Content Marketing or online advertising: Digital marketing, in French-speaking Switzerland as everywhere else in the world, seeks to answer the same questions as all other forms of marketing:
How, at a lower cost, to transform strangers into prospects and prospects into customers? In digital version, this gives online advertising or Content Marketing? The answer may differ from your expectations...
To tell the truth, this question is difficult to decide and depends a lot on the criteria considered. According to the Bilan.ch website, 2017 was the year in which online advertising took the lead in the Swiss advertising market (6.39 billion francs) in terms of turnover.
Revenues from television fell by 2.1%, those from radio by 6% and those from the printed press by 11.7%.
Online advertising crushes the Swiss advertising market
The following year, all traditional advertising media again lost audiences, further reducing the overall turnover of this sector in Switzerland. In this gloomy landscape, online advertising was again an exception with growth to 547 million Swiss francs.
However, the Swiss Advertising Statistics Foundation acknowledges that it "could not consider the volume of turnover invested in search engines and social networks ", for methodological reasons. This data therefore lacks the figures of the SEA (Search Engine Advertising), which are considerable.
Unfortunately, there are no specific figures for French-speaking Switzerland to assess the impact of Content Marketing. This technique is based on the publication of content, for example blog articles with natural referencing (therefore free) on search engines, which is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
It may seem difficult, under these conditions, to lay the foundations for the match of the moment: Content Marketing vs online advertising. However, let's see below why the apparent steamroller of the figures is far from the only element to consider.
The benefits of online advertising
Like all other forms of paid promotion, online advertising generates immediate results. As soon as I put a campaign online, if the targeting has been well done, the message well thought out and the graphic design well polished, its impact is immediately reflected in the statistics of the analysis tools.
They read as an increase in the number of visits to a site first if the campaign is effective in improving conversion rates in the number of items sold.
Costly communication
But, to achieve these results, online advertising requires serious investment. It is necessary to pay for marketing studies at first to get a very fine segmentation of the markets and an excellent knowledge of the various networks, sites, engines, their advantages and disadvantages, the habits of their users and their preferred schedules.
Then assume the production costs of these advertising insertions and finally finance the distribution campaigns. These often work on cost per click (CPC), but also on cost per thousand impressions (CPM).
But whatever the method chosen, the costs can vary depending on the targeted keywords, mainly. Some very competitive requests can quickly cause the bill to skyrocket. Also, since we must target campaigns at a very specific offer, companies often have to launch several campaigns in parallel.
Short-lived effects
In the general scroll that makes up the consultation of the Internet, the advertisements only have a few seconds to hook the potential prospect before he has moved on to something else.
Not to mention allergy sufferers who systematically skip ads or install ad blockers as an extension to their web browser. In addition, regarding Google, be aware that users click less on paid results than on natural results: here too, consumers are increasingly wary of advertising.
And, of course, as soon as the campaign stops, it no longer generates any flow. There is, therefore, no ripple effect with online advertising, which represents a non-neutral investment.
The Benefits of Content Marketing
Conversely, Content Marketing only costs the time you will spend writing blog posts, optimizing them for SEO, and the knowledge you will share there. And contrary to advertising, it will only bear fruit.
But the visibility of the company that chooses this way of investing in the digital space will grow gradually, over the months, thanks to the effectiveness of SEO, the links that will be created and the various shares.
On social networks, the regular and persistent insertion of relevant posts will also generate shares. Some of them will go viral, accumulating thousands of views and, little by little, your community of users will be born and grow.
Content that stands the test of time
Articles, designed in such a way that they will not become obsolete for months or even years, will work for a long time and regularly attract traffic.
At least as long as the queries they respond to apply to Internet users. Indeed, a quality article, on an interesting theme and optimized for search engines, will inevitably be well positioned on Google. And all this sustainably and at no cost!
The reading time of a good article is much longer than the few seconds spent on an advertisement. The interest of the reader will also be greater, because the content will be instructive and not just advertising. The memorization of its central message will only be better!
Become a reference in your field
And this effect is cumulative. The more your blog publishes articles, the more its number of visitors increases and the more your notoriety becomes important. Bonus: they will gradually create your universe, tell your story with which your subscribers will identify.
I will recognize you for your expertise. Your opinions will become more and more authoritative and you will inspire confidence. These are precisely the three points that Google has been monitoring since 2018 to highlight content sources in its search results.
In the long term, Content Marketing is essential!
We can therefore say that at present, online advertising is excellent in terms of rapid return on investment and that it is very effective in launching a product , an event, a commercial operation.
But it doesn't go the distance if you need to establish a reputation, build notoriety, become a reference. There, Content Marketing is /unbeatable in terms of cost, lifespan and ripple effects. From this point of view, he largely wins the match.
But don't lose sight of the fact that they built a communication strategy more with “and” than with exclusive “or” s! Therefore, depending on your short- or long-term objectives, it may be interesting to combine the two methods or to occasionally use online advertising, while regularly maintaining a blog.
No online advertising without upstream Content Marketing!
Online Advertising or Content Marketing are two effective methods for many businesses. Swiss companies currently use, if less, it makes it possible to attract a very targeted audience and to convert more, surely.
Besides, why not stand out from your competitors by adopting a content strategy? You will bet on a sustainable strategy that will bring new prospects to you, all ready to become loyal customers!
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