What is Content Marketing? (and Why We Need It to Promote Sustainability)

When I was doing by Business Management Bachelor, I learnt a whole lot about marketing: how to analyse markets, how to segment and so on. I left with the basic principles and practices of marketing, but not really aware of the specific strategies that can be used.

It was only when I started working that I discovered all the incredible types of marketing approaches that exist out there, in the real world. It was like being in Narnia and going through the wardrobe to discover a new exciting world of possibilities (minus the evil queen).

There's one specific strategy that really caught my attention, and that's been trending in the past few years: content marketing. I've always liked storytelling and creating content, so content marketing felt more natural to me.

But you might be wondering: what exactly is content marketing?

In this article, I'll give you a quick definition and explain why I think we need to use content marketing to promote sustainable fashion. Follow me!

What is content marketing?

The Content Marketing Institute 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 is basically telling a story and delivering useful and relevant content that helps solve your audience's problems, instead of merely hard selling your products or services (but don't get me wrong, this kind of marketing is needed sometimes).

Content marketing switches the focus from the marketer to the customer: what are their pain points? What issues are they facing? What problems or worries do they have?

It aims to build a stable relationship with the customer by providing them with high-quality content, which can take different forms: blog articles, user-generated, eBooks, newsletters, FAQs, videos, pictures, podcasts ...

Does content marketing really work?

Although content marketing's popularity has been growing recently, its principles have been around for a long time, with the earliest examples dating back to 1895! So, if content marketing has been around for such a long time, it must mean it works, right?

Content marketing works to:

• Build trust and loyalty: 68% of consumers spend time reading content from brands they are interested in.

• Increase sales: content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising!

• Reduce costs: content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less.

Why do we need to use content marketing to promote sustainable fashion?

More and more consumers are starting to realise the threat of climate change and the impact the fashion industry can have on the planet. In fact, recent research by the fashion search engine Lyst revealed that in 2018, searches for “sustainable fashion” increased by 66%!

Consumers are more aware and are looking for information about how to be more sustainable. Lyst suggested that the surge in searches was even higher for specific search terms related to sustainable fashion, with page views up by 187%.

There is an increasing market of conscious consumers, who want to learn more about sustainability, who have questions that need to be answered and issues that need to be solved, such as:

• What is sustainable fashion?

• How to find sustainable and ethical fashion brands?

• How to make sure a brand is ethical?

• Which materials are more durable?

This means that there is growing opportunity for useful and relevant (we're kind of in the middle of a climate crisis right now) content to be created.

Content marketing for sustainable fashion helps consumers make better fashion choices and allows brands to assert themselves as sustainable fashion leaders and change-makers.

For brands and organisations, sustainable fashion content can look like:

• Strong brand storytelling, explaining how and why the brand decided to be more sustainable and ethical

• In-depth explanation of a brand's environmental and labour practices

• Behind-the-scenes of the production process and supply chain

• Material guides

• Answers to FAQs on sustainability

• Hot tips and tricks to sustainable fashion

The possibilities are endless!

Content marketing has an exciting potential but it is just a piece of the puzzle: it's part of other forms of marketing, such as SEO (the quality of your content is important for Google), email marketing, social media marketing (which is excellent for promoting your awesome content), inbound marketing or public relations.

The interest in sustainable fashion is undeniably rising, so sustainable brands and organisations need to get on the content marketing train to cater to this growing niche's needs!