When it comes to marketing your business, there are two primary approaches you can take: content marketing or direct sales. Both have their own pros and cons, and which one you ultimately choose will depend on your specific business goals. Here’s a closer look at each approach so you can decide which one is right for you.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is all about creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
When done correctly, content marketing can be an extremely effective way to build your brand, drive leads, and close sales. And because it’s based on providing helpful information rather than selling products or services directly, it can be much less intrusive and more palatable for potential customers.
The main downside of content marketing is that it requires a significant amount of time and effort to create quality content on a regular basis — which can be a challenge for small businesses with limited resources. Additionally, because it relies heavily on organic traffic from search engines, it can take months or even years to see results from your content marketing efforts.
Direct Sales
Direct sales involve selling products or services directly to customers through methods like face-to-face meetings, telemarketing, door-to-door solicitation, or in-person events like trade shows or pop-up shops.
Direct sales are generally more effective at generating short-term results than content marketing since they allow you to make an immediate pitch to potential customers. However, direct sales activities can also be quite costly — especially if you’re paying for things like trade show booths or promotional materials. Additionally, direct selling methods can sometimes come across as too pushy or “salesy” — which can turn off potential customers.
So Which One Should You Choose?
Content marketing and direct sales are both valid approaches for marketing your business. The best way to decide which one is right for you is to consider your specific goals and objectives. If you want to build a long-term relationship with your customers and generate leads that will eventually close themselves (i.e., inbound marketing), then content marketing is probably the way to go.
But if you need quick results and are willing to invest in more traditional (and potentially more expensive) outbound marketing activities, then direct sales might be the better option for you.
