There are many myths on digital advertising and its approach which should be busted. Content marketing is better known as the art of communicating with customers by adding valuable experiences and information. Content marketing is significantly on the rise compared to the traditional display advertising.
Display Advertising
Display advertising is popularly known as has the easiest and most effective way to reach customers by pushing out information, often in small remains. Display ads can be text ads, videos or digital banners and they appear in discrete sections on a site that are naturally reserved for paid advertisements.
The main aim of these ads is to peddle out the customer and generate a quick conversion. Billions of dollars are spent every year on display advertising, however, that number is declining as marketers are spending more of their budgets on developing content marketing strategies and constructing communities around quality content.
Content Marketing and Content Advertising
Content marketing can take the cloak of anything and can be a wide-ranging solution for the marketers. It can be blogs, reviews, articles, e-books, graphics, videos or any medium where the purpose is to create a value exchange with the customer. Lately, many companies have made a huge modification in their marketing budgets to spend more on content marketing. Many big names like Microsoft, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola are more focusing on a quarter of their budgets on these kinds of strategies.
Why is Display Advertising is getting less engagement?
There are numerous reasons behind this question. Firstly, even with marketers’ attempts to create more immersive and disruptive display ads, customers are becoming trained to overlook these placements. Customer’s eyes know these mutual areas of the site where ads are typically located and placed. Hence, markets should focus on the content-rich portions of the site. We are so habituated to skimming over these ads that the likelihood of a customer clicking on a display ad is very infinitesimal.
Secondly, display ads with the course of time are becoming unbelievably weak branding vehicles. Almost, each customer can identify an ad immediately and know that the motive behind it is to sell a product or service. On the other side, content marketing is premeditated to deliver a more eloquent experience to the customer without any attachment. By doing so, companies gather more conviction and become the specialist in that subject field.
Thirdly, unlike display ads that last for average 1.6 seconds, customers spend almost 345 times longer engaging with branded content. This means better user engagement with the brand, which in turn leads to a higher quality of customers. Sharing generates lasting content marketing impressions as the content can be supported through social media channels and other content sharing platforms. Companies are building organic communities around these loyal customers and thus 78% of customers are accountable about the relationship between themselves and a company.
Quantity vs Quality. Which medium to prefer?
However, we tried to bust some common myths on display advertising and looking towards the future of content marketing and content advertising. Nowadays, many companies are pulling their audiences in with rich content experiences. This means all these companies are pointing less towards their brand and more about generating a true value exchange.
However, if the companies start thinking about the customer first and the conversion vehicle second, companies will be more suitable to deliver buzz-worthy content that will fast-track the brand to the top of customers’ minds. Additionally, they should focus more on content skills rather than a content strategy by capitalizing in a meaningful mission rather than a metric-driven attitude.
Great content marketing should also be an amalgamation of sponsored content and customer generated content. Letting customers socialize with the brand and compatible peers, it helps to generate opinions and in some cases, they become content experts themselves! Companies can gain real insights regarding their brands by listening to customer opinions and preferences. In this give and take process customers become more loyal towards the brands and it increases the demand simultaneously.
Wherever the future of content marketing is heading, one thing is certain: it is not fading or phasing out soon. And why a customer would we want it to? As a customer, we benefit more from the added value that companies are delivering. As companies, we are creating sturdier, advanced quality leads and are generating lasting impressions via more durable and treasured content.
