People don’t start talking about a product or service out of the blue. It doesn’t spontaneously occur to them to post comments on a blog or online forum about a new restaurant they’ve never heard of. Word-of-mouth marketing has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is advertising, press releases, sales calls, direct mail, etc. I’ve used this analogy before, but advertising is like the Big Bang that gives momentum to word-of-mouth.

The problem with advertising is that most people tune it out, literally and figuratively. So the kind of advertising and promotion you do now has to be grounded in something your audience will pay attention to. Content marketing is one way to do that. Content marketing builds ties to customers, so when you’re ready to launch a product or promote a service or brand, your customers will be more likely to talk about it. Also, if your customers are used to finding valuable information from you, they’ll be more familiar with your products and services to begin with. In this way, your marketing is continuous.