Content marketing is defined by Wikipedia as a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing and distributing content for a targeted audience online.  The key is creating content for a specific audience.  The content is then discovered via a number of methods like search engine results or shares on social media.  The content can be in a number of formats including text, image, video or audio.  Another key about content marketing is it is focused on identifying the customer’s needs and then creating content that informs them.

It is different in other forms of marketing like advertising.   Advertising is about showing marketing message that interrupt a person.  Content marketing is about permission marketing where people want to learn more and seek out content that helps them become educate or make a decision.