Strategy

Brand Building - 5 steps to your own content brand

The advantages of content marketing for brands and companies will not need much more to be said in 2019 / 2020. Successful brands have long since been pursuing their own individual content marketing strategy.

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 communications based on a well thought-out content marketing strategy.

That means the business produces and publishes customer-centric content, not brand-focused content.

A content brand creates the content that its target group and customers want and generates brand loyalty among users. The primary goal must be long-term loyalty to the brand, not short-term sales of the brand's own products and services.

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Does content brand building make sense to you?

Before we explain to you in 5 steps how to brand your content, the first thing to consider is whether content brand building is worthwhile for you at all. 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 trailblazer and thought leader, and lets you stand out from the broad content marketing crowd. And thought leadership isn't just a nice side effect....

To be successful in the digital age, it's a must!

Content brand building is a problem solver for your business. You just need to figure out what problem it can solve for you specifically.

If you want to learn step by step how to produce content that really converts, we recommend our Content Marketing Academy. Click here for more information

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Build the content brand step by step

The Internet is full of content, including brand content. Unfortunately, most of it is not very outstanding.

Some brands simply don't understand their customers.

Others are forever recycling articles, photos and videos instead of creating new or even original content, trying to sell their products and services in an almost pushy way.

In order for your brand not to get lost in this faceless and meaningless crowd, but to stand 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 those in the future if you give people what they want and need.

Only when you've done that can you turn them into customers and guide their behavior. This requires staying power and a willingness to experiment.

To turn your content into a content brand, you can't avoid restructuring your marketing department, or adding to it. In the end, it needs to function like a newsroom.

This requires new role assignments and sometimes completely new skills.

Because effective content marketing work needs that certain outside-the-box thinking. Instead of campaign planning and product communication, marketing needs to adopt an editorial mindset that creates relevant, sought-after, and compelling content.

To build a content brand, you need to think like a publicist. Think of your investment as a freshly launched media product with at least six months of ramp-up time. More likely.

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 range of offers, not your brand, not your sales department. When it comes to building a successful content brand, the focus is absolutely on the long term and the target audience.

A content brand keeps in touch with its customer base - making it easier to offer products and services that people actually buy - and approaches its content marketing much like a media company.

This is how a long-term business relationship can grow!

For you, that means offering content that may be outside your comfort zone, but is exactly what your (potential) customers want.

Want an example?

This short film by the Marriott hotel chain, entitled "French Kiss," earned the company over $600,000 worth of bookings at the time:

3. create bold content pieces

Let's say you distribute and manufacture mattresses. A common content marketing strategy is to focus on everything about (your) mattresses: sleep quality, sleep comfort, sleep health.

Content branding, however, is about putting a unique stamp on your content. However, being too cautious in your choice of topics is a hindrance.

Courageous, meanwhile, would be an article on the merits of certain mattress models or features for optimal comfort during coitus.

Shocking, isn't it?! Of course, it takes courage to create unusual content. From a brand perspective, the question inevitably arises as to whether such a topic fits in with the reputation and external image.

If you think too long about whether you "can really publish this," you won't. However, a delicate topic does not have to be presented in an unobjective or even obscene way.

Courage and trust in the editor are indispensable for content brand building and fulfill one of the most important factors to score with customers. Namely, by exceeding their Exceeding needs.

Brands like Astra Bier and Fritz-Kola have proven that it is possible to balance on a fine line with unusual content. With wit, zeitgeist and (self-)irony, they create precisely the branded content that represents their companies in an original way.

© Astra beer content brand sixpack advertising

4. follow a non-linear strategy

The 2nd and 3rd steps on your way to content branding are closely linked. Bold, unusual content pieces can be part of your non-linear strategy. By staying diverse, you'll succeed in serving a thematically restless target audience.

This has the nice side effect of getting the search engines to rank your content too!

Different types of content such as blog articles, info-graphics, interactive HTML5 graphs do not automatically pass as non-linear content. Only if you have different touch points with the various segments of your customer groups with each of these content types.

A non-linear strategy performs 3 tasks that are important for your content brand building:

  1. It respects that not every user is interested in every detail and shows this to people.
  2. It motivates your customers to get involved in creating and shaping the brand narrative.
  3. And it allows you to create an almost infinite number of different stories, rather than just force-focusing on one narrative that doesn't trigger anything in parts of your customers.

5. brand your content with storytelling

Do you tell with your Fire already a story? Very good. Then you can confidently consider this as a meta-level for step 4. Because just telling your story or the story of your brand is not enough.

In order to tell stories in and with your branded content that reach your target group, you must not come across as a self-absorbed salesman, but rather let your products or services flow into the plot as if in passing. They must not be the focus of your storytelling - see step no. 1.

Two approaches will help you use storytelling to build your content brand:

  1. Strike the right nerve: Develop stories that excite and inspire your target group. Your goal should be to inspire people with your stories to take a different perspective on life.
  2. Create characters that create identity: Let your story be told by characters with whom the target audience can identify and who personify the core values of your brand in a credible way.

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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 boldest campaigns must fit the overall image of a brand. But as a content brand, you can also reinvent your brand, act more freely, and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

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