Content marketing is better than advertising, reason 1: constant coverage
Consumer behaviour is evolving just as the media landscape undergoes its revolution. Simply put, consumers are doing their own research before a purchase and in doing so circumventing traditional advertising campaigns.
This was highlighted by research from Forrester that found the average B2B buyer will find three pieces of content about a company or service for each one that company publishes about itself. This change in behaviour could change the way companies weigh up their approach to marketing.
Only the biggest companies can afford to continually run brand advertising throughout the year. Others tend to use it in bursts or at key times. For the latter, this leaves possible gaps in activity where the customer may have already made a purchasing decision during the period between campaigns.
Today’s page display ad is lining for tomorrow’s dustbin. While content can have a longer lifespan if is kept up to date and is located where a customer is likely to look. In other words, constant coverage with content marketing it will always outgun a sporadic brand campaign.
The Forrester research also reveals another point. If B2B consumers are reading more content than is being produced by companies, then companies should be doing a lot more to own that space.
And as we have consistently pointed out in this blog, the key to cutting through the noise is quality journalism. It is no longer enough to run a product description or a brochure PDF.
A blog or feature that is created around an interesting idea that is related to that product or service is more likely to succeed if it is written by a journalist. Because that is what journalists do.
Maybe this is why making advertising networks are launching their own content marketing agency subsidiaries.
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