As we approach the end of another year, we suddenly start to look ahead to the next year and plan for all the exciting things we want to make a reality.
Part of that routine may be looking at advertising and marketing budgets, and thinking where to spend that money.
I’m sure you could find lots of outlets quite happy to take your money but what if your money could be better spent in a new area?
In this article I want to share 5 reasons why your company should reduce its advertising and marketing spend in favour of funding content creation.
1. Content is Yours to Keep
Advertising will get eyeballs on your brand but once the money runs out so does the impact. Content is different. Once created content goes into the online library, continuing to represent your brand, and waiting for the next person to consume it.
2. Attracting Customers with Content Avoids the Hard Sell
Advertising has always been about forcing a message in front of a prospective customer. What if you attracted your ideal customers by helping them? Good quality content has the power to do this.
Permission based marketing is all about building a relationship first and then leveraging that relationship at a later date.
3. Content Helps You Build Your Authority as a By-product
If advertising and marketing is about trumpeting about your brand, then content is more about building up the brand through action. By helping your ideal client with the content you create there is an added side-effect, they see you as the expert in this particular area or the ‘go to’ source.
If you or your team is central in this content it can also make you instantly recognisable within your niche, which can be very handy at trade shows and conferences!
4. Content has the Potential to Increase the Effectiveness of Advertising and Marketing Spends
Learning is one of life’s most exciting processes and the Internet is the biggest learning resource ever! If created in the right manner content can be addictive. Think of watching your favourite television programme or seeing a great film. When it gets to the end, you want more. If you have created a certain amount of quality content it almost becomes a back catalogue! People want to consume it all.
Perhaps traditional media hasn’t realised this yet. There can be just as much value in an individual or company’s content as there can be from a media giant. Perhaps inside us all lurks that desire to be heard and when we see others able to do this we will want the ability too.
The result is that with a certain amount of content created, an advertising campaign can be used to bring people in and then they stay with you because they get stuck on the content. It’s the equivalent of putting some bait on a fishing line!
5. Well-Produced Content Will Target Your Ideal Customer Better Than Any Advertising
Traditional advertising on television, radio or in newspapers is so vague. Every product or service has an ideal customer – an avatar – and if you’re advertising to every man and his dog you are wasting money.
Online advertising, such as with Facebook adverts, is so much better and along with being focussed everything is also trackable.
However, taking it one stage further content can really be the ultimate way of advertising. If you can get into the mind of your perfect customer you are onto a winner.
If this article has got you intrigued then perhaps there’s one final thing to bear in mind. If you have used advertising for your business in the past then you know how it works but do you fully understand a content strategy? My guess is that unless you’ve tried it, you probably won’t have a good grasp of it! So give it a whirl. You can always go back to advertising at any time.
