Why you need both to work together?
Native Advertising and Content Marketing are 2 marketing buzzwords that often create confusion among marketers.Even though both have distinct different definition, I often see many agencies or adtech companies interchange "Native advertising" with "Content Marketing". As you can see from below Google Trend, Content marketing has been a hot topic for past few years because it has become a core part of every brands' marketing strategy while native advertising is just catching its speed. So, what are they? That's what we will try to explain in this article.
So what the %*& native advertising and content marketing really are?
According to BI Intelligence research, it is expected that spending on native advertising will reach $21 billion in 2018 while in 2013, only $4.7 billion were spent. The growth is tremendous. While many experts are skeptical about native advertising, the growth of ad spending shows that brands are trusting this strategy.
Native advertising has the intention to provide content as close to ordinary news as possible. You can see it in your facebook newsfeed, of cloaked under the "You may also interested in" section. It is very often called a sponsored content.
In addition, large companies spend massive amounts of money to be published on various high-authority websites like Time, Huffington Post or The New York Times. Their content is built to provide value to the reader but the primary purpose of native advertising will always be selling a product or a service.
Content marketing, on the other hand, is a long-term marketing strategy of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content consistently to your audience. The main objective of this strategy is to build trust and authority among your audience hoping that later they will transform into loyal customers. It is an ongoing process integrated into companies' marketing strategy. Example of Content Marketing? With full transparency, what you are reading is part of our Content Marketing Strategy, with the aim to build thought leadership in the space of Content Marketing, Native Advertising and Programmatic Creative, (ahem..) so that somewhere in the future, you may be interested to check out our solution, because we have build trust and authority among our target audience.
So what are the Similarities between Native Advertising and Content Marketing?
Even though content marketing and native advertising are entirely different strategies, very often they are confused because of the forms they are delivered. Usually, sponsored content looks almost the same as any other ordinary content.But in both situations, to be effective, the content need to be high-quality and engaging content.
Native Advertising and Content Marketing: Better together
Both strategies could have a significant impact on engaging with audience and drive marketing results. In order for native advertising to success, strong content or offers are mandatory. Without them, marketer is going to risk alienate the audience. And for content marketing, distribution is key. Without effective content amplification strategy through native advertising, it's only half the job done. At the end of the day, it's really about providing the best experience, in a cost effective and non-distruptive way. It is important to remind marketers to see beyond the short-term effect of native advertising and use them as a part of their content marketing strategy. Building a loyal audience still should be the fundamental of every brand.