Fully branded & non branded content

Branded content 

Branded Content –  is a marketing technique that involves creating content

One of the changes evidenced in the advertising industry is the ultimate use of branded content. Ideally, branded content marketing is a strategy used to reach out to consumers using digital mediums such as infographics and videos.

Multiple factors differentiate content that is ingrained from the usual straight advertising:

• First, branded content offers valuetainment. Branded content offers influencers and marketers multiple benefits, and valuetainment is one of them. This means brand content aims at providing audiences value and entertainment (branded entertainment) at the same time. Also, branded content focuses on evoking consumers’ emotions through the storytelling aspect. As a result, consumers can make informed decisions before committing themselves to a product.

• Second, on-brand content helps set the right tone. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, branded content helps deliver the content in a tone that meets consumers’ needs and demands. This marketing form aims to make consumers feel comfortable when engaging with a brand by using the right technique.

• Third, branded content marketing helps sell the concept of a brand. Branded content is distinctive as it focuses on selling the concept and engaging the target consumers rather than selling the product. According to search engines, consumers search for an idea that offers detailed answers. On the same note, consumers prefer reading long-form content that is easy to internalize. Therefore, ensure you create content that primarily revolves around selling the solutions rather than describing a brand or a product.

The Values of Branded Content?

• Branded content presents multiple values and benefits to users. According to Google, more than 60% of consumers prefer purchasing services and products from brands with tailored custom content.

• Branded content helps facilitate an emotional connection between brands and customers. Let’s cut to the chase — branded content is more of an informative strategy rather than a selling approach. When properly implemented, brand content creates an emotional and personal connection. This way, you can directly engage potential consumers by narrating stories that evoke excitement. Such emotions and excitement are linked with your brand, making your brand memorable for such a long time.

• On-brand content attracts customers naturally and is noninvasive compared to native forms of advertising known to slow down page speed and navigation. This seems to put off consumers who are constantly searching for informative and educative content. With branded content, digital marketers manage to attract consumers naturally. As a result, these consumers remain closer to your brand — and generating traffic, leads, and ROI becomes more effective.

• Branded content improves overall brand positioning. Over the past few years, most companies have been using repetitive slogans to introduce themselves to new audiences. Consequently, branded content marketing brings a more appealing strategy onboard as it presents visitors with positive values associated with a firm. As a result, consumers internalize a clear perception of how a brand offers services.

• On-brand content is shareable and therefore offers a platform to make your content go viral. This increases the possibility of your brand going viral and reaching potential clients globally. Also termed the snowball effect, brand content plays an integral role in helping your brand reach a much wider coverage.

• Branding stimulates user response. When it comes to running an online business, user response is a key factor to consider. 

• Branded content marketing evokes audience engagement as it seeks to improve overall user response. This facilitates a medium in which brands can engage consumers at a personal level. As a result, brands develop a customer identity system where they can approach respective consumers using their usernames. Also, you end up winning your customers’ advocacy and loyalty as you keep the conversation going.

How Memory Contributes To Effective Branded Content

Brand consistency is a vital factor that contributes to the effectiveness of a content marketing campaign. Consistency is what gives highly recognized brands an edge over mid-sized businesses. If your brand keeps delivering authentic services and responsive customer support, the value of your brand increases, hence memory equity. In the marketing industry, context-dependent memory and psychological concepts have become a trend your company can’t afford snubbing.

Most brands rely on memory equity (audience awareness) to increase online visibility and introduce consumers to a product. Memory equity is the driving force that has contributed to the success of most branded content series. The awareness is realized when businesses interact with consumers. For instance, if your audience interacts with your brand when shopping, there is a high possibility that they might forget about your engagement once they’re done with shopping. However, with context-dependent memory, chances are they’ll search for your brand the next time they visit the stores.

Context-dependent memory works effectively if your brand is recognized in the market. Therefore, you must build trust, brand awareness, and loyalty with time. Generating an effective branded content series is not a moment but a journey. This means that you need to develop a strategy that will trigger the context-dependent memory work in your favor. First impressions are still important. However, most consumers need to engage your brand at multiple touchpoints before committing themselves to your brand.

Advantages of Branded Content

• you can easily build long-term relationships and boost sales at the same time as it helps you reach the target audience. Today, consumers use ad-blocking programs to block the traditional channels of advertising. Using branded content gives you an upper hand as consumers prefer educational and informative content.

• branded content marketing helps support your overall marketing strategy. Have you ever heard of the ‘content is the king’ slogan? This is a slogan that has been used for years to emphasize the importance of offering consumers quality and straight-to-the-point content. On brand, content is equally crucial for the success of other campaigns. For instance, marketing tactics such as social media and search engine optimization rely on killer yet friendly content to engage consumers.

• branding helps you build loyalty and awareness. When you post informative content regularly on your website and social media platforms, consumers build a positive impression of your company. Publishing well-researched yet on-brand content makes your business trustworthy and authoritative. As a result, you gain your consumers’ trust and loyalty.

• on-brand content draws visitors to your platforms and website. Once the visitors are on your business website, you can persuade them to purchase or register for a daily, weekly, or monthly newsletter.

• with branded content, you save on operational costs as you execute most tasks. This way, you can boost your business and only spend when it’s necessary. For instance, hiring experienced content creators and programmers who keep updating your website for easier navigation.

(Natural/Non-branded) content

When you produce original, non-branded content, you’re connecting your brand with customers through storytelling. You’re taking a narrative that relates to your business and handing it to your audience. This gives them the flexibility to approach your brand and associate with it on a personal level.

In other words, original content – is meant to support your reputation as a brand, not what the brand promotes/sells.

The Benefits of Original Content 

• When a brand produces original content for their audience, they’re focusing less on marketing their own products and more on giving the audience what it needs. Whether you’re answering important questions or creating a helpful guide, your original content will entertain and inform your audience in a general manner – without coming across as pushy.

• By providing valuable information or stories to the audience, original content can help you achieve business goals. It’s great at helping you build relationships with readers, and although natural content requires time and patience, it fulfills the readers’ needs in a way branded content typically cannot.

• Instead of pressuring readers to like a product or buy something new, original content works to engage them and pique their interest.

Importance of Original Content for Sales and Conversions

• It seems that producing original content is extremely influential when it comes to generating revenue. Roughly 91 percent of B2B marketers now use content marketing, and 86 percent of B2C marketers think content marketing is a key strategy. 

• Detailed, original content tends to get linked to by site editors and important resources. It gets shared on social media, posted by followers, and generally receives more natural attention.

• Although branded content can be shared across the web as well, it usually benefits the most from paid media sources. You need to guarantee its “right-place right-time” positioning in front of visitors, which costs money and generally decreases the chances of organic conversions.

The Types of Original Content 

Original content can be shared far and wide. This increase in social sharing and linking can increase your company’s search engine ranking, as well as it’s organic traffic. Ask yourself, “What can I create that people will want to share because it is useful, relevant, and informative?”

According to Search Engine Journal, the types of content with the highest ROIinclude:

• Authoritative blog posts
• Infographics
• Standout opinion pieces
• How-to content
• Original research pieces
• Videos

All of these types of content can be considered “original” or “non-branded,” and they all focus predominantly on what the user can benefit from the most. The more informative and useful a piece of content is to the audience, the more likely it will be shared far and wide, boosting the brand’s SEO value.

Factors to be considered when choosing between branded or original content

Keep in mind that there’s no single “right” kind of content to use. It truly depends on your goals how your brand could benefit the most

Are you trying to aggressively expose the brand to a certain audience?

Do you want to generate familiarity with your business?

Is there an emotionally charged story you can tell to connect your customers with the brand?

Perhaps the biggest factors when choosing between branded and original content are the keywords and user intent.

Original content typically targets wider audiences, which in turn, works to rank for more general keywords.

For example, if you are a web design agency and are targeting businesses across the board, producing thought leadership-type original content might be more ideal to promote your expertise around more informational keywords.

Keyword examples:

Web design tips

Tips for website content

Effective website design

Web design tips for small business

On the other hand, if you are specifically targeting law firms who need conversion funnels on their website, producing branded content with your business name engrained with more navigational/transactional keywords in it might be more ideal for your goals.

Branded content and original content have their places in the marketing mix. You need to think critically about the most effective approach at this specific point in time.

The Difference Between Branded and Non-Branded Content

Branded content is any media that is funded or produced by a company for advertising purposes or for exposure. These types of articles contain keywords and search phrases in the title, headlines, and throughout the entire piece. This type of content may be in the form of specific benefits offered by your company.

On the other hand, while non-branded content may make a reference to a company, the article is in regards to a different or broader subject of general interest to the intended clientele. In non-branded content, the keywords and search phrases are used throughout the piece but are typically not listed directly in the title. For example, this type of content may be in regards to the field in which the company operates.

The Pros and Cons of Branded and Non-Branded Content

The benefits of branded material include:

• Aiding your marketing strategy and reputation management plan;

• Potential to show up at the top of search engine results; and

• Searchers can easily find the content.

The downfalls of branded content include:

• Not appealing to the widest possible audience;

• Potential overuse of key phrase insertion; and

• Less “likes” or “shares,” and therefore less viewership.

The benefits of non-branded content include:

• Assisting branded content that is included in your marketing strategy;

• Opportunity to show off knowledge of the field;

• Appealing to a wider audience;

• More “likes” or “shares,” and therefore more viewership; and

• Reader-friendly material which will generate more interest in your company indirectly.

The downfalls of non-branded content include:

• Not showing up on the top of search engine results; and

• It may be more difficult to convert viewers into purchasers as they are looking for the article content rather than a service or product.

The perfect balance of techniques would look something like this: Non-branded content building goodwill and creating an online community of like-minded people. Their interests relate either directly or indirectly to the company’s products. Meanwhile, your branded content is appealing directly to people interested in and ready to buy your product, resulting in sales. If done correctly, both types of content can aid in a business’s overall marketing strategy and online reputation management plan.