If your company is only communicating with your audience through advertising, you’re missing a number of huge opportunities. There are tons of benefits to creating content over creating ads.
My top ten reasons to “Make Content, Not Ads.”
1. Production time: Advertisers spend forever tweaking ads and must go through endless levels of approval. Content producers can work alone or in small efficient groups.
2. Inventory: Ad inventory is always limited. There’s an endless inventory for creating content, especially if you’re operating online.
3. Production space: Ads have limited space. Content producers can fill up as much space as they want.
4. Branding: “Ads” in general have a negative brand. People often say they ignore ads, or are sick of ads. No one ever says they ignore content.
5. Search: People search for content. They don’t search for ads. In fact, ads get in the way of their search for content.
6. Destination: Content is always the destination. Unless you’re showing the best Superbowl commercials, ads are never the destination.
7. Placement: When people visit a site or blog, their eyes immediately go towards the center, where the content is. Ads must be relegated to the sides where people aren’t looking. Or they appear in the center but must be labeled as advertising.
8. Social media: People share content via social media. “Media” is a synonym for “content.” People rarely share ads via social media.
9. Investment: Money spent on content is cumulative. Content you created in January builds upon and continues providing value to February and beyond. Ads you purchase in January have no value in February or beyond. You have to keep spending money to stay relevant.
10. Audience: There is no limit to the audience you can get from content. With ads you pay for the audience you get. Want more audience, pay more.
Content is the currency of social media and search. How much are you printing? Find out more at Spark Media Solutions.
Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.
