4 Reasons Why Content Marketing is the New Advertising

admin — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 01:31:52 +0000

Traditional business advertising has always aimed to catch customer attention and make them feel drawn to purchase specific products and services. However, today’s consumers are looking for more than flashy print ads, full-page magazine spreads or website sidebar banners. Tech-savvy businesses are devoting more time and money to content marketing, and with good reason. Content marketing is growing and has already begun to change the face of advertising across the Internet.

Generate Leads

All advertising aims to generate leads that translate into sales. Growing any business means growing the customer base, and content marketing achieves this goal through tactics that engage rather than selling outright. Useful or entertaining information makes customers more willing to interact with businesses.

Improved search rankings through the use of keywords in content can generate leads as well. Regularly incorporating keywords into blog posts, social media updates and other content causes search engine robots to crawl a site more often, indexing new content and influencing where site pages appear in search results.

Save Money

Common advertising methods often require a significant up-front investment from a business. Monthly ad fees for newspapers and magazines add up quickly. PPC and banner advertising can cost even more. In today’s uncertain economy, the last thing that any business needs is an accumulation of unnecessary expenses.

Content marketing is a much cheaper choice for attracting customers. Establishing blogs and social media profiles requires little or no monetary investment. Putting together a team to create, post, distribute and manage content requires more time than money, and the benefits far outweigh the overall costs.

Good quality content improves SEO and increases brand awareness, allowing businesses to enjoy higher visibility. Content that consumers see as particularly interesting has the potential to spread across the Internet via social sharing, giving it a much broader reach than traditional ads. The more people that see a piece of content, the higher the number of potential customers you can capture.

Connect With Your Audience

Knowing what kind of content will catch and keep the attention of a target demographic is important for any business wishing to migrate away from traditional advertising. Creating content is only part of the equation; consumers have to read it and stay with it long enough to act on it in a meaningful way. For that to happen, they need to feel a connection with the company.

Client stories and testimonials are excellent ways to connect with an audience. People like reading about success stories, and a good story may prompt them to share their own experiences with a product or brand. This creates a sense of community and builds rapport between businesses and customers. Once customers feel that connection, they’re more likely to interact. Prominently placing contact information and social media profile links on pages and posts offers more opportunities for communication and shows consumers that businesses are willing to establish ongoing relationships.

Build Authority

Content marketing works to establish businesses as authorities in a particular niche. When producing content, a business should aim to meet the needs of its target audience. People want to know how a product or service can help them. Before making any kind of purchase decision, consumers often search for information via the Internet.

Consistency is key. Posting high quality content on a regular basis keeps a company and its brand visible in search results and across social media networks. Over time, customers will come to recognize the businesses with the highest quality content as go-to authorities for helpful information. When a company offers content that its target customer base wants, those customers are more likely to return to the company and make purchases in the future.

When done right, content marketing can produce more leads and generate a higher volume of sales than traditional advertising. Consumers prefer informative content that helps them make smart purchase decisions over straight ad copy. Businesses that take the time to establish themselves as consistent sources of high quality content will benefit most from this growing form of marketing.

Article contributed by:
Steve Floyd, Founder & CEO
AXZM Web Design

http://www.axzm.com

The Day and Age of Digital Interactive Propaganda

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:41:46 +0000

Advertising and marketing is no longer meaningless repetitive tactics that forcefully feed the subconscious of the consumer. In fact, marketing has taken a shift in a new direction that forces creativity, interaction and conversation. When companies take a thoughtful and creative approach with their advertising campaigns, the buyer will be won over by content and quality. Creativity sparks an interest, and interest sparks interaction, which leads to a conversation and a conversion explosion. Digital marketing and word of mouth marketing have grown the new way to relay information for businesses around the world.

Here are some creative digital marketing features to help optimize your website and authenticate the quality of your brand:

Mobile Marketing & Application Development – Develop applications to add to your website for mobile users to download such as online coupons, digital magazines and other creative applications related to your services.
Social Media Integration – Add social media icons that link to your business Facebook page, LinkedIn page, and Twitter account. Social media allows you to connect on a personal level with your customers. This is a great way to hold contests, surveys, announce events and promotions, and generate more traffic.
Blog Marketing – Adding a custom blog to your website allows your website to contain “fresh and new” content. Within your blog you can then integrate social media icons allowing readers to subscribe, re-tweet on twitter, share on Facebook, like on LinkedIn, etc. Google places value on new valuable content. For example, if your business sells new and used cars, you could have a creative blog that helps people understand how to properly maintain their car. You could post blogs about different brands of cars, user experience and reviews, etc. What is important is to give free information that is useful. Time is money, and an article that can save a person time and money will go a long way for your brand credibility.
Webinars & Video/Podcast Marketing – Videos are great ways to demonstrate aspects of your business, products and services. Blogging does not necessarily need to be articles it can be through podcasts and video streaming. You can host “web-seminars” or webinars on your website and allow feedback, comments, etc.
Segmented E-mail Campaign – Adding a newsletter subscription to your website is a great way to update those who are interested in your business on a regular basis. It is important to not use this to spam, but respect the privacy of the subscribers. Reward them with coupons and prices for their dedication and interest in your business.
Mobile-Barcodes – This technology is beneficial to retailers and allows customers scalable barcodes on mobile devices. This allows your business the chance to embrace technology and convenience. This is popular among smartphone, iPod Touch and iPad users. A popular action with 2D barcode scans is linking to a website.
Online Digital Catalogs/Magazines – Creative interactive way to display your inventory online with three-dimensional interactive pages. If you have an e-commerce website, you can use creative digital catalogs to display new inventory, sales and specials.

Your website is your company’s headquarter online. It is your domain and your online brand. Marketing is changing to a digital channel where interaction is necessary. Retailers have seen a dramatic increase from their online stores in the last five years. Web standards and accessibility are important for website designers and developers to embrace in order to further their reach a culture that has gone digital.