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What Is Content Marketing?

Useful content should be at the core of your marketing

Traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute; as a forward-thinking marketer, you know there has to be a better way.

Enter content marketing.

"Content marketing is 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".

Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.

  

Content Marketing

The Difference between Content and Content Marketing

Content marketing is not a piece of content. it is not marketing with content like brochures. It is not a native ad. It is not a “viral video.”

Content marketing means acting like a publisher, consistently creating content that our customers actually like to read and share. Content marketing is how build an audience and attract subscribers who opt-in to allow you into their already over-crowded email inbox.

This is very different from advertising. Advertising means occasionally interrupting the content your audience actually wants, in order to sell them a product or introduce your brand. Many of us opt-out of unwanted advertising. Advertising is not something we typically want to read and share. Advertising is how publishers monetize their traffic.

So look to great content marketing examples like L’Oreal’s Makeup.com, Adobe’s CMO.com and our favorite industry-wide content marketing example like American Express Business Trends and Insights. That site is the largest source of leads for their small business card division.
Imagine you are the content marketing director for your company and you led the creation and management of a program that drove more leads and sales than any other marketing activity. With results you can rack and measure in business terms.

It starts with an understanding that marketing is not about selling, but about the conversation we have with our customers. It continues with investing in content marketing, because the difference between just content and content marketing is the destination.

What is content marketing in simple words?

 

Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

Differences Between Content Marketing and Traditional Advertising

Permissibility

One of the main differences between content marketing and traditional advertising is that the former is permissive while the latter is interruptive. Content marketing gives consumers the freedom to seek out and consume their desired content whenever they want. This means that they have given marketers permission to reach out to them.

Traditional advertising, on the other hand, often reaches consumers when they are doing something else, such as watching television, listening to the radio, or driving. It can distract people from their current activities or experiences. This marketing approach is also sometimes implemented in digital marketing efforts, such as pop-ups, social media ads, and pre-roll videos.

Information

Content marketing is currently the preferred marketing approach because it offers something valuable to consumers. It can educate readers or viewers about a certain industry, teach them how to make the right purchasing decisions, or simply entertain them. This can lead to increased customer engagement and loyalty.

Unlike content marketing, traditional advertising typically includes only information on the product or service it intends to sell. Although some traditional advertisements, such as Super Bowl commercials, also provide entertainment, their main purpose is to educate consumers on the products that are being sold, such as their benefits and the methods to purchase them.

Audience

Content marketing seeks to earn its audience by giving something valuable. Consumers find and view your content because they want to do so. This means that they choose to be your audience, and you own them.

In contrast, traditional advertising is usually aimed at a rented audience. Traditional advertisers pay money to media platforms with an existing audience to get their messages across to people who use those platforms. Purchased radio airtime, rented billboard spaces, and purchased PPC ads are some examples of platforms that are commonly used for traditional marketing. The disadvantage of renting an audience is that the audience does not belong to you, and you will eventually have to give it back once your paid period is over.

Interaction

Content marketing is intended to help you start a conversation with your potential customers. By sharing value and conversing with your customers on a consistent basis, you will establish yourself as a leader in your industry. As a result, they will trust your brand and eventually decide to buy from you. Content efforts that are effective in sparking conversations with customers include in-person events, webinars, and opportunities for user-generated content.

Traditional marketing strategies, such as commercials, only allow you to have a one-way communication with your customers. They do not encourage or ask for an immediate response. Traditional marketers just put information about certain products or services in front of their target consumers and hope that some of them will make a purchase.

Changeability

Another benefit of content marketing over traditional advertising is that it enables marketers to hone their marketing strategies in real time. Marketers can find out which content strategies are working and invest more time and effort in those strategies to achieve better results. This can be done using analytics programs that show different aspects of sales and marketing campaigns as they are happening, including purchases, clicks, and links.

Traditional marketing campaigns are more static, because they are difficult to tweak while they are underway. This is especially so with television and print ads. Marketers have to wait until their campaigns are over before they can start analyzing the results and make improvements to their strategies.

Cost

Cost is a major consideration when it comes to choosing a marketing strategy. When you compare the costs of content marketing and traditional advertising, you will find that the former is significantly more affordable. According to an article published in Forbes, content marketing is 62 percent more cost-effective than traditional marketing and delivers three times as many leads.

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Content Marketing vs. Traditional Advertising: Which Should You Choose?

When you are choosing a marketing strategy, there is no doubt that you should implement content marketing. It is more effective, easier to accomplish, and more affordable. Nonetheless, this does not mean that you should ignore traditional advertising. The best marketers are those who are able to seamlessly integrate their inbound and outbound marketing strategies. Create a multichannel marketing strategy that uses content to narrow down prospective customers to a specialized group and then employ traditional marketing tactics to convince them to buy from you.

Whether you choose to reach your target audience with blog posts, advertisements, newsletters, emails, billboards, or flyers, you are still sharing content. While content marketing and traditional advertising both involve the use of content, they have different fundamental principles, benefits, and effects on consumers. In order to create a winning marketing strategy, you need to use an omnichannel approach that enables you to leverage the unique benefits of content marketing and traditional advertising.

 

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