learn that “there’s always something useful from this brand on a Tuesday” or “their newsletter is the one I always open”, you’ve crossed a crucial line: you’re no longer fighting to be seen, you’re being actively sought out.

8 Best Practices for Sustainable Content Marketing

1. Define your objectives. 

Use the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely). Are you chasing brand awareness, leads, or SEO visibility?

Be honest about what success looks like in 6–12 months. More qualified traffic? More sales conversations? Higher close rates? Different goals require different content choices.

2. Plan with a content calendar. 

It keeps you honest and helps balance topics, formats and channels. Prioritise quality over volume.

Your calendar doesn’t need to be complicated. A simple sheet with dates, topics, formats, owners and status can prevent 80% of last-minute panic. 

3. Understand your audience personae. 

Know who you’re talking to. Rachel (18) wants to look stylish; Vicky (27) wants convenience and prestige; Zac (46) wants health and longevity.

Give each persona a short backstory, a list of goals, and a list of fears or frustrations. Then sense-check each piece of content against them: “Would this help Rachel? Would Zac bother reading past the headline?”

4. Optimise for SEO

Check what already ranks for your target keyword. Identify gaps. Use long-tail phrases that sound natural, not robotic.

Look for questions your competitors haven’t answered well, or angles they’ve missed. That’s your opportunity to add something genuinely useful rather than another look-at-me article.

5. Tell a story 

Facts explain. Stories persuade. Every brand has a story of how it solves real problems, that’s what audiences connect with.

It doesn’t need to be a Hollywood script. 

A customer problem, a moment of insight, a change in behaviour, a measurable outcome. 

Any of these are enough to anchor a piece of content in something real.

6. Curate intelligently. 

Mix original content with credible third-party insights. Add commentary that shows your point of view.

Think of yourself as an editor for your audience: you’re not just creating, you’re also selecting, filtering and framing what matters in your space.

7. Choose the right channels. 

Match platform to purpose: Instagram for visuals, LinkedIn for B2B thought leadership, YouTube for explainer videos.

Don’t be afraid to say no to channels that don’t suit your brand or resources. It’s better to be strong and consistent on two platforms than weak on five.

8. Track, learn, and optimise

Use analytics to see what performs. Double down on topics and formats that deliver engagement.

Over time, patterns will emerge: certain themes always perform well, certain formats underperform, certain CTAs convert better. 

Let those insights shape your next quarter’s plan instead of starting from a blank page each time.

Content Marketing vs Digital Marketing vs Inbound Marketing

These three terms often overlap, but each has its place:

Digital marketing is the umbrella term: all marketing done online, both push and pull.

Inbound marketing is the pull side of digital marketing: attracting rather than interrupting.

Content marketing is the engine of inbound: the stories, guides, and videos that make people come to you.

In other words: all content marketing is digital, but not all digital marketing is content marketing.

Put another way: digital marketing is the toolbox, inbound is the approach, and content marketing is the fuel that makes the whole system run.

Copywriting vs Content Marketing

Copywriting persuades. Content marketing educates.

Copywriting is your billboard headline or call-to-action button: short, sharp, designed for immediate response.

Content marketing is your thought-leadership article or how-to video: long-form, built for trust over time.

They work best together. A well-written article might bring someone to your site; a compelling CTA converts them.

Think of copywriting as the punchline and content marketing as the set-up. 

Without the set-up, the punchline falls flat. Without the punchline, the set-up never quite lands.

How to Start Your Own Content Marketing Strategy

Start simple.

1. Clarify your goals 

Are you trying to build awareness, drive conversions, or establish authority? Each goal shapes your tone and channel.

2. Audit what you already have. 

Repurpose old blog posts, case studies or videos: update titles, add visuals, refresh links.

Very often, your first “new” content strategy comes from breathing new life into assets you already own.

3. Build your content calendar. 

Plan your cadence. Weekly blogs, monthly videos, quarterly case studies; consistency trumps intensity.

4. Use proper formatting. 

Apply H1/H2/H3 tags correctly. Make paragraphs short. Add bullet points, bolding, and internal/external links.

5. Link intelligently. 

Add at least two external authority links (e.g., Content Marketing Institute, HubSpot). Link internally once to each relevant service page. Keep anchor text natural: “content marketing for our clients,” not just “content marketing.”

Don’t treat links as an afterthought; they’re part of how both humans and search engines understand the structure of your site.

6. Optimise images and metadata. 

Rename image files (e.g., what-is-content-marketing-1.jpg), add descriptive alt text, and align meta title and description with your focus keyword.

7. Add summaries and FAQs. 

Both readers and AI crawlers love them.

Content Marketing as Storytelling That Sells Without Selling

At Click2View, we encourage brands to tell stories about the real people behind their policies: families, business owners, retirees, instead of just making content that explains their products.

By filming short interviews and publishing them as micro-stories on LinkedIn and YouTube, brands go from explaining what they do to demonstrating why their work matters.

That’s the power of content marketing done right: it earns attention by offering value first.

When someone recognises their own fears, goals or situations in a story you’ve told, you don’t have to push them, because they lean in on their own.

Summary

Content marketing works because it replaces persuasion with participation.

By combining strategy, creativity and consistency, brands can turn information into influence, and influence into trust.

Start with a story worth telling. Tell it well. And keep telling it until people start telling it for you.

The tools will keep changing. Algorithms will keep shifting. But if you stay focused on helping the right people with the right stories, your content will keep earning its place in their day.

FAQ

1. What exactly is content marketing?

It’s a strategic approach focused on creating valuable content that attracts, informs and retains an audience, without directly selling.

2. What are the main types of content marketing? 

Blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts, e-books, webinars, newsletters and social-media storytelling.

3. How is content marketing different from advertising? 

Advertising interrupts. Content marketing invites. It gives audiences something useful instead of demanding attention.

4. How long does it take to see results? 

Expect traction within 3–6 months if you publish consistently and optimise for SEO. It’s a long-term game.

5. Do small businesses need content marketing? 

Absolutely. Good content levels the playing field: credibility beats budget when you’re consistent.

6. How do I measure success? 

Track engagement (time on page, shares, comments), conversions, backlinks, and search rankings over time.

You can also track “softer” signals like direct replies to newsletters, inbound enquiries that mention your content, or prospects referencing specific articles on calls; all signs that your storytelling is working.