Content Marketing: Better Than Advertising?
Posted by John Verity on Wed, Aug 03, 2011
It’s a question that has been kicking around marketing circles for the past couple
of years, with increasing intensity: Is content marketing the new advertising? Does content marketing work better, more effectively, than advertising?
In case you hadn’t guessed, the answer to both these questions is the same: yes and no. Yes, content marketing works better than advertising, but not automatically or necessarily. And yes, content market is the new advertising, but no, it doesn’t do away with the need for - or, in turn, the existence of - advertising.
Both activities have a place in today’s marketing strategies because both retain their effectiveness. What has been happening, of course, is that the balance between them has shifted dramatically as the Web turns into a cacophony and people grow busier, more distracted but also much more sophisticated in their shopping and procurement activities.
Content marketing is working better than advertising because it provides buyers something substantive and useful or simply entertaining - input to their self-education about a product, service, or category. It's helping to sell everything from highly-technical goods to apartments. Content appeals to buyers who are in the process of researching a particular good or service and who are therefore actively searching for and open to information that they can use. These buyers generally find content either directly, while doing research, or by following links to it that others, with a similar bent, have identified as particularly useful, entertaining, or otherwise compelling.
Either way, content builds brand and it builds trust. It builds brand by turning what might be a commodity into something special. It helps to distinguish in the reader’s mind a particular product from others like it by endowing the product with knowledge. Because it is genuinely helpful and informative, the best content works to persuade the viewer that this company - or in the case of a blog or other social media mention, this person - knows what they’re talking about and to some degree can be relied on.
Genuinely thoughtful and helpful content is a gift that keeps on giving. Its information and insight shape the reader’s perception and understanding of the topic at hand. Furthermore, if the content truly stands out as particularly well-crafted and helpful, it re-enforces the idea that its provider not only has the reader’s interests in mind but understands the problem they’re trying to solve - whether to buy a left-handed widget or a right-handed one - better than other providers of similar goods or services. Finally, good content gets shared, again and again, multiplying its impact as it goes - something that advertising is much less likely to accomplish.
Done well, content helps to persuade the reader that they are dealing with someone who understands them and their “pain points” and who isn’t just out to sell them something as quickly as possible. It projects a calm, rational voice that conveys credibility, and that credibility will rub off, as it were, onto the content provider’s brand, products, and other marketing messages.
Advertising, in contrast, seeks to stimulate demand or remind buyers of a particular brand or product by repeatedly pushing the brand or product name at them. The hope is that some percentage of viewers will be moved, now or at some time in the future, to act on this message - either to click on an ad to learn more or later, to recall the item or brand when they get down to actual shopping.
SEO strategies can certainly help to make sure that ads get served on pages containing relevant information or search results. But there’s only so much message that an ad can convey; it’s brief, momentary, and easily tuned out.
Clearly, advertising and content can help each other out. Ads on Google, for instance, may generate clicks by offering the reader helpful content. This strategy seems to work particularly well as a lead generator in B2B marketing where, say, a technical whitepaper may be offered in exchange for the visitor identifying themselves, their interests, and their name, phone number, and email. Assuming the white paper truly is helpful and informative, it will do what content marketing does best, namely win the hearts and mind of its reader and perhaps even persuade them to share the information with others who might be similarly interested.
In sum, while the marketing winds have definitely shifted, content has not supplanted advertising. If it had, we'd all be seeing some terrible financial reports out of Google, no?