Ever wonder why one of Spotify's premium subscription features offers to get rid of advertisements? It’s because today we want our content, and we want it now. How often do you view the commercials on that new episode of your favorite TV show as a fun thing? Well, content marketing is today's attempt to change that.
Content marketing is a specific long-term marketing strategy aimed at providing relevant high-quality content to foster a strong relationship with specific target audiences. Today content marketing is taking the world by storm because of its simple, effective, low-cost approaches to PR/Marketing. Seen as more effective than traditional marketing, content marketing is a more specific way of targeting an audience. Often the audience reached is already looking for what's offered, so they’re already 60% sold.
Content marketing utilizes both content creators and influences to build its strategy and execute marketing agendas. Content creators are responsible for creating, curating, editing, and managing content. Whereas influencers are the individuals who have the power to affect the purchase decisions of others. Examples of influencers include celebrities, bloggers, and industry experts.
Semiotics in Marketing
Today social media has taken over.
Any college student could tell you the in’s and out’s of Instagram, what it means to “retweet” or how to get to the “beach vibes” filter on Snapchat. A cell phone is all you need to become a social media expert overnight.
In the digital age, we spend so much time scrolling that we don't notice the hidden messages and symbols in every post. When you start focusing on the connotation of symbols in ads versus the literal meaning, you see how ads can subconsciously influence the ways we think and perceive things.
The study of this is called semiotics - the study of signs. Semiotics is used to analyze how our system of conceptualizing shapes the way we view things. Metaphors being a tool to engage the consumer and influence their perception. Marketers utilize semiotics to help reach their target audience and learn how to sell to/shape their behavior. This insight is particularly useful when marketing to niche markets. With a specific idea of how a consumer will read and interpret your message, marketers gain an understanding of how their message should be crafted. Thus allowing marketers to alter their ads and introduce subliminal messages that the viewer doesn't always realize are even there.