Content Marketing vs Digital Marketing: What’s the Difference?re

Digital marketing has been one of the most crucial strategies for organizations and businesses for a few years. Thanks to its extraordinary benefits, we can see a revolutionary paradigm shift in the world of marketing and brand promotions.

One of the best things about digital marketing is its nature. Unlike other traditional marketing approaches, digital marketing is an inbound marketing approach.

What does it mean? 

You don’t have to reach out to your potential buyers. They will come to you when they need your products or services.

• As per the research report, the global digital marketing market will cross $782.3 billion by 2026.
• Another research reveals that 63% of businesses increased their digital marketing budgets last year.
• Moreover, a study showed that 49% of businesses say that their organic search brings them the best ROI.

These stats reveal that you cannot ignore digital marketing in today’s era. If you are not doing it, your potential customers will go to your competitors. It is as simple as that.

There are many branches of digital marketing, such as organic marketing, popularly known as search engine optimization, paid advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, etc.

People sometimes confuse content marketing with digital marketing. Both are very different. In fact, content marketing is one branch of a tree called digital marketing.

To make things clear, this blog discusses content marketing and digital marketing in length and their differences and similarities. Furthermore, this blog will help you understand why both are crucial for your brand to shine online.

What is digital marketing?

In simple terms, everything promoting a business, product, or service online is digital marketing.

It is a digital marketing approach if you see an ad on your screen while reading this blog.

It is a digital marketing approach if you find a pop-up while searching for something on the internet.

It is a digital marketing approach if you get product recommendation emails from a company you have associated with recently.

It is a digital marketing approach if you see a celebrity’s content piece or a tweet promoting a product or service.

Just look around, and you will find examples of digital marketing approaches everywhere.

A digital marketing strategy’s main aim is similar to traditional marketing approaches- Conversions and sales.

You can practice various digital marketing approaches to get the best results for your business.

Some of the digital marketing approaches are:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay per Click Marketing (PPC)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Content Marketing
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)

We will discuss these terms in brief later on. For now, you need to understand that content marketing is one branch of digital marketing.

Benefits of Digital Marketing 

Now, let’s check out some of the benefits of digital marketing.

You can reach out to your target audience without any geographical restrictions. 

While traditional marketing approaches are geography-restricted, it is not the case with the digital marketing approach. You can reach out to your potential customers sitting anywhere in the world.

Creating an international digital marketing campaign is easy, low-cost, highly results-driven, and effective.

It is a low-cost marketing approach. 

Compared to other traditional marketing approaches, digital marketing is a low-cost marketing strategy. On the other hand, the ROI is greater than the other marketing approaches.

You can Target Your Customers Easily. 

This is splendid. Digital marketing allows you to target your audience by various parameters such as race, gender, geography, behavioural patterns, interests, etc.; you will not find such liberty during your traditional marketing campaigns.

In fact, if you don’t know who your target customers are, digital marketing can help you fetch data for that. You can design or optimize your strategy accordingly.

You can make multiple strategies. 

Yes, you can make multiple digital marketing strategies for one business. You can simultaneously work on SEO and place paid ads for more visibility. Also, you can go for email marketing and influencer marketing as well.

There are no restrictions as it is a low-cost marketing approach, and businesses can afford to spend on multiple strategies.

You can get better reach and engagement. 

Digital marketing is popularly known as the highest engaging marketing approach. The best thing about a digital marketing effort is that you can measure the performance of your strategy.

For example, if you have posted a blog on your website, you can check how many people landed on the page, how much time they have spent on it, and how many of them clicked on the CTA button.

You can amend your strategy as per the data received by these metrics. Ultimately, you will be able to attract more customers and, in turn, more revenues.

What is Content Marketing? 

Now let’s address the elephant in the room- Content marketing.

Content marketing is a strategy to produce and promote informative, valuable, and original content to increase the online visibility of your business.

Content can be anything. It can be an informative blog, article, image, infographic, or video. You must ensure that the content you produce and promote has value to share with your target audience.

Developing a content marketing strategy is a crucial task. From identifying your target audience to finding the right platform for content marketing, you have to be careful.

It seems easy at first glance, but you need a full-fledged team of writers, graphic designers, and content strategists to implement a good content marketing strategy.

Some of the content that you can produce are

• Articles
• Blogs
• Images
• Infographics
• Videos
• Webinars
• GIFs
• Emails

Now, let’s check out some advantages of content marketing:

Content marketing helps you in winning the trust of your audience. 

The first and crucial benefit of content marketing is that it helps you win the trust of your audience. Your audience will appreciate your efforts when you consistently post innovative, informative, and valuable content.

They will turn to you when they look for industry news or some other information. Such relationships built on trust last longer.

Content marketing generates more genuine leads. 

Yes, the leads you receive from content marketing efforts are most probably genuine.

Here, potential customers click on CTA as they are impressed with your content and want more information. So, you have more chances to convert them into your customers.

Interested users will reciprocate positively and appreciate your efforts when you post and share valuable content.

Genuine content marketing efforts can improve conversions. 

When you post valuable content that really helps the audience, it will lead to conversions. Ensure that you post original content that enables you to drive more traffic and leads.

For example, if you are writing a blog post, ensure that you don’t copy content from other websites. Also, ensure that you make original images to add to the blog. It will create more brand authenticity.

Content marketing improves your online visibility. 

Your target audience will appreciate and reciprocate your consistent content marketing efforts. You will be able to gain more online visibility.

There are more chances that industry influencers will notice your brand and mention your business in their content. Keep posting high-quality, engaging, and original content.

Types of digital marketing strategies 

Search Engine Optimization 

SEO is one of the most popular digital marketing approaches that has carved a niche for itself by offering some invaluable benefits to businesses and enterprises.

As the name suggests, search engine optimization is all about getting at the top of the search engines such as Yahoo, Google, and Bing. SEO professionals develop strategies to rank a website on the top of search engines.

Pay Per Click Marketing 

Pay per Click Marketing is the paid form of search engine marketing. You can set a budget for your paid campaign, and all ad controls are in your hand.

Google and other search engines will place your ad on their paid spaces here. Google will charge you every time someone clicks on your ad.

With PPC, you have more chances of getting a good number of conversions as people interested in your products or services will most likely click on ads.

Social Media Marketing 

Even various social media platforms can be your lead generation tools.

Social media marketing has been a boon for some brands as they get most of their leads from social media networks.

However, you will need a robust, highly-effective, and monitorable social media marketing strategy to succeed.

First, you need to identify the right social media network used by your target audience. Then, you need to develop a social media marketing plan. Amend your plan as per the data you receive during the journey.

Email marketing 

Though email marketing seems outdated, it is not.

People do check their emails at least once a day. You can get leads from email marketing if you have the right, to-the-point, and innovative email marketing plan.

Influencer Marketing x

Influencer marketing is lately gaining popularity. It is a fantastic digital marketing approach where industry influencers promote your products or services on their blogs, social media networks, or videos.

Some influencers might charge a certain amount for such promotional activities. On the other hand, some influencers might get impressed with your offerings and do it for free.

Types of content used for content marketing 

Blogs 

Blogs are one of the most crucial content types that must be incorporated into your content marketing strategy. A blog is essential to getting the top ranks on search engines. Ensure that you keep posting useful blogs on your website regularly.

Videos 

Recently, organizations have been creating high-quality, engaging videos to educate the audience about their products and services. Videos can get better engagement compared to other content types.

Case Studies 

Another popular content type is case studies. You can get more leads by adding more case studies about how you helped your customers with your offerings.

User-Generated Content 

People trust what others are telling about your brand and offerings. This fact makes UGC more crucial than ever. UGC content is one of the most effective methods to create brand awareness and online visibility.

Infographics 

Infographics attract people who find reading very boring. A nicely developed infographic can educate a reader in just no time. Infographics are the latest content method to get you more leads and conversions.

What are the differences between Content Marketing and Digital Marketing?

Finally, let’s understand the main differences between content marketing and digital marketing.

Content marketing comes under the digital marketing umbrella. This is the first thing that you need to remember. Digital marketing is a broad strategy with various branches, including content marketing.

Content marketing is not about direct conversion. On the other hand, digital marketing is very direct.

The main purpose of a content marketing strategy is to educate your audience about your brand and offerings. It is all about winning their trust and loyalty.

On the other hand, digital marketing is all about converting your leads into customers. Digital marketing, in that manner, is more direct.

For example, your main focus is conversion if you run a PPC ad. You are not into educating your audience. It is a more direct way.

Content marketing is a long-term strategy; digital marketing might not be.

Educating your audience with the best content is a long-term exercise. It is a consistent thing as long as you are into the business.

Also, when you are dedicated to content marketing, you might need to wait sometime to see results. It takes time to build relationships and trust.

However, it does not mean that you can afford to ignore content marketing. With a content marketing strategy, you offer your customers real value. Undoubtedly, they will reciprocate sooner or later.

On the other hand, some digital marketing strategies such as PPC advertising and email marketing can bring instant results.

If you see it clearly, there are no major differences between content marketing and digital marketing. Both strategies are meant to create brand awareness, drive more traffic and improve brand visibility.

What is the best marketing channel for my business? Digital Marketing or Content Marketing? 

Well, the real answer is both of them.

You need to incorporate both strategies to get the best out of them.

In fact, you will need your digital marketing insights and data when you want to create a content marketing plan.

You don’t have to decide whether to opt for digital marketing or content marketing as you already use both strategies for your business.

For example, if you practice SEO, you already use the content marketing strategy as guest posting, and website blogging is part of content marketing.

If you are practising social media marketing, the images you make for your social media fall under the content marketing umbrella. One is entwined into the other.

By combining them into your marketing plan, you can reap the benefits of both these strategies and reach your goals. You can hire a digital marketing agency such as Link Publishers to design and implement the best, tailor-made digital marketing strategy that works in your favour.