The Difference Between Content Marketing and Traditional Advertising

In the world of advertising and marketing, the clear goal is to create an image of your business with which people want to associate. Whether it comes in the form of traditional advertising or content marketing, your content needs to be compelling in some fashion. Of course, there are plenty of different ways to market to your target audience. The aforementioned content marketing has become a valuable tool for businesses to make a long-term investment in their future clients. But, you should not expect fast turnarounds with a content marketing strategy.

In It For The Long Haul

Traditional advertising takes on a much different tone than content marketing. Studies have suggested that potential customers need to be exposed to your product between 7 and 20 times for you to convert a sale. With radio, TV, digital, and other media, you can definitely expose your brand to multiple customers at multiple different times. This frequently results in a quick conversion. People are more willing to buy whatever you have to offer if they’ve been exposed to you frequently enough.

Of course, content marketing is a lot different. It is more about fostering a relationship with customers than it is about making an immediate conversion. There are numerous ways to cultivate a successful content marketing strategy, but most of them involve creating quality content and providing engagement with your customer base.

This takes time. You are not going to convert leads right out of the gate with a content marketing strategy. But, don’t let that discourage you. You have to be in it for the long haul, which means that it’s important to provide consistently good content for an extended period of time. Over time, customers will start to associate your brand with expertise. They will make the connection that your name represents quality, and, when they finally see a piece of content that spurs them to purchase, they will come to you first.

Choosing a Strategy

When it comes to content marketing, choosing a strategy is really all about knowing your audience and knowing your platform. For instance, a tech company might create a blog that contains valuable, well-written articles about their niche. People looking for quality information will find these blogs through effective use of SEO or other means. Providing consistently high-quality content on the blog will result in a more name recognition and brand trust.

But, in some cases, content marketing isn’t only about creating high-quality, informative content. Indeed, some businesses have taken to social media in often irreverent or comical ways to attract a younger audience. For instance, the restaurant chain, Denny’s, maintains a robust Tumblr page and Twitter feed that seek to engage their audience directly with relatable and humorous content. Of course, the restaurant also never misses an opportunity to talk about upcoming deals. Customers follow Denny’s because they provide a diversion, but the overall goal of the brand is to create a friendly, welcoming atmosphere that turns social media users into customers.

Quality Over Quantity

It’s not enough to simply have a social media page or a blog to attract visitors. Garnering “likes” or “retweets,” may appear good on the surface, but it’s important to actually provide content that people want to see. It’s also important to synthesize your online presence. One of the issues that many small businesses face with their content marketing is an altogether harried social media presence. It’s not uncommon for a brand to have multiple, unofficial social media pages. If there are 20 Facebook profiles with your company’s name on them, then you’re likely going to lose engagement opportunities to false pages. Thus, it’s crucial to make it clear which social media accounts are official so that you can provide proper engagement with your core audience.

If your content marketing strategy isn’t seeing large gains, then don’t scrap it too soon. As long as you’re providing quality content, the customer base will stick around. Most content marketing strategies take around 6 months before you start to see any results. Stay the course, and you’ll end up with an inexpensive marketing opportunity that lasts for a long time.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/1iWrqB3