When a person gets immune to medicine due to prolonged usage, doctors either increase the dosage or recommend an alternative. In the case of advertising, branded content is that alternative!
The days when traditional advertising was the only means of increasing brand visibility are long gone. Businesses need creative ways to engage customers and take them through the sales funnel. Since customers are currently subjected to an onslaught of tailored advertisements, many producers are left wondering how to market their brand without adding to the flood.
Today, the development of content is handled by an effective & highly qualified workforce in most online businesses. Brands have a tonne of opportunities with content marketing. Wondering how can you do it and make it the most exciting part of your communication strategy? Read on!
What is Branded Content?
Branding content is any piece of content that a marketer uses to promote a company’s values, meaning, intentions, and mission. Your logo is not scrawled on a pen; it is not that. It would be labeled as “stuff.” Branded Content is an idea that appeals to your target market. Both a conversation and an emotional reaction are sparked by it.
Your branded content must leave readers satisfied, intrigued, and motivated to take action because people remember how you make them feel.
Branded content consists of an encounter. It improves how well a user understands your brand, product placements, and services. It extensively uses storytelling techniques and tools, as well as numerous distribution channels.
Branded content marketing effectively humanizes a company’s image while showcasing it in a fun way that draws in new customers, strengthens existing relationships, and encourages deeper involvement.
What exactly is brand content? Possibly after reading up until now, you have a good idea!
Now, though, we’ll explain how this differs from your perceptions and provide you with some good tips for creating branded content that is both interesting and effective.
And you know! 87% of B2B marketers believe that increasing audience size through content marketing and guest posting is more crucial than promotional/sales messages.
How branded content is different from advertising?
The terms “branded content” and “advertising” are two widely used content formats that differ from one another in a few minor but significant ways.
Unfortunately, not all content marketing professionals are aware of this. Because of this, branded content and native advertising are sometimes used synonymously, which is incredibly deceptive.
If you want to prevail in content creation, you must understand the distinctions between branded content and traditional advertising.
Any type of information created by a company, such as a blog post, video, infographic, podcast, etc., that aims to benefit the reader and forge a stronger bond with the brand is known as branded content.
As a result, storytelling over product marketing is typically given priority in branded material. Branded content posts frequently appear on a brand’s own content hubs, while some brands might also pay for their branded material to appear in publications published by other parties.
Thus, not all native advertisements are branded content, but some native ads may be branded content.
The ultimate objective of branded content is to develop an affinity with your target audience by providing them with relevant, interesting information. It can be shocking, instructive, or entertaining—but it can’t be a blatant sales pitch. Branded content may be very effective when used properly.
Remember the Supersonic Freefall stunt of Redbull? The brand never asked people to purchase it. Indeed, it boosted their tagline- “Redbull gives you wings.” The nature of interaction makes all the difference.
According to a report by Forbes, branded content posts are twice as memorable as display advertisements. Additionally, consumers are more inclined to acquire something from a brand that contains branded content.
In any case, speaking of advertisements, they are a type of sponsored content distribution in which a brand’s content appears in a third-party source. That’s usually a news website or social media network, alongside the editorial content of the publisher.
Due to the fact that the material is tailored to match the look, feel, purpose, and caliber of the publication’s other content, it is frequently referred to as “sponsored content” or an “advertorial.” You’ll see a lot of online shopping sites do this.
In most cases, a native advertisement will point up a potential issue for the reader before presenting a potential remedy in the form of their good or service. A link back to the brand’s website may be included in the advertisement by the brand in some periodicals, which can be advantageous for SEO.
The majority of native adverts have some kind of tag that identifies them as sponsored or promoted material. Pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-impression (PPI) fees are levied by publications against brands for these advertisements.
Although you now understand the distinction between an advertisement and branded content, you still need to establish and comprehend the goals of developing branded content before moving further with the process.
- The goal of branded content is to emphasize the company’s message.
- As with other marketing initiatives, you must choose your target market, your target market segments, and the tone of voice that will resonate with them before launching your campaign and expecting results.
- Branded content has the power to flash. People instantly grasp it and carry it along after it lands in the world with your message.
Your tribe is created after they inform their pals.
- Talk to your audience in order to increase engagement, and make a good first impression. You want people to remember you favorably and to recommend you to their friends.
- In the end, you want your content to be shared to strengthen the position of your business and spread your message throughout the world.
As was already noted, branded content can be a component of a business campaign, but it serves a far larger purpose. It is a piece of art that conveys your message to the world in a way that aligns with the ideals of your business.
Uber’s aggressively brand-focused marketing campaign during the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 serves as a fantastic illustration of this. The company aired static advertisements in video spots with provocative themes like “Nothing is moving in this video. You should not either.” This was a method to demonstrate Uber’s accountability and dedication to helping people in need while keeping its service in the background.
Why does branded content matter so much?
Your business plan should reflect the fact that creating and distributing brand content should never be a one-time endeavor. Keep your audience in mind at all times, create an editorial calendar, and plan a mix of year-round topics, and more seasonal ones. Make sure the themes you cover are pertinent to the narrative you want to tell.
Boosts the brand’s value:
Branded content gives more attention to the brand and works to boost its value rather than focusing on the goods or services.
Branded content can benefit from traditional marketing strategies like video advertisements, just like other marketing strategies. The quality of the brand will be more important in this case than the actual product placements.
Improves Customer Recognition:
A consumer is more likely to select a brand if it identifies a brand’s color, theme, logo, etc. from an advertisement. This is due to the fact that they are already aware of your brand and what it represents.
Solid branded content can be anything from plain and understated to outlandish and striking among a sea of competitors.
Take this Housekeeper Salary guide from Jobber as an example. Looking at this piece of content, everything from the branded images, CTAs, text, graphs, the interactive map, etc. demonstrates strong branding. This helps with recognition because even if a user landed on this page before any other, it’s easily recognizable as the Jobber brand.
Boosts interest in the brand
Branded content concentrates on generating ideas and debate about the brand, whilst other forms of marketing strategies aim to increase traffic to the product and increase sales.
Its ultimate objective is to raise brand recognition.
Therefore, it looks for ways to influence consumers and spark discussions about problems involving the brands.
The fundamental units utilized for measuring the success of this strategy are notoriety and the number of mentions, which are the key metrics of branded content.
Brings in Talent
When a company has strong branded content, it might be difficult for customers to ignore it. Influencers, content producers, social media marketers, and other concept builders are drawn to this.
When a company attracts these individuals, its creative powerhouse grows.
Collaborations with the appropriate individuals can greatly enhance your brand’s digital presence and help you promote it. This increases the audience base you can reach.
Provides added value to the audience:
It is generally accepted that audiences must pay for advertising in order to access the content they desire.
The viewer must watch a brief advertisement, for instance, when watching videos on free websites like Youtube. The advertisement may appear at the video’s start, middle, or end.
They should purchase the premium subscription if they want the advertising removed. However, with branded content, marketers produce the materials that consumers want or need, which are frequently those that are amusing or soothing.
Boost company values:
People can better relate to your company’s ideals and goals if your branded content has a personality. People are more likely to want to do business with you when they can identify with your company’s beliefs.
Consider the shoes from Toms. Despite being one of the most well-known shoe companies in the world, the company is mostly recognized for its charitable contributions.
In collaboration with charitable organizations, they donate a pair of shoes for each pair of shoes you purchase.
One of the key components of branded content is how this helps the firm and the client develop a mutually emotional connection.
Employs the impact of emotions
Since the time of Aristotle, people have been persuaded by using their emotions. It continues to show how emotions affect many different things, including business, until this day.
Branded content employs emotion to persuade its customers rather than expressing the reasons why people should use products from a brand or providing statistics and research to support the company’s excellence.
For instance, Coca-Cola’s “Choose Happiness” campaign was a huge success. It encouraged customers to share their happy memories and experiences during the summer of 2015.
Another brand that got an unprecedented level of social media engagement was Heineken’s “world Apart” campaign which used empathy.
In branded content, businesses employ their products to engage with the audience and develop a more personal bond with them.
7 Pro tips for creating engaging branded content
You can write all the content and cover every topic under the sun in your industry but that won’t help. It’s got to be engaging! It won’t rank on Google unless people aren’t interacting with respect to your content. Read on to know how you can do it!
Know your audience better:
Naturally, you need to have a strong understanding of your target demographic in order to generate branded content that appeals to them.
It implies that you should investigate your audience’s psychographics in addition to its demographics.
There are several online resources that can assist you in conducting target audience research. However, checking your clients’ social media accounts is one of the simplest ways to find out more information about them. Yes, you can learn everything about someone through their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.
Examine your clients’ social media posts and try to provide some of the following answers:
- What types of lifestyles lead your clients?
- What movements in society do they support?
Also, social listening, analyzing data from your CRM, and doing research on your competitor’s target audience and existing clientele can help too.
Leverage Storytelling
Do you want people to notice your branded content? Make up an excellent tale.
People adore stories, that is a known fact.
This is how scientists explain it. A neuropeptide called oxytocin is released by our bodies when we watch characters interacting with one another.
Our focus sharpens as the action picks up, and more cortisol is released from our bodies.
Who could be your story’s main protagonist? anyone who in some way connects with your brand. It might be a worker for you, a client, a business partner, or even you.
What sort of tale ought you to tell?
Everything is dependent on the brand message you wish to convey. It might be a happy story, a tragic story, or an inspirational narrative. Create whichever narrative you think will best engage your audience. For instance- Adidas’ “take the stage” campaign.
Diversify your Content and Monitor the Campaigns
The message you’re trying to convey to the world is diluted if you keep doing the same thing. The platforms you utilize will limit your reach and cause your audience to lose interest in your message.
You need to change things up, diversify your channels, and rock the boat a little.
Measure your campaigns AT ALL TIMES. Examine the information your campaigns produce. What number of likes did you get? Amount of shares? Consider click-through rates. How many sales did your campaign generate?
Yoast SEO is an option. You can use it to help you create meta descriptions and SEO-friendly titles. Not only that, but it also enables you to evaluate the caliber of your work and offers improvements.
Through the program, you may determine your Flesch reading score and determine whether your text contains enough connectors. Additionally, YoastSEO assists with examining internal links, subheading distribution, sentence length, and other factors. Indeed, explore some content writing tools that will help you sail through.
Collaborate With Other Brands
You can find a tonne of opportunities to collaborate with other creatives through branded content. User-generated material can also be used in your marketing plan to highlight the connection between the company and the consumer. Dan Coughlin, director of growth at Get Hyped Media, suggests assembling UGC and influencer alliances for brand initiatives, particularly video UGC. He suggests, “Partner with creators that provide the best video content.”
Polaroid x Lacoste’s 2021 was one of the most successful pairings. For the collaboration, an Instagram filter was created to promote Polaroid camera vibes and the bright clothing collection.
In 2023, videos will rule the attention game. The finest content is either entertaining, influential, or instructional. It rapidly grabs and holds your interest. The great news is that with the help of tools like an online video editor, you don’t even need a big budget or even editing experience to incorporate video into your branded content.
Be consistent with your brand voice.
You can experiment with producing numerous content types and covering a range of subjects. But you must always maintain the same tone of voice for your company.
You should identify your brand voice straight away if you haven’t already. Determine which tone of speech best represents your brand before anything else: friendly, helpful, educational, funny, sassy, etc.
Second, choose your wording carefully. Will it be official or casual, smart or straightforward, jargon-free or technical?
If you collaborate with the proper creators, for instance, you can increase your Instagram likes. If your content marketing team is large, make sure that everyone speaks in a consistent tone. So if you are trying to figure out how to start an affiliate program or use influencer marketing – be sure to consider who fits your tone and vision best.
Concentrate on Producing Shareable Content
Do you want your post or video to gain online traction? Making your branded content entertaining to read or watch is great but insufficient. Making it “worthy of sharing” is necessary.
The reader should feel as follows after reading your content: “Oh my God! This video/article is quite helpful! It strikes a deep chord with me. I must immediately tell my friends, family, and coworkers about it!”
You can use platforms like Wattpad or its alternatives to promote your branded content.
Before you begin creating fresh material, consider the following questions.
- What type of content (videos, infographics, blogging, etc.) is most likely to be shared by my target audience?
- What subjects, problems, or memories most appeal to my audience?
- What kind of material is currently popular in my niche?
You’ll produce more high-quality content and quadruple your marketing and branding efforts once you know the difference between “good” and “share-worthy” content.
Be Authentic and Display It
Are you trying to build brand loyalty? Create a genuine and distinctive brand identity for yourself. Don’t try to replicate content made by other brands. Consider unconventional ideas and develop them.
Don’t be frightened to bring your innovative thoughts to life; just let your imagination run wild. Online buzz will be created if you create something that your buyers have never seen before.
Do you have reservations about utilizing written content for branding? The best example of branded material is provided here.
The Dyatlov Pass event was the subject of a Facebook Watch report that was later printed in the New York Times. Although the story did not promote Facebook Watch, it did pique readers’ interest in the Dyatlov Pass puzzle.
3 Popular branded content examples to follow
The promotion of goods and services is not overt in branded content. They are not the main subject of the content, nor are they overtly highlighted, despite the fact that they can be reflected in it.
When everything is taken into account, the brand’s more dynamic traits and its origin narrative are given a lot of attention. Furthermore, it is not invasive.
The top branded content samples to get ideas from are listed in the list below.
1. Nykaa
Influencers from a variety of backgrounds have been brought together by the company, and they regularly provide interesting material for a variety of clients dispersed around India.
By providing relevant information that is plainly visible on the Nykaa BeautyBook, they were able to achieve their goal. A variety of information, including eye-catching photos, video blogs, how-to articles, and more, may be found there.
2. Redbull
The marketing techniques for this energy drink company, which is the most effective one for branded content, are all about creating stories to raise the brand values, about sports or love of risk.
The fact that Felix Baumgartner leaped from the stratosphere at a height of 38,969 meters is what gave the event its infamy that has endured to the present day. In fact, this brand makes use of every available technology to achieve its goals, and they are successful.
This jump not only sets a world record but also stands out among sponsored content events.
3. Netflix
The well-known OTT platform posts images and reels that show frames from the most well-known and recently released films or television shows on social media platforms.
This engages the audience and the group’s followers. Because of this, Netflix is adept at luring customers to its social media pages while also demonstrating to them how they can get the most out of their memberships.
It’s time to create your branded content!
Sharing brand stories and your business’s message through branded content is a potent approach to engaging your audience.
All the major players are involved, but no matter how big your company is or how much money you have set aside for marketing, you must convey your narrative if you have one.
In a nutshell, branded content is a marketing strategy used to raise brand values.
Instead of focusing on sale conversion like other methods of marketing, it focuses more on creating engagement and dialogue with customers about the brands.
Branded content is not an intrusive type of Smarketing (marketing and sales) pitch. However, with it, the company can forge solid bonds and customer trust, which ultimately significantly increase sales.
You can find your own best practices by keeping an eye on the statistics. A successful brand content strategy, after all, calls for ongoing adjustments to discover new ways to boost audience engagement and loyalty.
