If you have a business or you are thinking of starting one, you probably know that classic advertising is no longer as efficient as it used to be. Customers found plenty of ways to avoid or ignore unwanted messages from advertisers: they started watching movies on DVDs, thus skipping TV commercials, they stopped reading newspaper advertisements, and they became so computer savvy that they can just ignore the pop-up messages and promotions appearing on their screens.
That is why, businessmen came up with a new way of catching people’s attention and convincing them to buy their products. It is called content marketing. This is a fairly recent way of promoting things and services, without actually pitching them like in a commercial.
In advertising, you show potential customers disruptive messages, with a long list of qualities that your product or service has, hoping to convince them to buy right away.
In content marketing, you educate a segment of the public in your area of expertise, thus trying to influence consumer behavior on a long term. In this case, the flow of information has to be consistent, reliable and helpful, in order to keep the clients interested and happy for a longer period of time. In other words, you gain your followers’ trust and, when they are ready to buy, they will go straight to you.
This type of marketing is less invasive and less annoying than old fashion advertising because it does not comprise spam-like messages that people get without even asking for. It consists rather of articles or other elaborated materials that offer useful information and that people get to see only after an intentional search.
Most experts say that content marketing is the way of the future and it will totally replace classic commercials quite soon. We live in a digital era where this kind of messages can be easily disseminated to reach their targets. Besides, people are so busy that they might not accept disruptive classic commercials in their schedules for long. That is why the Internet seems to be the perfect environment for content marketing to thrive.
This type of marketing can take various forms, depending on the budget invested in it, the time allocated or the area of expertise. However, some of the most successful versions found online are “How to” videos, eBooks, Buyers’ Guides and blogging.
