Content marketing in India has competition. From online directory listing sites.

Earlier this month, I got a call from a popular online directory service that boasts of one of the biggest moviestars in India as being their brand ambassador. Now this directory is literally one that everybody has knowingly or unknowingly used at some point of time in their lives (unless you live in a cave). I’ll give you a hint – it’s one of these guys:

Google search query

Google Search results

The guy on the other end was trying to sell me a package, the details of which are very fuzzy. It’s that fuzzy logic that I wanted to create some awareness about in this post.

What’s the offer?

These directory services will offer you a paid package, typically ranging from Rs. 25,000 to as high as Rs. 80,000 a month. But it’s what you get in return that becomes sketchy. The person on the phone explained to me how Spacebar would have higher chances of being shown to customers if I would buy the package. Broadly, I understand this. This is exactly what Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is all about and putting out an ad on Google works pretty much the same way. However, with Google I can see exactly what my money will be used for. For example, I can pay Google an amount that I specify ONLY for those people who click. Google gives me suggestions for this, too.

Google Adwords telling me the maximum cost per click (CPC) if somebody searches for these terms, finds my ad and clicks on it

But this directory service could not tell me exactly how different a 25k package would be than an 80K package. All I got was a vague “Your ad will be shown to more people.”

How many more? God knows.

Will I get some money back if not enough people ask for my services? No

Okay, so nothing concrete. I was still intrigued. Spacebar provides digital marketing services and what this company was doing was providing a similar service. The only difference was that instead of using Google/Facebook/LinkedIn/others as the platform for the ads, they were becoming a new platform. I had to know more.

So, I asked for a proposal. I got some more details in their email. This is what I was promised in lieu of my money.

Proposal from online directory service provider

 What to make of this information?

NOTHING! That’s what I’m trying to say! There are no clear numbers. With Google Adwords, at least I have:

• To pay money only based on the number of people who see/click on my ad (depending on ad-type)
• Real-time visibility to a dashboard that shows me how well my ad is doing

However, by paying this online directory, there is no visibility on the ROI around your money. In today’s age of digital marketing, where the ROI is usually very clear, this package follows the traditional methodology used by TV, billboards, print media, OOH, etc.

My limited point here is – if your business gets a call from an online directory asking you to invest your hard-earned money on them, don’t. For the same price, you can run a successful SEO and SEM campaign that will make people find your services through Google, which is a far bigger platform.

Without any ads, and with six months of organic SEO, here’s what Spacebar has been able to achieve. Imagine what we could have done had we pumped in 50K worth of moolah.

The choice is simple – content marketing over paid directory listings any day.