What the majority of online businesses will do is generate some form of content marketing strategy to promote their business, product, or service, this in one form or another. What most also have difficulty in is getting focused traffic, this to generate results.
For any type of online search marketing campaign to succeed, especially if the method of choice happens to be content marketing, what becomes important is developing an effective plan that works. Generating and sustaining any type of focused traffic can be a daunting and at times expensive task.
For those who participate in search marketing to get traffic to their website, one effective and emerging method is by using “native advertising,” as it’s proving to be an economic effective solution.
Native advertising involves using “Promoted Posts” on Facebook or Twitter, or by advertising on content discovery platforms such as Taboola or Outbrain. Businesses of all sizes are then able to increase their reach, along with providing value to the content that’s already existing.
What native advertising does is it blurs the line between the existing organic content that’s on an authority site, and the blending in of the ads which are placed on it. What you’re doing is providing commercial value or offering a solution to the content that your advertising on.
The Struggle That Is Content Marketing
Almost all online marketers find producing content a daunting task, as what’s required is writing compelling copy which is capable of bridging, engaging, and turning the prospect into buyers, providing profitable return on investment (ROI).
The most difficult step is offering their readers something of true value that they can envelop. Most also have no idea how to track or know what ROI is, or how to use it effectively.
Even the largest of corporations with established brands struggle to find a way of measuring how effective their content marketing efforts are, or even if they’re working.
So if these large companies with massive ad budgets are finding ROI difficult to comprehend, then it’s no surprise that everyone else who markets online, finds it difficult as well.
Most online businesses also don’t have a set strategy, as they’ll just employ the throw and hope method. They’ll throw stuff out on the Web, and hope that something sticks, hope that if they build something, that the customers will arrive. What content marketing needs is a plan, and not hope.
What Is Native Advertising
The core definition of Native Advertising is that it’s paid content that’s presented in a similar format or subject theme, as the rest of the content that’s on the authority site that you’re advertising on. There are a few methods, the most popular being content discovery and Promoted Posts.
Using Promoted Posts
Using promoted posts on social media can give your content marketing strategy a competitive edge over others. Based on statistics, there’s currently just 20% percent or so of online businesses who are actively using promoted posts.
Since native advertising is still relatively a new concept, the few businesses and online marketers who are using it, are currently enjoying a competitive advantage.
Promoted posts, as the name implies, is a paid service option that’s available on social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, which promotes your content.
If you have a Facebook fanpage with 2000 followers, for instance, and make a post that’s not promoted, it’s thought that you’ll just reach a small percentage of your followers, which is estimated to be around 10% percent, or about 200 followers.
But if you use promoted posts, doing so will amplify your reach, this so that the content will reach as many followers as possible. Those who use promoted posts are reporting that they do work, that they’re able to extend their reach of their audience.
Some who are using Facebook Promoted Posts, are reporting reaching as high as four times more followers, resulting in three times more engagement, when compared to posts which are not promoted.
Using Content Discovery Sources
Another native advertising method is using content discovery sources such as Taboola or Outbrain.
What their content discovery widgets will do is place snippets, pieces of content on authority sites such as USA Today, and provide the readers with useful related information, your ad, which will draw focused targeted traffic to your site.
Two popular content discovery sites are Taboola and Outbrain. Taboola is able to reach 400+ million unique visitors, recommending over 1.5 billion placements of content. Outbrain is able to reach over 550 million visitors, providing 180 billion content recommendations.
These content discovery sources are able to engage with the audiences much better, being able to amplify your content’s exposure, generating focused traffic, this by suggesting to the readers, “From Around The Web” or “You might also like this” headlines, followed by the placement of your ad.
The Changing Online Landscape
Businesses of all types and sizes, online or offline, are slowly steering themselves in the right direction when it comes to content development, but they still lack direction on getting focused traffic such as what native advertising can provide.
For their content marketing efforts to succeed, what’s needed is adopting the next new wave of advertising by incorporating these newer methods, by using either promoted posts or content discovery.
It’s also known that a successful online marketing campaign is still contingent on the quality of the content. This because content still remains king, and that’s not expected to change anytime soon.
So when combining quality relevant content with a native advertising strategy, doing so should generate a larger more focused conversion rate, while improving engagement.
What doing so also increases is the authority of your site, making the entire search marketing effort more rewarding. This can now be done by placing a few strategic “suggestions” on an authority domain.