Is It Advertising or Content Marketing? Does It Matter?

I had a chat recently with a small business looking to grow their presence on the web. “What’s your goal,” I asked. The client said they know they need SEO stuff so they ‘show up’ on the internet, and they have advertising dollars left in this year’s budget to use for that.

Keep in mind now that I live and breathe content marketing all day long, so I was a caught a bit off guard when they said advertising. I explained that one of the benefits on content marketing versus advertising is that the content is there forever – building organic search and hopefully link backs. Advertising while often flashy and eye catching is usually a one-shot deal.

“Well,” the client said, “the only money I have available to spend on this is in my advertising budget. Can we use that for this content stuff or not?”

Absolutely! Content marketing has grown as a result of a shift from advertising in the traditional sense to educating, engaging and positioning yourself as the expert. Just because industry standards haven’t caught up to that, and we are still calling it advertising dollars doesn’t mean they can’t be used for the best possible way to drive customers to your site.

The best advertising solves customers’ problems, positions you as the expert, and helps you develop a relationship with customers over the long term.  Now that’s content marketing.