Content Marketing vs. Digital Marketing – How to Choose the Right One for Your Business
Content marketing and digital marketing are essential components of a successful marketing strategy for businesses, particularly for SMBs and those with a limited marketing budget.
While businesses that invest in digital marketing are able to reach their target audience more effectively and generate more leads and sales. No wonder the projected digital marketing growth rate between 2020 to 2026 is at 9%.
Although both these approaches are effective and affordable for promoting a business and attracting customers, many business owners are often confused about the differences between the two, and which approach is right for their business.
Since an informed decision is the best decision, we have included in this guide a comprehensive overview of two of the most popular marketing approaches in the internet-dominated world.
By the end, you’ll have developed a better understanding of each and will be able to choose and implement the right strategy for your business.
With that said, let’s begin.
Content Marketing vs. Digital Marketing
The digital advertising scene is dominated by content marketing and digital marketing.
While both are extremely effective, they serve different purposes and require totally different strategies.
Content marketing focuses more on creating and sharing relevant and valuable content with consistency to attract a defined audience, and retain them.
The different forms of content can include but are not limited to blogs, social media posts, infographics, videos, and more.
Its main purpose is to build trust and nurture a long-term relationship with customers by providing them valuable information, in the hopes that when the time comes for them to open their wallets, they’ll consider your brand.
Content marketing also helps businesses establish authority in their industry and create a loyal following.
Additionally, businesses that prioritize content marketing tend to generate more website traffic, leads, and sales compared to businesses that don’t.
On the other hand, digital marketing involves promoting products, services, or brands through digital channels.
These can include but are not limited to PPC, SEO, social media, and email marketing.
The main focus of a digital marketing strategy is to increase brand visibility to help generate more leads.
Businesses with a tight budget can rely more on search engine optimization or SEO and social media to increase their reach while businesses without budget restrictions can employ PPC campaigns or social media ad campaigns for the same.
Results from SEO and social media can take time and require consistent effort as they work in cohesion with content marketing. Whereas, PPC and social media ad campaigns can deliver results quickly, but diminish once these campaigns are stopped.
With both approaches having their strengths and weaknesses, it won’t be wrong to call content marketing and digital marketing, two sides of the same coin.
Differentiating Factors Between Content Marketing and Digital Marketing
Choosing the right one for your business requires understanding the differences between the two. Below, we have shared some key differences that set them apart:
Purpose
The purpose of content marketing is to provide value to potential customers through useful information, to build trust and loyalty, and establish thought leadership.
Digital marketing is aimed at driving traffic, leads, and sales through various digital channels.
Approach
Content marketing takes a more educational and informative approach. Contrarily, digital marketing is more promotional in nature.
Metrics
In content marketing, success is measured through engagement metrics like website traffic, bounce rate, and social media shares.
On the flip side, digital marketing success is measured by more concrete metrics like leads generated, conversions, and revenue.
Investment
Both are also quite different in terms of investment. For instance, content marketing requires a significant investment of time and resources for the creation of high-quality, engaging content.
In contrast, digital marketing requires monetary investment in advertising and promotion. It works on the principle of the phrase, the more the sweat the more the reward. Only, instead of sweat, here you’ll be relying on funds.
Longevity
Finally, content marketing has a longer lifespan than digital marketing. High-quality content can continue to attract and engage potential customers long after it is initially published.
Digital marketing tactics, au contraire, typically have a shorter lifespan and require ongoing investment to maintain effectiveness.
In short, while both approaches can work wonders for businesses of all shapes and sizes, we recommend small and medium-sized businesses, especially the ones with limited marketing budgets, to start with content marketing
It’s a more cost-effective and efficient approach as digital marketing can be expensive, and requires ongoing investment to maintain visibility and attract leads.
How to Choose Between Content Marketing and Digital Marketing for Your Business
You know the differences now, but it isn’t enough. Before you can consider one of the two for the marketing of your business, you must also factor in the following:
Goals
The first step in choosing the right marketing approach is to define your goals.
Without goals, you don’t have a defined path for the business. And, without a path, you can’t steer it in any direction.
So, before you decide on the marketing approach that’s right for your business, ask yourself whether you are looking to build brand awareness, generate leads, or increase sales.
The answer to that question will bring enlightenment and set you free.
Jokes apart. It’ll help identify your objectives to better determine which approach is best for your business.
Audience
Knowing or rather identifying your target audience is also essential in deciding which approach to use.
If your audience is primarily active on social media, digital marketing tactics such as social media ad campaigns and PPC advertising may be more effective.
But, if your audience prefers longer-form content such as blog posts and whitepapers, content marketing may be the better option.
You must also be able to identify the platforms your audience is the most active on, as targeting every platform at once is a recipe for disaster, whether you use the services of a content marketing agency or not.
Budget
We’ve already talked about the different types of investments each approach requires.
Where one demands time, the other mandates money. Your decision will likely be based on which of the two you can spare.
A sound piece of advice for those businesses with a very tight budget and shortage of time and resources, consider hiring an affordable content marketing agency like MajidWrites to help you whip up a strategy and implementation plan.
Timeframe
Content marketing is a long-term strategy that thrives with consistent efforts and patience. It could be months before you start seeing significant results.
Digital marketing, comparatively, can provide more immediate results on the condition that you have an endless supply of funds to fuel your campaigns.
Various businesses thrived over the years by implementing only one of the approaches. Hubspot and Backlinko, both grew with just content marketing.
Dollar Shave Club and Zappos killed it with their digital marketing. Who can truly forget about their viral ads even after seeing them once?
By considering each of these factors, combined with the differences between content marketing and digital marketing, you can choose the right marketing approach that best fits your business needs.
Final Thoughts
To sum it up, in the digital age, no business can thrive or succeed in the digital age without content marketing and digital marketing.
While both may be distinctly different, they can be used cohesively or individually depending on your circumstances and limitations.
For example, if you have a limited budget and want to create brand awareness, content marketing is the better option since it’s cost-effective and relies on organic marketing tactics.
But, with a goal to generate leads or increase sales, digital marketing is hands down the more effective option because it offers targeted advertising with measurable results.
At Majid Writes, we offer content marketing and digital marketing services to help businesses create and implement successful marketing strategies. Contact us today to learn more and help us help you grow your business.
