Marketers are faced with many choices.
There are always channels that offer ways to reach a target audience. The problem is that there are usually multiple channels. And within each channel there are different types of methods for reaching an audience.
Some might be better than others in bottom line numbers. But there are a lot of variables.
What works for one industry may not work as well for another. What works for one business may not for another. What works for one individual marketer may not work for another.
One of the questions today that leads to frustration in Content Marketing vs. Advertising.
Both seem like great opportunities. If you view life that way, they are both great opportunities. But it’s important to know the nuances to help maybe lead you in a direction that will lead to good results.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is creating content with the goal being to attract consumers of the content. That brings awareness to yourself or your business. That awareness leads to more sales through a variety of ways: direct, higher authority in the industry, better rankings on Google thanks to a well-known brand, etc.
Content marketing could be any form of content on any type of platform. It could be sending out a regular paper newsletter through the mail. It could be publishing regular blog posts. Videos on YouTube. Podcast episodes. Email newsletters. All kinds of things.
In general, most content marketing takes a long time to bring to scale. If you’re starting out with zero audience and zero authority, you’re literally building your audience on person at a time. If you have nobody paying attention to you and you create one piece or a thousand pieces the first day, you’re probably not getting attention for awhile.
However, creating content consistently over time, months and years, and then promoting that content through various channels (SEO, guesting, social media, etc.) you will begin to see steady growth in people paying attention to your content and to you or your business.
If you look at most content marketing examples, you’ll see that they have been around for many years. The ones that seem to have come out of nowhere usually have a story behind the scenes. The creator or someone involved likely had an audience already in existence from another effort. Or perhaps they partnered with someone or with a platform where an audience already existed.
Another way for “quicker” effectiveness with content marketing is being the first or early adopter on a new content channel. The first users on Twitter that published regularly got proportionately more attention than those that did the same later on in the platform’s life. This is because early consumers on the platform only had so much content to consume. There wasn’t as much competition for the attention.
As Tom Petty said…the waiting is the hardest part with content marketing for most marketers.
Many marketers struggle with the idea that it can take years to build attention with content marketing. That’s understandable. But that also presents the huge opportunity. If most people shy away from something, even if it proves to work, then it opens up more for those willing to invest.
For the most part, we know that delayed gratification leads to great rewards and great success. But as long as people struggle with it, there is opportunity.
Another important area of content marketing is the production of the content. There is a lot of effort that goes into creating content. Blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc. Whatever it is, there is effort involved. Usually more effort than most anticipate when they begin. Again, no matter the channel.
But that is also the case with advertising. It varies by advertising channel, but you’re still creating content. You’re still creating lots of content as you create and innovate and learn what works and what doesn’t. So that really is a wash when it comes to creating content.
You might be creating different types of content, but you’re still creating content.
Advertising
The biggest benefit with advertising is the speed. You can reach people right away. Create an ad (content) and pay to reach an audience and…boom…you’re in front of them.
The next biggest benefit is that using an ad might be the better way to reach an audience. Generally, platforms that rely on advertising for money will move toward more and more advertising. They will focus on making people focus on the ads. If you use Facebook, for example, you’re likely to notice the ads. Sure, you notice the general content, but over time the ads become more visible because that benefits Facebook.
The same is true with Google search. Generally, the regular listings get most of the views and clicks. But over time, that has slowly changed so that more people are viewing and clicking on ads. Again, more money for Google. That’s how it works and it’s fine. It’s good when companies make money and when users get what they want.
You can go on a platform and pay your way to reach the audience. That’s the tradeoff. That’s how many businesses make money. If you want to reach the most people all at the same time you would buy an ad for the Super Bowl. You have somewhere around 100 million people all watching the same content at the same time. That’s why the ads are several million dollars a piece.
Obviously the tradeoff with advertising is the money. Sometimes there are great deals available on certain channels. If you can pay for a customer profitably, you generally want to do that as much as you possibly can. Once it stops being profitable, you move on.
Another downside, at least in comparison to content marketing, is the concept of easy come, easy go. Advertising makes it easy to get in front of an audience. But obviously once you stop the ad, you lose the audience. It’s easy to setup an ad and get attention, but as soon as you stop paying, it’s gone.
That can be true with content marketing. Channels change. Preferences change. All kinds of things change. But a good general rule for life is that if it’s harder to achieve, it’s harder to lose.
What About Both…
Here is the thing with marketing…it’s good to have multiple efforts going on at the same time.
No matter the size of your business, there are typically multiple things you can be doing at the same time. Experiments in a way. At the level that won’t bankrupt your business if multiple don’t work out.
And that’s kind of what happens. Content marketing or advertising could or could not work out for a variety of reasons. You prefer one or the other. You are better at one or the other. Your audience prefers one or the other.
You don’t really know that 100% when you’re starting out. So it’s good to test each. At a level that provides some data to go on. Enough so that you do it long enough to get the right kind of data to help make decisions.
You might split your money and efforts into 5 different types of advertising and 5 different types of content marketing. Do that for a year and you’ll have a better idea of what works for you and your business. From that, you can identify what is working and then put most of your money and time into that effort and reap the rewards.
And you can keep experimenting with other small efforts to look for the next big winner.
Conclusion
Content Marketing is creating content with the goal of building an audience through organic channels. Where the audience comes to you via your content without necessarily paying for their attention. Another term for it is inbound marketing. Where the person is coming to you instead of you interrupting them for their attention.
Advertising is outbound marketing. Or interrupting people where they are. Interrupt is a rough term. Depending on the nature of the ad and the platform, people are generally fine with advertising. It’s a common way to pay for someone’s attention and it can really work well.
What is best for your business?
There are too many variables to determine. The best way to do is to try both at a level that gives you enough data to make a decision, but not too much so that you are at risk of going bankrupt.