Native Digital Marketing
According to Wikipedia, Native Advertising is:
«… a web advertising method in which the advertiser attempts to gain attention by providing content in the context of the user’s experience. Native ad formats match both the form and the function of the user experience in which it is placed. One form of native advertising… is similar in concept to a traditional advertorial.»
Considering the advertorial comes under the umbrella of content marketing, it’s hardly surprising that it’s so popular.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 94% of marketers in the UK use content marketing techniques.
The most popular content marketing formats are:
- Onsite articles 90%
- Blogs 78%
- Third party websites 74%
These are all brilliant at boosting existing customer engagement and relationship building, especially when promoted through your social media channels. But if you want them to help you also find new customers, you’re going to have to go where they are – and that means going native.
Native digital marketing
As mentioned above, the most popular form of native marketing is the advertorial – an advertisement in the form of an editorial. In this environment your reader is much less open to be sold to, mainly because they haven’t specifically searched for you, so you must make sure you offer them great brand-led content.
A recent article in The Drum reported that although always seen as an «effective and accepted marketing tool» advertorials have now attracted the wrath of Google.
The report goes on to say that a number of UK newspapers had been penalised with PageRank drops for publishing advertorial pages with embedded links, with Interflora being a high profile victim.
It reported that Matt Cutts (Google’s head of search spam) said:
«Please be wary if someone approaches you and wants to pay you for links or ‘advertorial’ pages on your site that pass PageRank. Selling links (or entire advertorial pages with embedded links) that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines, and Google does take action on such violations.»
To make sure your advertorial doesn’t attract Google’s wrath make sure it is informative, well-written, follows all editorial guidelines and is link free.
It is also essential you know exactly why you’re writing it.
What is your aim?
- To build brand awareness?
- Generate engagement?
- Customer acquisition?
Make sure your motivations are defined from the outset and measurable – otherwise what is the point?
Winning the digital marketing game
Social media, a great website, video marketing and a content strategy are all needed if you want to make an impact, but only the highest quality content will do.
By keeping your customer at the centre of everything you do will help you generate content that they want to read. Your digital marketing content should weave a web around them, so everywhere they turn they are exposed to your high quality, informative content.
