By Kenneth Middleton

There are some fundamental differences between the traditional or conventional methods of marketing a product and using content search marketing methods. The more conventional marketing methods are known as “interruption advertising techniques” and they are interruptive, disruptive and very irritating. In many cases they remind people why they don’t want to purchase a particular product – because the ad gives them such a big a pain-in-the-ass.

The success of this advertising method lies in slapping the product itself in-your-face. The fact of the matter is, that you can’t live without tile-floor cleaner if you want to keep your socks white when you walk across your floors at home. This marketing method is a branch of the mass media phenomenon – basically advertisers hope that the product will appeal to some individuals who are “that” insecure about the cleanliness of their white socks after walking over their own tile floors. It is archaic, it is rude, it insults our intelligence and integrity and is disrespectful of market needs. Besides, this form of advertising is no longer relevant.

Content search marketing on the other hand, is generally instigated by the searcher; our famous organic search engines: Google, MSN and so on – the searcher taps in the fact that they are looking for a “natural disinfectant tile-floor cleaner”. This is someone with both children and animals in the same home; loves them both equally, is intelligent and wants to make sure that any germs are dealt with as well as the products being safe for both the kids and pets. This is not about her socks staying white, she is a sophisticated consumer and hates that tile-floor ad on the TV, which tells her nothing, and besides that, it is really stupid.

She is looking for something more real, so, goes to content search where she takes advantage of what we call permission marketing. This form of marketing is based on customer choice; pertinent to the knowledge she has gained when learning about the contents and ingredients in certain products, and she is usually offered a wide choice, and often even told how to make her own product. The content search tells her that “these” products use only natural ingredients, and mentions A,B,C, D – in this instance lavender, which is not only an anti-bacterial and disinfectant, it is gentle on the kids, works hard on the floors and is not dangerous to pets like some citrus-based floor cleaners can be. It smells nice too and so on, we all know the scent of lavender.

She is not saturated or bombarded with crap. She went looking for the information she found and is going to base her purchase decision on her discretionary knowledge of the integrity of the product, as she sees it. No-one is telling her that without these products her tile-floor will in essence be dirty (hence the white sock-test).

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