By Vinay Singhal, Co-Founder & CEO, WittyFeed
A passionate leader, Vinay’s innovative ideas, urge for perfection and desire to excel helped him shape the foundation of WittyFeed, one of the fastest growing firm at present.
Advertising happens to be one of the crucial elements in the marketing mix. It’s responsible for the launch of a product. But the times are changing and now advertisers are keeping content marketing as a crucial element in their marketing pipeline. Advertising gets the word out of your product or service, and content marketing ensures that it stays there forever on the web. While streaming your favorite TV show, when tourism commercial is played, if the impact isn't made then, agencies in the current era focus on post advertisements. What happens when a person wants to read about the service a week before planning a vacation. That's where the content and traditional mix yields better returns. Content marketing attracts you and holds your attention while traditional advertising is just a oneway communication, and might be ignored when you were scrolling through your social media feed. The very reason why a massive surge was seen in content marketing and more brands are getting inclined towards it today, because it's more interactive than traditional.
Instead of showing a commercial to a million people and incurring an enormous cost, content marketing not only helps them to target a specific audience but zeroes down their focus and provides them with better insights too, with optimum use of resources. The former plays on people’s emotions combined with the power of advertising because marketing is moving in a different direction now. People are more influenced by reviews and what their friends and family recommend than just the seller's ratings.
Technology + Marketing Tactics = Distinct Advertising
Coming back to AI, technology plays a significant role in amalgamating both of them. When an Internet user consumes a particular genre of content, it helps the advertisers to target the desired audience in fewer efforts. Now, instead of advertising a gadget to the entire millennial generation, through targeted marketing, brands now advertise in front of only those people who are interested in technology. While technology helps you to evade digital banners with different kinds of extensions, content marketing on the other hand banks on advertising consistently in various formats of media, native integrations, and most importantly, doesn’t deter from the target audience and develops an emotional connection with the buyer.
“Advertising Happens to be One Of The Crucial Elements in The Marketing Mix”
Brands consider synchronizing both as one of the best ways of marketing because content marketing starts a conversation on social media platforms and the strategies used to advertise, brings the products in front of the potential customer. Content marketing generates conversations, people comment about how they feel about a product, agencies receive genuine reviews, and on top of everything people talk about the products and services. Conversations are ignited via social media platforms. After engaging the audience, not only the results point towards north but the traditional monologues also take an interactive form of marketing content marketing.
The efforts have proved to be successful when agencies look for trends, publishing houses look for the kind of content people are interested in, and advertising is done which the prospective user can relate to it and find it shareable.
Another differentiating factor is peer-to-peer marketing tactic. Today, brands take advantage of content marketing by advertising about products in such a manner which highlights utilities for the prospective users. Business firms alone don’t run the show; instead, consumers are the showstoppers.
How many people saw the hoarding on a flyover is hard to fathom but the number of people expressed their opinions on a blog and shared the content piece can be figured. This is where aspects such as brand management, strategic planning, and measuring the impact, come into play. Although, you shouldn’t carry the impression that they’re replaceable both bring a unique value to the table.
Advertisers have long strived to make their potential consumers feel good and deliver a satisfying experience to the existing user base and widen the scope gradually. The combination enables the brands to sell a product and convince them by promoting the idea of it. We’re standing at the evolution of content marketing today. A massive opportunity stands at our doorstep to embrace the change. Publishing a compelling content counts, but the focus should be on emphasizing why the potential customer is the best user instead of talking about a great product. Brands can be benefited more when the perfect blend of both is implemented in their marketing strategies.
To end with, success is measured only when there are specific metrics sets to measure it. The more you can measure each step the more flaws you can mend and more growth can be witnessed. Hence, to synchronize, just the content creation won’t do any good branding, strategy formation, media planning, audience targeting, understanding of business and meeting the business objectives in measurable ways are some of the steps which brands have incorporated to synchronize content marketing with traditional advertising.