Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business

Chapter 15. Traditional Advertising Is Dying: The Rise of Creative Paid Sponsorships and Social Marketing

	The most effective form of advertising is content.
	--John Jantsch, The Referral Engine

Is the 30-second ad dead? What about print ads? Banner ads? Are they all just on life support? Short answer: pretty much—because consumers have to be interrupted by ads, and almost everyone hates interruptions (I know I do. Don't you?)—especially when a company is essentially guessing that its product just might appeal to you. Does it still work for mass-Goliath-marketing? To some extent—but make no mistake, it is fading fast.

Like everything in marketing—and in life—it is time to evolve.

Advertising and sponsorships are not dead. In fact, they can still be one of the BEST ways to market and promote your business, along with creating your own content. But the mediums and messaging by which this information is conveyed have changed—for the better.

There's now a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs and other people traditionally too small to advertise and sponsor (the Davids of the world) to jump into the game.

With evolution comes new ideas and the rise of creative paid content, which is essentially advertising your expertise and having another trusted resource plug your products and services. The best part, of course, is that it's FAR less expensive, much more effective (you don't pay for the 98 percent of people NOT interested in you; you pay for the 2 percent who ARE) and well ... smarter. ...