Building a marketing strategy is the cornerstone of any successful business. Its main role is to fill the gap between what the market has to offer versus the needs of the consumer. Online markets nowadays are leaving the old-fashioned marketing strategies, diverting towards digital content marketing as the means of expanding their user base, while making sure to offer top-notch services to their customers.

But before diving into the world of content marketing, let’s take a quick look at the traditional marketing strategy, that has been ruling the markets for decades.

What Is Traditional Marketing & How Is It Different From Content Marketing?

Traditional marketing follows the interruptive approach in which adverts and services are delivered to consumers upon the company’s desire. Like any other form of marketing, the traditional approach comes in several forms: through the mail, billboards, television & radio ads, etc.

Some might consider this form of marketing as “annoying”, the reason behind it is that this strategy relies heavily on how businesses wish to deliver their information and services, sometimes completely ignoring the consumer’s desire to benefit from it. Despite all its downsides, traditional marketing is still the most researched and leaned on form, in addition to being one of the oldest forms of marketing.

Marketing Technique

Content marketing follows a more permissive technique, where the consumer is in control regarding how they want to receive the service and the timing they wish to consume it. It is more like they are the ones who have given the permission to be marketed to.

The concept of permission marketing was promoted by Seth Godin, an American author, and entrepreneur, in his book “Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends, And Friends into Customers” published on July 10th, 2000. In the book, Godin talks extensively about how content marketing is all about motivating consumers to voluntarily accept advertisements.

By implementing this approach, companies are ensured a long-lasting relationship with their customers based on mutual trust, while building brand awareness and bigger chances of making a sale.

As mentioned earlier, traditional marketing follows the interruptive marketing approach. From its name “Interruptive”, this technique interrupts what a person is doing to offer what a company has in store for people. This approach leads to people having their time and privacy violated due to them feeling forced into consuming a product they didn’t necessarily wish to come across.

Financial Efficiency

According to Demand Metric, global marketing research & advisory firm, “Content marketing efforts cost 62% less than traditional marketing efforts, and they generate 3x as many leads. This report is proof of how, cost-wise, content marketing is more effective in the long run”

Target Customer

On one hand, content marketing focuses more on offering the consumer value rather than ambushing them with unnecessary ads and information. In this case, it’s the audience that is in control of whether to respond to what the marketer is offering them or not which makes them earned not forced. This means that you are the one who controls the ropes, not the other way around.

On the other hand, traditional marketing ads are seen by what is called “rented audience”. It means that marketers offer money to have their services displayed on platforms that already have a constant audience, on which marketers rely to consume their service. These platforms include billboards, PPC, and many more.

Audience Consistency

It turned out that not only is content marketing easier to work with and is more affordable, but also it’s the form of marketing that people prefer most.

When a business maps out to their potential customers a consistent long-term plan to provide them with valuable services, it ends up being a win-win situation. On the audience end, they have found a trusted source to rely on when they need a product or a service, and on the business end, they have acquired themselves a loyal consistent customer.

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Content Marketing in the Arab World

Arab market-wise, though the consumption of daily online marketed content is high, yet only 2% of worldwide content is written in Arabic. And 5% of Fortune 500 websites have an Arabic language version.

In the Middle East area, use paid ads as their main approach to accelerate their marketing strategies outcome. But, people are slowly coming to the realization that Arabic content marketing is underestimated, and with the right techniques, the Arabic content market will have a seat at the international content marketing table.

In Arabic, content marketing is not easy. One of the greatest problems faced is the lack of specialist websites. If social media platforms and foreign websites are excluded, news portals make up about 90% of generated traffic in the region.

In order for Arabic content marketers to achieve progress, first, they must invest in quality content while maintaining originality. For example, they can make use of the variant dialects the MENA region has to offer, producing and marketing content that targets each dialect-speaking group separately.

Second, marketers need to ask themselves a couple of questions that their content marketing plan must address. How can you increase loyalty and retention? What is the goal behind this campaign? Is it to raise awareness or sell out a product?. As easy as these questions may seem, they are very crucial to answer in order to attain steady progress on the path to success in any content marketing plan.

The main idea content marketing revolves around is to fill the gap between what a company provides and what a customer is seeking. Arabic content marketing will always be one of the most important marketing activities for organizations looking to expand in the Middle East. Leave the basic concepts and focus your market research. You will need to modify and design a personalized plan based on the insights you have found along with your research. Learn everything you can about the targeted markets, their most displayed channels, top websites, search activity, and your competitors. The market is full of opportunities, and those who are ready to make use of them are in for a treat. A successful Arabic content marketing plan should be completely tailored to the local demand.

It is very important to note that the content market is continuously evolving and growing, therefore it is crucial to produce services that are flexible and able to keep up with the latest trends on the market.