In this post you will learn about Content Marketing vs Traditional Marketing, and the key advantages for your business.
Marketing has always been about telling stories that capture an audience’s imagination and moves them to act. The more compelling the story the more likely customers will embrace the message. Traditional marketing does it with television, radio and print adverts. Lets see how Content marketing vs Traditional marketing matchup.
Content marketing involves creating free materials such as articles, videos, blogs, tweets and emails to inform, entertain and educate. The intent is exactly the same as traditional marketing: to achieve more leads and sales. But content marketing is subtler, drawing people in rather than broadcasting a message to them.
Instead of pitching products, you are consistently publishing content that will inform their purchasing decisions and solve their problems. Content marketing is based on the premise that consumers trust editorials more than adverts.
In today’s globally connected, social-media driven world people rarely pay attention to or believe sponsored advertising messages. They ignore magazine adverts, channel hop during TV commercials and click away from online banner ads. But they actively seek out content.
Content marketing is a powerful way for companies to reach their customers and is fast gaining traction among business to business and business to consumer companies of all sizes. According to a survey of more than 1,300 firms by digital publishing and training group Econsultancy, 91% of respondents are using content to market their products and services. And 54% cite increased engagement as the principle value of content.
New Ways to Communicate
Some of the world’s most powerful and successful corporations including Microsoft, Procter and Gamble and Cisco Systems are focusing on content to communicate with their consumers. An illustration of the importance that some companies are attaching to it can be seen at Coca-Cola. Content is central to plans to double the size of its business by 2020.
The soft drinks behemoth has revealed details of its new strategy Content 2020. This approach represents a seismic shift in how the company connects with people, by transitioning from creative excellence to content excellence to drive consumers.
Jonathan Mildenhall, VP Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence the Coca-Cola Company said:
“All advertisers need a lot more content so that they can keep the engagement with consumers fresh and relevant, because of the 24/7 connectivity. If you’re going to be successful around the world, you have to have fat and fertile ideas at the core.”
Key Benefits of Content Marketing vs Traditional Advertising
- Content has a longer shelf-life: once you stop paying for an advertising campaign it is removed from circulation, yet great content can live for months and years.
- Content can grow your audience: people are more likely to pass on a good article to their social media networks.
- Content can be tailored to different audience segments: adverts are a one-size fits all approach to marketing products.
- Content rewards consumers with meaningful information: sales messages are a turn-off.
Beating the Competition
People are more likely to use the Internet to get information about products, but there is so much noise there that websites that provide good quality content on a consistent basis have the best chances of being ranked highly by search engines.
The traditional marketing models tended to score the biggest wins for those with the biggest budgets. Today, that’s changing as whoever is creating the best content and generating the most stimulating conversations is winning.
So now you have seen how content marketing vs traditional marketing stacks up, and how it can help in your marketing efforts. Give it a go and see how it improves your lead generation tomorrow!
From MavSocial | Social Media Marketing Software for Business
