Content Marketing vs Advertising: In-depth Comparison Guide

What is Advertising?

Advertising can be said as a special activity for producing necessary information for promoting commercial products or related services. Usually, advertisements follow a simple base and also work for an informational purpose or for awareness. Through advertisements, you can create and enhance brand awareness across various platforms and demographics. Effective advertising will make a positive impression about your product and the brand, change their general perception and drive them to generate sales.

When We talk about traditional advertising modes, we mean the following forms of advertisements;

But primarily, advertising is more about awareness. All the above modes of advertisements have been used by marketers of every business for years and they achieved a different levels of results depending upon efforts, investments, and other factors.

Types of Digital Advertising

Digital ads can be of different forms as listed below.

Major Benefits of Advertising

• Grab Attention Fast
• Build Emotional Connections
• It triggers persuasive messaging
• Introduces a new product in the market
• Expand brand/product reach 
• Increased sales
• Give competitive advantage
• Enhances brand good-will
• Educates the consumers fast
• Eliminate middlemen 
• supports the salesmanship

Over the last decade, a huge ratio of marketers has been trying different forms of marketing and advertising. With the great shift to digital media, companies nowadays are focusing more on digital advertising. Many of them have succeeded to a great extent in attracting relevant customers and turning them into potential leads and ultimately increasing sales. In this content marketing vs advertising guide, next, we are going to discuss the types of digital ads.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is considered a great way to boost your bottom line and even boost the number of loyal customers. It is a specific type of marketing that includes content creation about your product/ services and then shares it in different forms like blogs, articles, videos, etc. The content across different social media channels not only promotes the brand but also attracts the interest of potential customers of the brand.

Types of Content Marketing

There are many types of content marketing that can help businesses grow in the long run. Although they are all valuable and effective, it's better to not stick with anyone. You can leverage different content marketing formats and repurpose the same content for reaching a huge audience. 

Major Benefits Of Content Marketing

It can be definitely considered the best option for your bottom line.

Businesses and consumers both tend to find new effective ways to grow more and for this, they always try new technologies and other modes. Despite the popularity of all the traditional advertising modes, marketing experts have a strong belief that content marketing has better return possibilities for every investment and that is why content marketing is considered the King.

How Content Marketing Is Different And A Good Choice?

No doubt that content marketing is one of the most widely used modes of marketing. It is very practical and lets people relate to the product or service in a better way. It is a powerful inbound marketing strategy that can help transform the way your organization reaches and engages your target audience.

What Do We Do In Content Marketing

We create effective blogs, articles, social media posts, web pages, white papers, etc., and post them on different social media channels to reach the relevant audience. So, whenever people search about any product or service in a search engine like Google, this content flashes in front of them through the SERP, where they can read our blogs or other content. It actually becomes visible to every person who is looking for related products or services. Therefore, content marketing attracts more potential customers.

Let’s Take A Glance At Some Advantages Of Content Marketing That Makes It Better Than Advertising

1. Drives better conversions- This is definitely one of the best advantages of content marketing because the better the conversation rate, the better will be the growth rate. Consistent quality content creation and posting them over the right medium and in the right way can do wonders. Many recent pieces of research have revealed that companies can create and optimize conversion rates, far higher than other brands in the industry with help of content marketing.
2. Better brand awareness- There are many consumers who can be really happy with your service or product and can become loyal customers. But if you don’t create quality content and follow traditional advertising only, they can turn towards other similar products in the market. Therefore, try to create content that serves your target customer’s purpose and should ultimately lead to brand awareness.
3. If you write to educate your customers, you can do wonders with content marketing- Writing with not just an aim to promote sales, but to write for educating the target customers about your products and services can do wonders. This is because, once customers will know in and out about your brand offerings, they will genuinely come and become loyal customers. Just make sure you address customers’ pain points and write informational content.
4. Cost-effective model of marketing- More and more businesses have been towards opting for content marketing because it suits every pocket. Be it a small-scale business or a large-scale business, everyone can invest in content marketing and get good returns.
5. Long-term returns and a higher level of trust- Content marketing never fails to increase the level of trust between the brand and the target audience. If it is done strategically and content is placed over the right medium to reach the right audience, long-term results will never be amiss.

It has become next to impossible to achieve desired business goals through traditional advertising modes only. You must think out of the box and utilize content marketing in an effective way to see a revolutionary increase in the growth rate.

In this advertising vs marketing post, next, we are going to discuss the major differences between the two.

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1. Showing or Nurturing

Traditional marketing pitches the consumers all about a business, a product, or service directly for sale. They show off images and direct information about whatever they want to sell.

Content marketing isn’t as direct as advertising, instead of showcasing and pitching things to sell, content marketing puts out informative & quality content that the target consumer finds interesting, useful, or valuable. Content marketing raises the audience's interest in particular products or services and then redirects them to the sales funnel.

2. Instant or long term

Advertising banks on the fact that customers see your products/services and buy them instantly. Advertising is more focused on generating instant leads and conversions, but this rarely works.

Whereas in content marketing, you’re not directly pushing a product to sell, but you are consistently getting in front of your target customer with your captivating content relevant to your products or services. With content marketing, you are intended to make your customer feel that your product is better than other available options and how it adds value to their life.

3. Direct or Indirect selling pitch

Advertising is a marketing communication that employs openly sponsored, non-personal communication to promote or sell a product, or service. In advertising, you’re simply showing consumers what you’re selling and praising the benefits of that product or service to sell it.

Availing content marketing services, there is much more opportunity to build connections with consumers. You can ask them to leave comments or suggestions about your blog. Similarly, it allows you to respond back; letting you really get to know your potential customers and allowing them to really trust you. Using indirect pitch, make them feel how the particular product or service is helpful for them.

4. General or specific

Advertising is about getting your message in front of as many people as possible whereas content marketing is about getting it in front of the right people only. 

Content marketers spend time researching what information their audience is searching for and curate the content accordingly. Though content marketing pitches indirectly but it is more targeted than advertising.

5. Best Tool & Platforms

Best Content Marketing Platforms:

• SEMrush.
• StoryChief.
• Hubspot.
• ScribbleLive.
• Percolate.
• Kapost.

Best Advertising Platforms:

• Google
• Twitter Ads
• LinkedIn Ads. 
• Pinterest Ads.
• Amazon Ads

Hope this content marketing vs advertising guide helps you understand the difference between content marketing and advertising.