Traditional advertising techniques require persuading customers to buy your products or services. Today, brands are more focused on connecting with their target audience.
Emotional response and connection are critical for marketers to convert prospects into customers. In fact, 82% of loyal customers always buy from a brand they have a high emotional engagement with.
Branded content is the new trend!
What is brand content?
Branded content is a marketing technique that involves creating content that’s directly related to the brand or its products and services. These branded content posts are mainly targeted to evoke emotions from your target audience, create brand awareness, and generate revenue.
Here are some stats to better understand its importance:
- Once exposed to branded content, users are 14% more likely to engage further from that brand.
- Brands gain 50% higher brand lift when a premium publisher pushes branded content.
- 81% of consumers emotionally connected with branded content will promote the brand to their family and friends.
- 70% of emotionally connected consumers will be more likely to spend 2x more money on brands than those who don’t.
- Branded content videos drove 62% more positive impressions from viewers than conventional commercials.
Content Marketing Ideas for Your 2023 Content Calendar (+Best Content Examples)
Fill up your content calendar for 2023 with these trending content marketing ideas. Let’s go through some examples to know how these ideas worked for other businesses.
1. User-Generated Content Marketing
Best example: Canva’s Design Challenge
90% of consumers have more trust in user-generated content over ads and promotional emails. UGC is brand-specific content created by customers, employees, or brand followers to express their love and loyalty to the brand.
User-generated content has shown good results in driving traffic and increasing conversions. Its success can be measured from the likes, comments, and shares on social media.
Canva, an Australia-based design company, launched its #CanvaDesignChallenge campaign in 2022. This weekly campaign called for unique and engaging designs in exchange for prizes.
Canva’s user-centered experience makes creating design accessible and easy for businesses, influencers, and content creators without complicated software.
Canva’s Design Challenge is a perfect example of UGC. The campaign has managed to get more than 150,000 posts on Instagram under its hashtag. You can’t unsee the engagement this type of brand content brings.
2. Video Content Marketing
Best example: Customer Testimonials for Applied Fitness Solution
Approximately 3.37 billion internet users watched streaming or downloaded videos at least once per month in 2022. This is why 86% of businesses use video as their marketing tool.
Video content marketing is a form of digital marketing that involves producing and sharing video content for your target audience to invoke their interest in your product and services.
It can vary from short-form videos to long-form videos. Video content can be in the form of customer testimonials, how-tos, feature demos, etc., to generate qualified leads. This type of video marketing works best when you need to increase your customer base.
For example, Susan Cole, a satisfied customer of Applied Fitness Solution, shares her personal experience with the brand. She walks the audience through her complete journey, from how she felt before joining Applied Fitness Solution to how satisfied she is with the results.
This customer testimonial was created using a narrative style that persuades your target audience who are on a similar journey. This not only humanizes the content experience but connects with the customers on a personal level. The more your users relate, the more likely they are to convert.
3. Podcasts
Best example: SaaStr Podcast
82% of marketers plan to continue investing in podcasts or other audio content in 2022. For marketers, podcasting is a great way to captivate the audience. It can be done by communicating a range of ideas, products, and information to a niche audience.
In fact, 54% of podcast viewers say they are more likely to consider the brands they hear advertised on podcasts.
Let’s take a look at SaaStr Podcast:
The SaaStr Podcast is one of the most popular podcast shows in the SaaS world. The show hosts, Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings talk to top influencers, CEOs, industry experts, founders, sales managers, and scientists who share their valuable insights and experience.
Most of their episodes are for aspiring entrepreneurs, providing them with sound and practical advice to run a successful startup. With each episode, you can take away valuable guidance on how best to launch your business ideas.
4. Social Media Content Marketing
Best example: Behind-the-scene videos from Maybelline
Social media has been an important part of our daily lives. Did you know that there are about 4.70 billion social media users across all platforms?
Needless to say, social media is a content marketing platform that should definitely be a part of your brand content strategy. Behind-the-scenes videos are one of the most widely used techniques to bring followers to your social media platforms.
It’s a great way to humanize your brand, building trust and credibility. You’ll be able to give your audience a peek through your processes. That, in turn, helps develop a deeper understanding and connection with your brand.
It can be in the form of Q&As with followers, too. This is a way to show brand transparency, especially since consumers want to know more about what’s happening behind the scenes.
Famous cosmetic brand, Maybelline, uses its behind-the-scenes videos to build customer trust. This content type is best when launching a new product or revealing more about an existing product or service you offer.
5. Influencer Content Marketing
Best example: Loeffler Randall
Influencer marketing has become one of the most established types of digital marketing. As a matter of fact, 72% of Gen Z and millennials follow influencers on social media.
However, it’s not limited to collaborating with celebrities; influencers can be people who are famous on the internet. Influencers have expertise in their niche and have influence over an audience that you’re trying to reach.
By collaborating with them, you can easily market your product or service to your target audience, gain their trust, and generate revenue for your business.
The posh footwear brand Loeffler Randall is well-known for collaborating with famous artists, bloggers, fashion designers, and social media influencers through social media posts.
Their influencers or LR ambassadors are mostly entrepreneurs, models, writers, and other successful businesswomen. They best describe themselves as “cool girls doing cool things.”
Influencers share their elegant snaps on Instagram wearing the brand’s footwear and accessory with the hashtag #LRambassador.
6. Interactive Content Marketing
Best example: Quizzes by Airbnb
Interactive content brings about 52.6% more engagement to your brand than static content posts. Studies reveal that 88% of marketers say interactive content helps brands differentiate themselves.
Interactive content is the type of content marketing strategy that requires users’ interaction with the content. It can be quizzes, calculators, polls, surveys, etc.
Airbnb, a popular marketplace for rental services, posted a short quiz in partnership with interior design experts at Domino to help hosts and guests figure out their design personality and which decorating trend should inspire their next trip.
The quiz is short and sweet and provides recommendations for ideal places for guests to stay in as well.
You can’t miss how this is a perfect example of two brand partners advertising their services through collaboration.
7. Virtual & augmented reality in marketing
Best example: IKEA’s augmented reality app
The global VR market will be worth $34.08 billion by 2023. Therefore, marketers must extend their content marketing strategy to provide immersive experiences.
As the name suggests, immersive experiences make your customers get immersed in your content pieces. It’s a technique that involves creating an illusory environment for your audience.
This type of online content improves user experience. About 74% of businesses believe that user experience is vital in increasing direct sales.
IKEA launched an augmented reality-based app called IKEA Place, allowing its customers to place furnishings virtually in spaces. So, whether it’s a lamp, rug, clock, sofa, or chair, the customers will know if it can easily fit in.
The best part is it takes the users to another fully-rendered 360-degree world. The main goal of this AR-based app is to make it easier for their customers to review what suits them best. It simplifies the process of moving their prospects down the sales funnel and converting them into customers.
8. Nostalgia Marketing
Best example: Spotify
Nostalgia marketing takes us back to the good ol’ days. It emphasizes the things which the target audience already likes and loves. Moreover, it gives them a sense of meaning and longing.
From a marketing perspective, it’s a great tactic to hook the interest of customers. According to research, people are more inclined to pay for goods and services based on their nostalgic feelings.
Spotify brilliantly uses nostalgia marketing to engage its audience. Its Wrapped feature allows you to listen to music you have listened to in the past year.
This feature instantly gained popularity because people seemed to love reliving their past. In 2020 alone, Wrapped helped Spotify gain a 21% increase in mobile app downloads in the first week of December.
9. Product Video Marketing
Best example: RingCentral’s product videos
B2B content marketing is the practice of producing and delivering valuable content to your target audience to create brand awareness, generate qualified leads, and boost direct sales.
Similarly, product videos can be very effective for your brand and customers. Let’s take a look at RingCentral’s marketing strategy.
RingCentral, a UcaaS platform, uses product videos for its customers to understand the product or service better. Its product videos show different features, which include making a VoIP phone call or even a conference call with your team.
It uses a conversational approach to demonstrate product usage, showing how customers have been impacted by their product. Moreover, the conversational tone is a great way to connect and engage with potential customers.
10. Infographics
Best example: Tech’s Bizarre Beginnings & Lucrative Pivots, by Visual Capitalist
Visual content is 60,000 times easier to understand than textual content. An infographic is a good example of visual content. It’s concise, pleasing to the eye, and helps break down complex information into a simple format.
Nonetheless, creating an infographic isn’t as easy as it may look. It also requires strategic thinking, just like creating a video or a blog post.
When it’s done right, infographics have the potential to increase web traffic by 12%. That’s why 65% of B2B marketers use infographics to stay competitive. Well, there are various types of infographics, such as listicles, how-tos, statistics, and of course, timelines.
Visual Capitalist took us back in time to share the bizarre origin stories of the biggest brands in the world today. Did you know that Sony, a well-known electronics company, was once known for designing wooden rice cookers?
This timeline infographic is loaded with fun facts about the company’s history. It’s also designed with visually appealing graphics, compelling the audience to view the entire infographic.
Best Branded Content Tools
Biteable for video content creation
Biteable is a powerful branded content tool for video content creation that allows you to create videos that your audience will love. It lets you focus on delivering your brand message while taking care of the rest. You can use biteable for making social media posts, videos, business presentations, and a whole lot more.
Its editing feature allows you to build and edit videos instantly with no editing experience needed. Moreover, Biteable is packed with tons of templates of photos, soundtracks, and video clips that are easily customizable. All you need to do is choose a template, type your message, select your preferred soundtrack, and you’re good to go.
Its branding feature lets you create on-brand videos in minutes just by sharing your URL with the Biteable team. You can share your videos via email, Slack, Teams, and social media, download and embed it onto your presentations, and more.
Furthermore, you can also use Biteable for screen recording, collaboration, and analytics to measure the success of your videos.
Venngage for infographics
Venngage is a well-known tool for creating visually appealing infographics, which is crucial to include in your branded content campaigns. It’s easy to understand and offers numerous templates, color schemes, and layouts. It allows you to create beautiful infographics without being an expert graphics designer.
You only need to choose a template and use the drag-and-drop feature to add widgets to the canvas. In addition to general text options, you can add text blocks of different styles to your design.
And if you run into my problems, there’s also a chat function with guides and real-time assistance. You can also collaborate with your team throughout the process of designing your infographic.
You can check out other online marketing tools to try in 2023.
Conclusion
Branded content is all about establishing a genuine relationship with your customers by leveraging different types of content.
It makes a positive impact on your customers and takes your brand to new heights, going beyond selling products and services.
Sometimes, however, it’s quite difficult to come up with new and innovative ideas to attract and engage your audience. Make sure to try out these content marketing ideas to achieve your goals.
