I feel the need to blog about this because I have been hearing some scary things from peers in the industry who may have misinterpreted or understood things incorrectly. Content marketing and paid media is NOT an either/or conversation. You cannot generate leads and survive 100% off of content marketing nor can you create an awesome paid media campaign without it.
When you consider paid media such as emails run via 3rd party, sponsored webinars, pay-per-click via search engine, display campaigns, sponsored newsletters, etc., what would you advertise if not content? Wrong answer if you said something about your product datasheets, demos or anything to the like.
Now let’s consider all that great content you created. The whitepapers, the ebooks, the webinars, the blog posts. What exactly are you going to do with them to get them out there? Social media? Great! Does everyone know where to find and connect with you to get your stuff? Probably not and if they already do, chances are you are not generating any ‘net new’ names there.
So why do we think we can create content and people will naturally find us without us having to spend money? Why do we feel we can pay someone else to generate leads for us without having to create any compelling content to draw them in.
It’s not an either/or situation. It’s an and/and. You simply cannot be successful in one without the other.
There. That’s off my chest.
Great point. I don’t understand why these two aspects are set up as diametric opposites. They have to work together in order to be effective. Cheers! B3
@BigBadBulldogNC Exactly! There are no silos here when it comes to an effective marketing strategy – especially when we are talking lead gen. Content plays a role with paid media plays a role with social etc. etc.
I also don’t see why people can’t do both. Both of these strategies can work together and compliment each other in fact to create a comprehensive marketing campaign.