Gone are the days when it was enough to praise the qualities of a product to sell it, today the content is KING. Consumers are increasingly sensitive to the image conveyed by brands. We no longer only buy a product or a service, but also everything that surrounds it. This is why we speak today of Brand Content, We will define together what it is, its usefulness, and some examples to better understand.
- What is Brand Content? Definition
- What is Brand Content, concretely?
To sum up, it is all the content through which a brand will transmit the values, the universe of a product (or of the brand itself).
The goal is to highlight a product, an offer, a service, a range, or the brand itself through content that aims to immerse the potential consumer in the heart of a universe or a story, in which he recognizes himself.
What is the main quality of Brand Content?
It is a much softer marketing method than the traditional advertisements that we can still find on television, in which we are harped on for 40 seconds about the qualities of a product.
This customer acquisition model is not new, we can for example think of the ” Michelin Guide “, more than a century old, but the rise of digital tools has made it essential and almost mandatory.
To put it simply, the Brand Content strategy seeks to seduce an audience, whereas “traditional” ads only seek to praise qualities, without really taking into account the people to target.
Why create a Brand Content strategy? 2 good reasons
1 – Stand out from the competition
Each company has its vision, its universe, and its values, and therefore they are all unique. And that is exactly what an approach like this seeks to exploit.
This is a golden opportunity to find a place in increasingly competitive markets, and in media that are increasingly flooded with brands. The key to Brand Content is the user experience, and that’s what will make you stand out from the crowd. The more your customers have a quality experience, the more likely they will be to come back or tell their loved ones about it, for example.
2 – Find the right customers
Another benefit of Brand Content is that it will help you attract the customers you want. What you have to remember is that it is better to target a few people, than to target the right people. Based on this principle, this strategy is relevant for your business. If your content is well constructed and conveys your values well, then it will automatically attract the right people.
In other words, if you consider your audience and create personalized content for them, they will reward you. In general, this type of marketing results in stronger engagement on social media.
If you combine your branded content with an inbound marketing strategy, you will be able to create adapted and targeted content for your audience according to their position in the buying journey. To simplify, even if your content tells a story and values, it is important to remember that you have to adopt a different approach for a loyal customer or a potential customer since they do not have the same knowledge of the brand.
How to create a branded content strategy?
You can only be convinced by the arguments put forward by Brand Content. All you have to do is apply it. Here are some tips and best practices to help you do it the best you can.
Step 1: Clearly define your target
This is the best advice to apply in the context of this strategy: know your target perfectly!
To be honest, this should be the case even if you do traditional marketing, but here it is the basis of everything. If you don’t know the people who will potentially be interested in what you’re selling, you’re dead. If you misunderstand your audience, your whole strategy will fall apart because it will simply be off the mark. Inevitably, it seems logical, that we are not going to sell yachts to students, but it is mainly on the details that this can be played out. And remember, again, it’s better to narrow down your target and be sure to hit it, rather than wanting to hit everyone.
As part of this reflection, the creation of personas is almost essential. A persona is in a way your perfect customer, the typical customer, who will have the best chance of wanting to buy your product. The creation of several different personas is quite possible since the purpose of these is to be precise. Indeed, you have to ask yourself as many questions as possible about your target: how old? Where is she from? What are his hobbies, his passions? Does she have children or a family? What are his goals in life, at work? Under what conditions does she work? What social networks do they frequent? The list is endless, but the points to highlight also depend on what you want to sell.
Step 2: Collaboration as the watchword
In a Brand Content strategy, and especially in the context of a medium-sized or large company, everyone must be coordinated. Indeed, during the genesis of this method, the ideal would be to make a brief with everyone to clarify the values of the company, what it wants to convey, or even take stock of the company’s history. This allows those who represent the company daily to be well-regulated and to give material to those who will create content.
If everyone is not in agreement on this, this risks creating contradictions, which can have consequences, more or less serious, on the brand image of the company.
