Choosing an Online Marketing Strategy - PPC vs. Publishing Content

Choosing an online marketing strategy involves a lot of factors some of which are personal and others that are economical. Ultimately however you want to choose the one that is the most effective for your particular circumstances when marketing on the internet. Today our discussion focuses on comparing the benefits between publishing content and/or using pay per click ads as a means to promote online.

Below let's examine the benefits of these 2 promotional strategies and their marketing effectiveness online.

1) PPC:

Targeted

The traffic pay per click ads generate is highly targeted since the only people responding are those who are answering a specific ad you have posted.

Quick Response

An Adwords campaign solicits customer reactions that are nearly instantaneous from the time they view the ad. A typical campaign can be controlled to run at a specified time and even for a pre-determined amount of time. Any responses the ads may draw are therefore going to be within these time constraints.

Measurable

With the ability to assign both time and cost to your ads it is easy to measure your rate of return on investment and what is the best time to advertize.

Costs Money

Yes as we have already mentioned pay per click ads do cost money. For many this investment is well worth it due to the predictability of the type of traffic it attracts and how fast it can do so.

2) Publishing Content:

Economical

Publishing content is free of charge except for the time and effort you may invest. In this respect it is a very attractive alternative to ppc. 

Longer Lasting

Content published online can be in circulation and generating you traffic for quite some time. The better your content the more likely it will circulate longer. Not bad for a one time up-front effort on your part.

Builds Credibility/Reputation

As your content circulates the greater the association with you it makes on readers. If what you publish is of value or use to readers your reputation will end up benefiting. As the frequency of your publications increases so will your credibility since readers will begin to view you as an authority figure on the subject or in the field.

Targeted

Similar to ppc circulating information about on the internet will attract readers only interested in what you are writing about. Assuming what you write about is also what you may be promoting the traffic you receive will be targeted.

When choosing an online marketing strategy it is best to select according to your skill set, budget and both short and long term business intentions. Our comparison of pay per click ads and publishing content above serve only to give you a better understanding of their relative marketing effectiveness. In the end the choice is yours as to which method may work best for you when marketing on the internet. And by the way there is nothing wrong with using a combination of both of these strategies either!