As technology continues to evolve and grow in importance, modern businesses employ diverse marketing and advertising strategies to reach potential customers and close sales. Imagine you’re watching television, then an Ad pop-up, that’s an annoying thing.
Those days traditional ads like TV ads, radio ads, and print ads, were the only popular marketing modes that helped businesses to reach more population.
Only big brands used to invest in these traditional advertisement modes. What about the medium and small companies? They were dying with poor traditional advertisement strategies due to the high cost of advertising on traditional media.
Thanks to digitization, now there are multiple advertising options open to every company. Consumers have become more savvy shoppers, with more control over which advertisement they want to see. In 2019, it was estimated there were 1.92 billion digital buyers. Now people can buy and sale through online all over the world.
Consumers’ decisions are now highly influenced by content, which plays a large role in how they acquire information.
After all, as part of online marketing, content is used to market goods and services as a part of traditional advertisement techniques. So, what separates content marketing from advertisement?
Content marketing & advertisement are two of the most critical aspects of any business’s success, marketers are often getting confused as to which is the most effective.
Marketing’s aim has always been to convince customers to take action. Advertisement exists to serve the seller while content marketing is there to give value to the customer.
In content marketing you have to provide value to the customer, then how will the business grow? Why should you use content and expecting to sell without advertising? Apart from the medium used what is difference between advertisement and content marketing?
Let’s examine how content marketing differs from traditional advertisement and how it can benefit the business.
What is a traditional advertisement?
Traditional advertising refers to any promotion that has been used for a long time before the usage of the internet. The traditional advertisement is any type of promotion that isn’t online, and that’s through the traditional media like newspapers and radio.
The traditional media like television present the same Ad for a certain period. Imagine you are busy watching a film on Television, then an Ad shows up in the middle of your watching. People get tired and even ignore the repeated Ads.
Online marketing made it easy, you can cancel or close the Ad and continue watching your film.
People advertise their business through online platforms. Digital marketing is the smart way of marketing that many organizations want to adopt.
Marketers now are advertising their products through online advertisement. Examples of online Ads are pay-per-click, Display Ads, and social Ads like Facebook Ads.
Traditional advertising and online marketing differ from the medium to reach the viewers. Whether it is a traditional or online advertisement, the aim is to reach an audience. Without considering if he will be the buyer someday or not.
In advertisements, the goal is to sell the product while in content the aim is to engage the buyer in marketing.
What is Content Marketing?
Digital marketers and strategists define the term as a strategic marketing approach involving planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing valuable, consistent, and relevant content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience.
In the end, to drive profitable consumer action that can boost factors like brand awareness, sales, reach, interactions, and loyalty. You learn more about How can content marketing improves sales in your business
Many businesses are moving in a new marketing direction. Content creation is about making pieces of a message that your target will find useful.
It’s about getting in front of the right audience and nurturing that relationship so they trust your business, and becoming the potential buyers.
71% of consumers who are happy with the customer service they get via social media are likely to recommend that brand to others.
Customers today are receiving more marketing messages than ever before. This creates an environment of attention, challenging marketers to create engaging content.
An effective content creation strategy delivers value to your audience consistently. Based on your buyer persona research, you can identify pain points and challenges to address within your content. By solving their problems through your content, readers will be coming back for more. This will lead you to the next point.
What is the best?
People always care about what you provide, that’s all. They can’t sleep and dream about your brand, it’s you who dream about the brand's reputation and its direction.
Which ways will you use to make people recognize your brand? The direct answer will be through the advertisements. It can be online advertisements or traditional advertisements.
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Some marketers use traditional advertising and online marketing at once, they can’t measure the true performance of them. It is very hard to distinguish the customers from the traditional Ads and those who are from the online Ads.
Questions: Is it worth, spending the money to promote the products or services? What if they don’t buy from you? What about the money spent on advertising the product? How will you recover it? There is a risk in any business, but it’s a brilliant act for any marketer to avoid unnecessary risks.
The flow of the business needs the customer to recognize your brand. Choosing the right ways to do marketing is not only for winning over the competitors but also to win over the customers. 91% of B2B marketers used content marketing to reach their customers. Grabbing the customer’s attention is the best way to win over the competition.
Bridging Technologies recommend the use of content marketing for your brand’s success.
The fact is, apart from the price people want to hear more about what you are telling them. Why buying from you and what is so special in your brand than others.
One of the benefits of content is, it creates value for the audiences, they don’t see the product in the first place, they see the value you provide.
What are the benefits of content marketing?
Value to the customers and the clever way of doing marketing, are not only the benefits of content marketing but also are
1. Permissible
Permission marketing is characterized by audience curiosity. Content marketing allows the audience to view what they want. Marketing of permission is when an audience searches out and decides to consume.
There is a difference between advertisement and content in the audience’s permission. In the advertisement, it always interrupts the viewer at any time while in content marketing there is permission.
Permissible marketing is more successful than interruptive one. This is because it is opt-in and based on viewer interest.
It is better to invest in a small group of people who are interested in your brand than in many people who don’t know about your business.
2. Nurturing the customers
Advertisement takes the role of telling consumers something about a business, a product, or service direct. Content marketing is an indirect kind of promotion. It brings the message that the audience considers as a piece of useful information. This another difference between advertisement and content marketing.
In an advertisement you bring the products in front of the viewers then off you go, waiting for the money.
Content marketing brings out the message which the target considers interesting, useful, or meaningful instead of listing items. It's a way to show audiences that you are knowledgeable in your industry and that they can count on you for helpful information.
Another benefit of content marketing is, you can convert the audience into a buyer and turning him to be a loyal customer.
It’s not easy for the audience to become a buyer in a single day. With their permission you can send the marketing content and converting them into buyers.
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3. Talking
In advertising, you are telling the listeners to buy from you. There's no dialogue, you only show people what you offer and praise the advantages of that product.
There is a great opportunity to speak to customers through online content. They can comment, like, or share your content on online platforms like social media. 72% of marketers believe content marketing effectiveness in terms of increasing conversion rates. Content allows you to respond, letting you get to know your potential customers and allowing them to trust you.
A communication that doesn’t allow dialogue is boring. The satisfaction of the communication is when each side has a chance to express. It is easy to forget the Ads that you only seeing without participating. You can remember the content that you once comment on but not the online Ads that shown up and you canceled it. This is the failure of the advertisements.
Direct communication with the customers increases the awareness and reputation of your brand. You may already know how brand reputation matters for your business and the good time to build your brand is now.
You can learn more about brand reputation by clicking here Positive online reputation: how to build in 5 simple ways.
You don’t need a Ph.D. to bring your brand to the top. Bridging Technologies provides techniques for brand building based on your customer preferences.
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4. Building a long-term relationship with the audiences.
Both traditional advertising and online marketing are for promoting the business. Any advertising is a one-night stand promotion, only showing the product to the audience then it is over.
In advertising, you are only looking for new customers, which is not an easy task. Because the advertisement does not bring any value to the customers, it is very hard for the customers to remember it.
In the content presentation you use the strategies to stay in contact with the customers. You observe ways to make the customer engage with the content at each stage in the buying journey.
This influences client loyalty. As the customers permit you having the content based on their interest, it makes them trust you. It is easy for them to come back and recommend you for their next buying.
Although you don't promote a product automatically with content, you constantly get in front of your target client with it. Content is a great way to get seen and heard, without having to push a product or service.
5. Specific to the target group
Another benefit of content marketing is the focus on the audiences. Content marketers spend time studying the target audiences and determine the types of messages they will like to see. They look at trends and the kinds of blog posts that do their best.
They also investigate where their audience can be found so they can allocate the message in the right places. Selling material is about putting it in front of the right individuals.
They describe the buyer persona, to provide the messages that will solve target audience problems.
Advertisement is about putting the messages in front of the largest number of people. In online advertisements like social media Ads, they try to focus on the buyer’s interest and location. But the traditional advertising like Billboards does not focus on the audience type. There is no studying and understanding of the target group to reach their need.
6. Cost-effective
You pay for traditional advertisements like Banners, and billboards. You also have to pay for the pay-per-click and social media Ads. Unfortunately, you may spend a lot of money on advertising, and get few customers or not at all. This is because there is no buyer persona and the message is general, not specific to a certain group of people.
The content creation is cost-effective. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. You only develop the strategies to build up the useful information that will make the customer engage with your company. You publish the content and building trust with your customers at no cost.
You may read more about Why and How Content Marketing is the best digital marketing strategy
Remind you, be careful when you want to select between content marketing & advertisement. Don’t copy from others, look at your goals and the areas where you target customers are mostly found.
The most successful marketers spend 40% of their total marketing budget on content marketing. A well content distribution strategy builds brand awareness as you educate buyers.
Marketers are struggling for having customers. It is not easy to have loyal customers who will spread the word for you. Though it is hard, a good thing is, it is possible.
Customers are like kids, they need consideration, they don’t like disturbance they even get angry when they don’t see what they want.
And that is true, customers now want to see what they like, they block the advertisement and even reporting them as spam. PageFair estimates the use of Adblockers grew globally by 41% over the past 12 months.
Business owners are becoming aware of content marketing in Tanzania. If you are a content writer, you have to know your business niche.
You may create a message that doesn’t serve the purpose at that time though you know your target customer.
Providing helpful and entertaining content, form a strong bond between brand and customers.
The perception of content marketing in Tanzania is not at a level where developers deploy it. You might see many websites with no content.
The solution is Bridging Technologies. The number one digital marketing agency deals with content marketing in Tanzania. The development of the business depends much on your effort.
Bridging Technologies is proud to help you with digital challenges in your business. Every company has got value for their customers especial in the digital aspect. If you provide enough value, then you earn the right to promote your company in order to have new customers. The key is to always provide value.
CAN’T SEE THE VALUE TO GIVE? WITH FREE CONSULTATION LET US SAVE YOU.
About Author
A content writer filled with a desire to create engaging online content for innovative brands.
