How to make cost-effective content marketing more effective than advertising? Understand the difference between the two in one article

This article starts from the underlying logic of the two major marketing operation methods, advertising and content marketing, and compares the similarities and differences between the two in terms of core concepts and effects, providing us with suggestions on how to do content marketing well. It is recommended for students who are interested in content marketing.

I have been busy working on several very good IP cases recently, including brand IP, top cultural tourism, and cultural product development. I will share them one by one later...

Among them, this project has the most youthful culture:

We upgraded the IP of a listed stationery group and positioned it as a two-dimensional magical girl . We used a whole set of two-dimensional magic culture to carry out brand IP shaping, content marketing, and product consumption system design. I will share this case in detail with you later.

We have been exploring content marketing and how to make cost-effective content marketing more effective than expensive advertising...

From this, we also find that the underlying logic of content marketing and advertising is very different, which I would like to elaborate on in this article.

Below, share.

1. Advertising focuses on values, while content marketing focuses on emotional accompaniment

There is a serious contradiction that is very obvious but always ignored.

Advertising attaches great importance to the output of values, but this kind of value-centered thing can easily have a very poor effect when it comes to content marketing.

Because what content marketing is about is daily companionship, centering on emotional connection, hiding values ​​behind it, or even not emphasizing values ​​at the beginning, but first using empathy and fun to attract, and after providing enough emotional value, the values ​​will be conveyed naturally.

Emotional value and values ​​are really two different things.

For example.

Advertisements are like a great man who speaks about values ​​with a loudspeaker downstairs in your building; no matter how good they are, you can’t listen to them every day.

Content marketing is like your family, lover, roommate, and pet at home. They chat with you about daily life. This is the connection of emotional value.

Imagine, no matter how powerful the other person is, can you tolerate him staying by your side every day to educate you ideologically? No.

Even if it's your family member or close friend, you wouldn't tolerate him/her preaching to you every day, right?

If you listen to it too much, you will only feel that you are being abused.

You would rather be a companion, with whom you can interact, confide, and even love and help each other. This will help you to better realize your own value and make yourself more valuable than accepting values.

This is why IP-based content marketing that is more lovable, humble, like a lover or partner, and like a pet that you need to nurture is more likely to be popular.

Emotional companionship is the first value of content marketing, just as values ​​are the core value of advertising.

An advertisement is often just a video clip, a set of image materials, and huge advertising fees are used to promote this thing.

Content marketing is often a series of fragmented things that provide long-term, high-frequency emotional communication to interested users in the same scenario (social media).

Many brands have already realized this, but because they are too deeply influenced by advertising and marketing, they often do something thankless, which is to force integration.

For example, I saw a social media account for a top cold medicine brand that created a digital person to personify its brand, but the content was really embarrassing…

She is portrayed as a highly educated and intellectual woman, and every social media post she makes people tired. Every post has to talk about brand values ​​while trying to communicate emotionally. In other words, she wants to be rational and wise, but also emotional and empathetic. She feels like she is stuck in a dilemma.

"It's like a cold woman who wants to talk to you about life and love at the same time. "

Doing so will undoubtedly attract a small number of people, but it will certainly not attract the majority of people, and it will also isolate the majority of people who need to use cold medicine when they have a cold.

Looking at the feedback data, we can see that although each post has dozens or hundreds of replies, most of them are probably fake because the content of the comments is also very dry.

Behind this is a very common misunderstanding in building a brand image - only a high-end image can make one appear prestigious.

Originally, all people who have caught a cold should be consumers, and they can use the product no matter who they are. However, the brand image of this cold medicine must appear elegant and refined, as if consumers who are not elegant and refined are not worthy of being its consumers...

The reason behind this is -

In order to reinforce values, it is easy to elevate the brand image when making advertisements, making the consumers in the advertisements 45 degrees higher than the actual consumers, creating an upward angle.

But if we do the same thing on social media, consumers will think: "It's just a cold medicine, why do you have to exclude ordinary people like this?" It will easily become unpopular.

I have always been skeptical about brands creating a high-end image at a 45-degree angle. In the era of Internet content marketing, the flaws of this approach are even more obvious.

The same is true of the content on the social accounts of many other big brands. You can tell at a glance that they are guided by brand values ​​and are trying to do awkward emotional communication that is superficial and ineffective.

So how should content marketing be done?

2. Advertising is a cannonball, content marketing is a sex toy

If advertising is artillery bombardment, then content marketing is the production of sex toys.

Think about it, how big is the difference between this cannonball and a sex toy? !

Advertising production is actually the development of a cannonball, and it is just a cannonball. This cannonball often costs millions to make, it is very expensive and very powerful.

However, the bomb is not responsible for attracting traffic .

In order to launch this multi-million dollar bomb, the brand must prepare millions or tens of millions of dollars in media fees to attract traffic, find traffic, and bombard this traffic, otherwise it will be ineffective. This is the essence of advertising-style communication.

Content marketing is to split the millions of dollars originally spent on making a cannonball into hundreds of fragmented, daily, and constantly changing micro-contents . Then, in fixed social scenarios (various social media), continuous communication and guidance are carried out to arouse empathy and achieve companionship.

Therefore, content marketing does not require tens of millions of advertising and media fees, which is very cost-effective. Only one percent or even one thousandth is enough, but it has very high requirements on the emotional power, interestingness, and usefulness of the content.

The four words "sex toys"

These are the four-word formula for content marketing summarized by Lu Xiaobo, marketing director of Xpeng Motors.

• "Emotion": The content of content marketing should be empathetic. Continuous emotional promotion + emotional connection is the primary task of content marketing.
• "Fun": The content should also be interesting, even new, strange, and unique, so as to attract people's interest and continued attention.
• "Use": Content should not just be the brand talking about its own values, but should be useful, altruistic, and provide lasting help to people.
• "Quality": Finally, it is the character that the brand emphasizes, and this character should have more cultural characteristics of the IP temperament.

My old friend Lu Xiaobo also said that before you do content marketing, you should think about two things:

1. Pay attention to and gain insight into your communication environment. What is your user scenario?
2. Why do users like you? What touches them? How do you arouse their emotional resonance?

Because when you are communicating, you must first consider the communication environment, not only the offline, but also the online self-communication social environment, the latter often plays a more important role in the effect.

So you have to dig out the emotional characteristics of these scenes themselves, and creating content is to fit it, stimulate it, and stir it.

Here are a few principles related to love:

• All scenes have their own emotions;
• It is the same for everyone. It is easier to spread actions by inspiring emotions than by inspiring thoughts.
• Empathy is the primary driving force of online communication.

In the current communication environment, the pace is too fast, and if your content is not interesting, it may just flash by.

Here are a few principles related to "fun":

• Interesting things often come from new, strange and unique things;
• The success of being new, unique and special comes from the extreme display of details;
• The best novelty is to discover yourself and dig out the best in yourself.

Enterprises are not joke tellers. For enterprises, the most practical thing is to create content that is useful to consumers and users. Many times, the success of enterprise content marketing is because it is useful to users.

Several principles related to "use":

• It is not enough to just benefit yourself, it must also benefit customers and even everyone;
• Altruism is the basic principle of world harmony. If I serve everyone, everyone will serve me.
• If you keep doing something altruistic, it can become a Michelin restaurant guide or a Guinness World Record.

The reason why Michelin restaurants and Guinness World Records are mentioned is because——

Michelin restaurants were originally a continuous content marketing campaign for Michelin tires; the Guinness World Records was originally a continuous public relations campaign for Guinness beer. (Guinness and Guinness are the same word in English)

Finally, content marketing must have a sense of quality and character and represent the temperament of the brand.

The reason why the content of many brands cannot achieve long-term "quality" is because the brands do not have their own brand culture. Values ​​alone are not enough to form a culture, and culture is achieved through the creation of content.

Here are some principles related to building quality:

• The brand culture is based on consensus, and is both classy and popular;
• Brand culture must have its own symbols, rituals and labels;
• Brand culture requires constant storytelling.

Fun-use-product, these four words fully express the efficient essence of content marketing.

3. Advertisers are artillery, content marketers are healers

Finally, let’s talk about the shift in marketers’ responsibilities.

People who work in advertising are actually artillerymen, who have to think about bombing all day long. The most famous artilleryman in the world is Napoleon. There was a famous saying in the advertising industry: "If you can't be a president, be an advertiser." It's the same as Napoleon.

But now, due to major changes in the communication environment, advertisers are really not that effective anymore.

As communication trends change, content marketing will become more and more important, and it is not surprising that it will even become mainstream. (In fact, in many industries, the mainstream of marketing is already content rather than advertising.)

Social marketing, entertainment marketing, knowledge marketing, self-media operation, weak communication and great power, live streaming, viral transmission, social currency creation, etc., are actually all part of content marketing.

Content marketers are more like therapists, doctors, and expert consultants.

Content marketers need to have the skills of user therapists and know how to conduct daily communication and provide emotional companionship.

What content marketers need to understand is not mass psychology, but individual psychology and subculture psychology.

Content marketers must have empathy and altruism, and know how to start with each living individual, to impress them, to make them willing to pay attention to the content of content marketing, and to be willing to spread it.

Content marketers are often more like craftsmen. Facts have also proven that much of the content produced by internet celebrities is produced by a skilled craftsman. Only a dedicated craftsman can create new, unique and special content.

Let’s compare advertising with content marketing.

Advertising bombardment often hurts people, and content marketing is the healing patch.

Finally, let’s look at a few less well-known but effective content marketing campaigns:

Daily posts from a notebook brand IP, talking about the notebook school opened by girls themselves.

A daily post from an IP called "Inner Child", which constantly empathizes with the dark content of office workers.

An emotional personal account on TikTok, with little emotional happiness in daily life.

Author: Chen Gray

WeChat public account: IP Fried Rice (ID: IPCOOK)