In 2019/2020, there is no longer any need to talk at length about the advantages of content marketing for brands and companies. Successful brands have long been pursuing their own individual content marketing strategies.
So it's time to take content marketing to the next level and brand the content itself.
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Content brand building: What is it?
A content brand is a brand that thinks, functions, and acts like a media company, with all of its communication based on a well-thought-out content marketing strategy.
This means that the business produces and publishes customer-centric content rather than brand-focused content.
A content brand creates the content that its target audience and customers want and generates brand loyalty among users. The ultimate goal must be to build long-term loyalty to the brand, not the short-term sale of its own products and services.
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Is content brand building useful for you?
Before we explain in five steps how to brand your content, the first thing to consider is whether content brand building is even worthwhile for you. It's an open marketing secret that content increases reach, generates leads, and builds customer loyalty.
But only branded content gives you the opportunity to make your company a pioneer and thought leader, allowing you to stand out from the crowd in content marketing. And thought leadership isn't just a nice side effect...
It's a must if you want to be successful in the digital age!
Content brand building is a problem solver for your company. You just need to find out what specific problem it can solve for you.
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Building your content brand step by step
The internet is full of content, including brand content. Unfortunately, most of it is not particularly outstanding.
Some brands simply do not understand their customers.
Others endlessly recycle articles, photos, and videos instead of creating new or even original content, and try to sell their products and services to men (and women) in an almost intrusive manner.
To ensure your brand doesn't get lost in this faceless and meaningless mass, but instead stands out, follow these five steps:
1. Think long term and plan ahead
You can't achieve quick, short-term goals with content marketing. And you can only achieve future goals if you give people what they want and need.
Only when you have achieved this can you turn them into customers and influence their behavior. This requires patience and a willingness to experiment.
To turn your content into a content brand, you will have to restructure or expand your marketing department. Ultimately, it must function like an editorial office.
This requires new roles and sometimes entirely new skills.
Effective content marketing requires a certain amount of outside-the-box thinking. Instead of campaign planning and product communication, marketing needs to adopt an editorial mindset that produces relevant, sought-after, and captivating content.
To build a content brand, you need to think like a publicist. Consider your investment as a newly launched media product with a minimum start-up period of six months. Preferably more.
During this time, continuously analyze and evaluate your efforts.
2. Find your content focus
The success of branded content is not measured by sales figures and conversions, but by how it is perceived by customers.
The focus of your content strategy is not your product range, your brand, or your sales department. To build a successful content brand, the long term and the target audience are absolutely paramount.
A content brand maintains contact with its customer base—which makes it easier to offer products and services that are actually purchased—and approaches its content marketing in a similar way to a media company.
This is how a long-term business relationship can develop!
For you, this means offering content that may be outside your comfort zone, but that is exactly what your (potential) customers want.
Would you like an example?
This short film by the Marriott hotel chain, entitled "French Kiss," generated over $600,000 in bookings for the company at the time:
3. Create bold content pieces
Let's assume you sell and manufacture mattresses. A typical content marketing strategy would focus on everything related to (your) mattresses: sleep quality, sleep comfort, sleep health.
Content branding, however, is about putting your unique stamp on your content. Being too cautious when choosing topics can be a hindrance.
However, an article about the advantages of certain mattress models or features for optimal comfort during intercourse would be bold.
Shocking, isn't it?! Of course, it takes courage to create unusual content. From a brand perspective, this inevitably raises the question of whether such a topic is appropriate for the brand's reputation and public image.
If you spend too much time wondering whether "you can really publish that," you won't do it. However, a sensitive topic does not have to be presented in an unobjective or even obscene manner.
Courage and trust in the editor are essential for content brand building and fulfill one of the most important factors in scoring points with customers. Namely, by exceeding their needs.
Brands such as Astra Beer and Fritz-Kola have proven that it is indeed possible to walk the fine line with unusual content. With wit, zeitgeist, and (self-)irony, they create exactly the kind of branded content that represents their companies in an original way.
4. Pursue a nonlinear strategy
The second and third steps on your path to becoming a content brand are closely linked. Bold, unusual pieces of content can be part of your non-linear strategy. By staying varied, you will succeed in serving a thematically restless target group.
This has the nice side effect of getting search engines to rank your content too!
However, different types of content such as blog articles, infographics, and interactive HTML5 graphs are not automatically considered non-linear content. This is only the case if you have different touch points with the various segments of your customer groups for each of these types of content.
A nonlinear strategy fulfills three tasks that are important for your content brand building:
- It respects that not every user is interested in every detail and shows this to people.
- It motivates your customers to get involved in creating and shaping the brand narrative.
- And it allows you to create an almost infinite number of different stories, instead of being forced to focus on a single narrative that doesn't resonate with some of your customers.
5. Brand your content with storytelling
Does your brand? Very good. Then you can confidently consider this as the meta-level for step 4. Because just telling your story or that of your brand is not enough.
In order to tell stories with your branded content that reach your target audience, you must not come across as a self-obsessed salesperson, but rather incorporate your products or services into the plot in a casual manner. As mentioned in step 1, they should not be the focus of your storytelling.
Two approaches can help you use storytelling to build your content brand:
- Strike the right chord: Develop stories that excite and inspire your target audience. Your goal should be to use your stories to encourage people to take a different perspective, a different outlook on life.
- Create characters that foster identity: Let your story be told by characters that your target audience can identify with and who credibly personify your brand's core values.
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Content brand building means breaking new ground
Conventions tend to get in the way of the content brand building process. Of course, even the most daring campaigns must fit in with the overall image of a brand. But as a content brand, you can also completely reinvent your brand, act more freely, and set yourself apart from your competitors.
