Every article or blog post you create. Every video you post on YouTube. Every podcast episode you record. All of these are examples of content that can and should be branded.
However, branding that is applied haphazardly can often do more harm than good. The lack of consistency can decrease rather than increase trust in your potential clients. “After all,” they may think, “if they can’t be consistent with their own brand, how can we trust them with our business?” That’s definitely not a thought you want in the heads of potential clients.
One answer to this problem is to invest in branded content marketing.
What exactly is branded content marketing?
Content marketing is a fairly well-known form of digital marketing. It involves creating content that’s designed to do a range of things, including:
- Provide information about your brand, products or services.
- Create an exceptional user experience (UX) on your website.
- Supply instructions for your website’s user interface (UI).
- Drive organic search results and traffic.
Content is often considered to be the king of digital marketing simply because no other aspect of digital marketing can function without it. However, there is a subtle difference between content marketing and branded content marketing.
Branded content marketing takes all the features of content marketing and adds something to it: the particular tone, voice and deeper purpose that your company has chosen as representative of your brand. A branded content marketing strategy is designed to apply these branding elements to every piece of content created for your business. As a result, it aims to create a sense of consistency and trustworthiness that will help you attract new clients.
3 ways to get started with branded content marketing
Deciding to implement a branded content marketing plan for your business is a great step. However, getting from that decision to an actual plan can be tough for some businesses. Here are three steps you can take to make building and implementing such a plan easier:
- Get your branding down first — Many companies think that they have their brand elements down pat. They know what voice they want to use, and the tone they want their content to take. They are clear on what their deeper purpose is. Yet this isn’t true for every business. If you aren’t sure about any or all of these elements, your leadership team should take some time to talk about them and decide what they should be before trying to create a branded content marketing strategy.
- Create branded templates — Branded content must have a clear format that is used for every piece of content your business creates internally or has created for it by external sources. It’s true that the formatting will necessarily vary depending on the type of content being created. But every blog post, for instance, should have the same formatting. So should every email, video, podcast recording, etc. Before you start creating hundreds of pieces of branded content, it’s a good idea to create and refine templates for each type of content you’ll be creating. This will make it easier for those creating your content to maintain consistency. Creating these templates are something that your team can do internally or by contracting out to a branding or graphic design agency.
- Seek help creating your branded content — Large companies may have extensive marketing departments. Such departments are more likely to have the skill sets necessary to help get your branding down, create branded templates and create consistent branded content. Yet smaller businesses often do not enjoy this luxury. Whether your business is large or small, you should consider seeking help from a digital marketing agency that specializes in branded content if you don’t have the skilled people to create such content. Such agencies can help augment big businesses’ own digital marketing teams. For small businesses, they can provide branded content and many other digital marketing services without the expense and hassle of hiring an internal team.
Keen to get a branded content marketing plan up and running? BURG+CO. can help
Increasing traffic to your website plays a role in increasing conversions and landing new clients. However, it’s difficult to attract visitors to your site when the content you’re putting out isn’t consistently branded. Fortunately, BURG+CO. specializes in creating informative, eye-catching content that adheres to each client’s branding.
Our team has years of experience in helping businesses improve their digital presence through branded content designed to attract new leads and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more visitors to your site, we’re ready to talk to you to see how we can help. Contact our team today for more information about our content marketing services or to schedule a complimentary consultation.
