When we talk about Digital Marketing, it is usually everything available online. Digital Marketing or Marketing is a broad term, and Advertisement is just a part of it.
In today’s world advertisement is everywhere, whether you are listening music, watching web series, reading an article, playing any mobile game.
Advertising has its broad perspective but is usually divided into two terms, direct and indirect. Although in today’s world we know both these terminologies very well, we know what is advertising and what are Articles.
But have we ever put our thoughts on the right usage of both of them?
You may say that Advertising is a means of selling our products/services to the target market and Articles are just the medium of communicating with people and make them aware of our thought.
Again, do you believe that in this high pace changing world, blogs and articles have been writing just to let others know about one’s feelings?
Some people are writing for themselves, but then they keep it as notes in their diaries or in a form of personal blogs which they prefer not to share with anyone. But if you find people sharing their write-ups on their social media handles or any other means it can be clearly stated that they want maximum people to read their write-ups and want to know if they can make something out of it or not.
Isn’t this a kind of advertisement?
People are creating their brand without even considering this as an advertisement. In this social media age, everything is about creating a brand and advertising it, whether it is direct or indirect.
Today a blog/article is also considered an advertisement. Articles have become the means of indirect advertisement, exceptions are still there.
What we need to understand is the difference between the kind of advertising you are doing.
Let’s understand the two terminologies in a little broader way.
Advertising/ Advertisement
It is a kind of communication whose purpose is to influence the potential market to buy products/services. This is a part of a paid activity that attracts public attention to a product or business, through announcements in print, broadcast, or electronic/ social media. The nature of advertising varied as per the target market, it does not have any fixed formula to work on.
Advertising is an art to convey your message in lesser and effective words.
The content of Ads should be fresh, simple, and intelligent, yet radiated energy. People love and remember humorous and artistic ads for a long time.
For perfect Advertising it is essential to read the mind of your customers, A good advertiser learns the emotions like love, hate, anger, etc. to convince people for a particular product/service.
The purpose of the Advertisement is to create a visual impact on the audience, that they remember brands with their tag lines. Advertisement is an art to create more out of less.
In Digital Marketing you can create ads in many ways like,
• Display Ads
Display ads refer to Visual ads that include, banners, video ads, images text, wallpaper, pop-up ads, flash. These type of ads usually displays on third-party websites like Facebook, google networks, or relevant sites.
You can find a perfect example of a display ad on the site of New York Times.
• Native ads
Just like its name, Native ads are one of the best examples of Sponsored ads. Have you ever gone through a blog where you find the names of any brand in a way of story or used elegantly? These kinds of camouflage ads are called Native ads, In Facebook, you may find the perfect example of these ads. They are in the form of suggested posts, in-feed ads, editorial, advertorial or can also be manifest as a video in blogs or social media.
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img src https://www.designrush.com
• In-App Ads
As the name itself suggests the in-app ads are the one which displays on your mobile during playing a game or surfing channels in youtube. They are displayed within the mobile app and can be of anything from a sponsored post to a tweet on a social app to a banner or auto-play video ads.
• Social Media Ads
The best platforms to target are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Organic and Inorganic ads are examples of these ad types. Organic ads are non-paid ads that you can promote through different social media tools like hashtags to engage your followers. Inorganic or paid ads are again the form of sponsored ads.
img src https://www.smartinsights.com/
• Video Ads
Video advertising is not new to all of us, it is probably the best way to convey your message to the customers. Video ads are the most amusing and engaging form of Advertising. You can use them anywhere as an in-app ad, youtube ads, Vimeo, and other relevant platforms. Video ads can be of any type Educational, Informational, How-to ads, etc. They are more powerful as their impact on customers is more emotional than any other ads.
There are many more forms of Advertising in the Digital Marketing platform which we can use as per our requirement, like email ads.
Blog or Article Writing
Blog/Article writing has always been in a vast array. Initially, it was more about printing a piece of news or putting up thought to communicate a large number of people or just a medium of storytelling. With changing time even this mode of communication has changed a lot.
Now Article writing is not restricted to news or story writing, it is more about creating awareness about brands.
Articles are now referred to as the important part of content writing. Many biggies have started creating content around their niche and have started creating a personal brand with their creative writing. They hire Content writers, storytellers to create a story around their brand and promote it in a form of word of Mouth marketing plan.
Blog/Article writing has also broadly become a part of Marketing, and now people have started taking it seriously as a career. An article has to be precise and should have the writer’s interest point. One can write almost anything and everything.
Let’s look at the type of Articles one can write :
• Expository writing
Expository type of Article writing is the most commonly used type where rather than influencing people with own thinking writers simply pass on the information the way it is. This type of article writing is subject-oriented and mostly used in academics and formal letters where writers intend is to educate others with their knowledge on a specif topic. The only way to write an expository article is to keep your point of view apart from your writing. It is based on what and How and in some cases Why?
• Descriptive writing
As the name suggests Descriptive writing is more focused on describing situations, surroundings, nature, and even individuals’ thoughts in the articles. This kind of article sometimes also shows the poetic vision of the writer. In this type, writers are free to put up their visualization of people, taste, smell, love, anger in such a way that while reading people can relate to it as close as writers’ thoughts. It’s more like being in the head of the writer.
• Narrative writing
Are you interested in story-telling! Then this is your type. The writer’s job is not easy when it comes to making others believe in their belief, and the best way to do is to create a story behind your logics. In Narrative writing you don’t have to be logical all the time, what you need is a strong writing power that keeps your writer intact with the subject. And who else can do this better than a storyteller. So next time when you want to convince people with your story, try and write a captivating story around that.
• Persuasive writing
Hey! Have you ever been into a situation at your home or in an office where you have to convince others with your thought process, no matter whether it’s right or wrong? And if you could do this successfully then you have been in the shoes of a persuasive writer. Persuasive writing is convincing people that what you know, nobody can ever know. It is more about brainwashing the logical minds with your words. Many of the short ads are the best example of Persuasive writing.
These are the types of Article writings we have discussed. Now let’s see how we can use these two different yet impactful methods in Digital Marketing.
Ads Vs. Articles
We have already seen that both the means of digital marketing have their impact and both have their importance in different fields, still, the question is which one is best to promote your product/service. Let’s understand this with the given chart.
Up Shot
When you want your target audience to keep your brand in their minds for a long then Ads are the best possible way to create the brand presence, as articles get readers at their own pace which many times could be slow. So before choosing the kind of marketing advertisement for your brand, you must consider the type of market you are targeting and at what speed you want this.
Consider this point that people forget long and boring articles easily but a creative short ad keeps tapping their mind easily most brands chose short and creative ads to promote their brand. On the other hand, some people like to read detailed articles and feel comfortable in the genre.
This way my take on Short Ads and Articles, what’s yours. Keep posting your views in the comment section.
