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The number of available advertising methods that flood our media intense world can be overwhelming. Although, narrowing down this seemingly endless list of options can be helpful when trying to decide the best strategies to use within our marketing plan.
In this article, we’ll look at how both Content Marketing and Pay-Per-Click Advertising methods can benefit your business and which could potentially be the better option for you.
Content Marketing
What is Content Marketing?
Content Marketing is a marketing strategy used to attract, engage, and retain an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media (mailchimp). This strategy allows you to differentiate your business from others through letting your brand tone and personality shine through in your engagement efforts.
Some types of Content Marketing would be, creating employee led videos, personalized social media content meant to entertain, writing blog posts for your website, making your own podcast series, email newsletters, offering free downloads, eBooks, and much, much more.
The Pros of Content Marketing
- establishes brand personality
- wider audience reach and elevated brand awareness
- escalates brand affinity
- can lead to better conversion rates and leads
- magnifies brand authority and trust against competitors within your industry
- cost-effective
The Cons of Content Marketing
- research and development can be time consuming
- content ideation and creation can be a challenging task
- can be difficult to measure your audience’s perception of your brand
- the process can be hit-and-miss in the beginning
If you still find yourself a little lost on just what exactly content marketing entails, this article is full of some awesome real-life examples of how a few popular companies took true advantage of the possibilities that a good content marketing strategy can deliver: Content Marketing Done Right: 8 Examples You Can Learn From
Approaches to Content Marketing
Emulating a successful content marketing strategy requires a necessary element of audience research. Knowing your buyers and the content they desire most is the very base of executing a strategy such as this in a sensible way.
The notion of research can sound daunting initially, however, the difference between a good strategy and a bad one comes down to the level of time and investigation you’re willing to put forth.
Click here for a great step-by-step guide on getting started with a content marketing strategy!
Why Should I Use Content Marketing for My Business?
Any business owner should heavily consider the notion of incorporating content marketing into their overall strategy. Despite needing a generous level of commitment, the payoff one can achieve by consistently enforcing this form of marketing is often worthwhile.
If you’re looking to gain a bigger audience, that trusts and understands your brand in full, purchases your products, engages with you, builds relationships, and more, content marketing is undoubtedly your best bet at achieving this. By taking the time to nourish the connections you hold with your consumers, you will be able to better influence their decisions, thus, swaying them to choose you over competitors, create strong brand loyalty, generate higher ROI, and so much more.
In short, the possibilities are endless, as content marketing as the potential to be the strategy that never stops giving.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
First, what exactly is Advertising?
As defined by the American Marketing Association, Advertising is the exercise of promoting a company and its products or services through paid channels.
Now, what about Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
Per the Corporate Finance Institute, Pay-per-click (PPC) is an online advertising model in which an advertiser pays a publisher every time an advertisement link is “clicked” on. You may have also heard pay-per-click advertising alternatively referred to as cost-per-click (CPC).
This form of paid advertising is typically performed through search engines and social platforms.
Pay-per-click can save you great deal of time compared to that of content marketing, mostly because paid advertising offers the ability to better target the desired audience of your choosing almost instantly.
Some types of Pay-Per-Click Advertising would be search engine, social media, display, google shopping, local service, and more.
The Pros of PPC
- easily target desired audience
- campaigns and audiences are highly customizable
- spread message and receive results quickly
- ease in budget adjustments
- only pay for when a user clicks through to your content
- ad effectiveness and ROI is measured for you
- plenty of free resources on how to start using PPC yourself
The Cons of PPC
- time investment necessary for ongoing campaign monitoring and adjustments
- can be costly if steps are not continuously taken to ensure your ad is performing optimally for the greatest return
- can take some trial and error to find what campaigns work best for you
- there is not guarantee it will lead to sales
The thought of allocating precious resources towards advertising, especially when you are unsure of the outcome, can be intimidating. Although, it seems companies are using paid avenues of advertising more and more with each passing year, and really favor what they receive in return.
Take a look at these 5 Successful PPC Advertising Campaign Examples for some inspiration on why Pay-Per-Click might just be the ticket for your business.
Approaches to PPC Advertising
PPC is a quick and to-the-point advertising format that many businesses are eager to jump into, however, it’s common for there to be a level of intimidation and fear of failure blocking them from moving forward with paid advertising.
If you believe PPC could kick your marketing strategy up a few notches, then don’t let fear of the unknown stand in your way. There are many reliable resources that can help you set up your first campaigns with relative ease. Do note that in the beginning, PPC will require some trial and error until you get a feel for monitoring and adjusting your campaign settings for optimal results, this is completely normal and simply part of the process, so don’t get discouraged.
Why Should I Use PPC for My Business?
When deciding which avenue is right for you, one can easily find themselves caught up in the complexity and unknown that comes with investing time and precious resources towards your marketing efforts. Although, choosing a strictly targeted and adjustable advertising method such as PPC could very well be more than worth the risk in investment.
It’s important to acknowledge here that PPC is something of an ongoing work in progress. It may take a few tries and tweaks in the beginning until you find your rhythm. Although, if you’re not willing to put a copious about of time into your marketing strategy, but can handle delegating some time into data analysis and campaign adjustment, receiving results quickly through paid advertising is probably the most efficient option for you.
Which is Better?
Forming a strategy that is specific to your business’ needs is paramount, therefore, whichever strategy you choose to pursue is purely up to what you feel could work best moving forward. Circumstances to consider when deciding how to strategize could be
There is no one true way to market a business, which is why we all must take matters into our own hands to continuously plan, research, and experiment with the everchanging landscape that is marketing.
