Traditional advertising has been around for many decades, and this is the stereotypical ad that screams and shouts “Look at me!”, while using very catchy phrases and color schematics. While this version of advertising may have proven to be successful in the past, today’s society calls for a type of advertising that targets a generation who doesn’t want to be sold anything, and even pays for ad-blockers on certain applications.

Internet marketing through the past few years has proven itself to be the most inexpensive, yet effective way for nearly all businesses to reach their target market, regardless of the size of business. Internet marketing is nearly the process of using internet tools that help drive traffic, leads, and sales all for your specific product or service. Sounds easy right? Well it is, and through much less effort than any traditional advertising, nearly anyone can run internet or “content” advertising for his or her business immediately.

Traditional marketing focuses on pushing different messages at consumers in order to get them to buy into whatever product or service your selling. This is a very intrusive way for marketing to take its effect, and most people don’t want to be pushed or sold into anything. This gap in the consumer’s psychological buying process has opened up a completely new approach on marketing, and more specifically internet marketing, through “content marketing”. Brands and marketers are now using this approach, which is to publish content that teaches, inspires or guides, and solves problems that are aimed directly at the target consumer. This type of marketing works because it doesn’t push the consumer into buying anything, but rather gives an organic experience to the consumer who isn’t forced into purchasing a product or service, but yet still is gaining benefit from content that is being produced. With this type of environment, it gives the customer a chance to gain trust, continue coming back for more content, and ultimately learn to identify with your brand as a loyal follower.

Content marketing costs over less than over half of all other marketing methods, and has the ability to quadruple your Google index pages, and give up to three times as many leads. When content is extremely good, it can do amazing things and boost your business in ways you completely were not expecting.

The most common form of content marketing is through blogs, posts, and articles. Blogs and posts of this nature are a great platform to give a foundation for your content, and also give you the ability to continue adding “branches” or other posts that will continue to reach out into new areas of the internet that you currently are lacking. The continual addition of content gives new keywords and phrases in which consumers could find to land on your page. Blogs and posts can be nearly about anything, but should obviously be aimed at grabbing the attention of those who would be interested in your content as well as product/service. Depending on your business, blogs can have an overall theme or be exclusive to each post. Find what you think makes the most sense and begin publishing content!

The next is infographics. Infographics are great short, simple, yet informationally heavy pictures that provide the viewer with not only helpful words, but possible demonstrations or graphics that reinforce what you’re trying to convey. A perfect example would be for a fishing company to give a graphic that demonstrates how to bait a hook, or spool a fishing reel. These types of simple tips and information could possible draw the “fisherman customer” to your page by using the content primarily as the incentive.

Case studies aren’t always applicable to your business, but if possible they should be at least part of your content. Case studies give the consumer an in-depth look at your brand or business in action, giving your consumer the overall idea of success they will have when using this product or service. Basically, this translates into your consumer seeing the need for your product or service to solve their problem that they may or may not know they already have.

The last two major areas for content marketing to be utilized are through podcasts and videos. Not everyone is gifted with writing fabulous content rich blog posts, so making podcasts or videos are a great alternative. Podcasts and videos are great for your consumer because they offer 24/7 availability to either a great talk about an area of their interest, or an actual video that demonstrates something they may want to see. Podcasts and videos are especially popular within the fitness and lifestyle categories, as we see many videos being published for new gym users as well as those seeking after a new healthy lifestyle. Look at your product or service and consider what type of videos or podcasts you could create that offer genuine practical knowledge to those who would possibly buy your product/service. Podcasts and videos are great tools to teach, inform, or entertain. Find your niche!

In conclusion, content marketing has proven it’s success and should be used by any online business or website that wishes to bring in more traffic. Marketing is no longer what we once knew as “traditional marketing”, and with this being said I believe content marketing is a great way to gain a successful edge from an internet marketing perspective.