You must have come across the popular term sponsored content on social media. Other terms like branded content, paid content, promoted posts, and affiliate marketing are also related. They are similar and aim to reach their targeted audience and gain potential customers. But what exactly is sponsored content? What role does it play in digital marketing? How does it help the brand?
Let’s learn all about these.
What exactly is sponsored content?
Sponsored content is a marketing strategy in which one brand pays another brand or influencer to publish its content. The publisher can be a website, a brand on social media, or even an influencer with a large target audience in the same industry.
Businesses approach publishers or influencers who are from their industry only to promote their services or products. The foremost reason is to blend with their bands’ content in a way that seems natural to the audience. Above all, the Sponsored Content must seem regular and friendly, with subtle promotion on the platform. It’s all for the audience’s sake only.
This is how you see sponsored content on Instagram and LinkedIn platforms.
Sponsored content vs. traditional advertising
| Sponsored Content | Tradition advertising |
|---|---|
| It's designed to blend with regular content on the platform. | It is separated from the main content and will show up repetitively. |
| It can be in any format, such as videos, images, text, podcasts, etc. | It's formatted in banner ads, pop-ups, TV commercials, radio spots, etc. |
| It aims to promote the brand indirectly by spreading awareness with informational and entertaining content. | It focuses on direct promotion with immediate awareness and action. |
How does sponsored content contribute to digital marketing?
Easy visibility
When you submit your content for sponsorship, it becomes visible to the relevant audience. This boosts your brand awareness and establishes authority and trust among potential customers available on that platform.
Easy targeted reach
By collaborating with better platforms and influencers from similar industries, you can quickly reach audiences in the targeted demographic. Sponsored content ensures that it reaches future potential customers who may buy from you.
Credibility and trust
Partnering with a reputable influencer and popular platforms through sponsored content best builds credibility. It’s because the audience wants to follow or buy anything from brands or influencers they already know and have followed for a long time.
Types of sponsored content
Articles and blogs
Sponsored articles and blogs set a foundation for any brand collaboration between websites and bloggers. Comprehensive articles and blogs provide answers to topics that audiences want to know. Therefore, they can become good sources to promote the brand’s products and services.
Social media content
Social media is the most familiar platform for sponsoring brand content. These social media platforms provide their boosting method, which includes running ad campaigns. Otherwise, you can get many influencers on social media who’ll collaborate with you to promote your brand through content like images, graphics, and videos.
Podcast
Podcasts have been popular lately. They allow hosts to discuss topics with guests and endorse their products and services. Sponsoring podcasts has been greatly helpful in spreading brand awareness and gaining credibility and trust.
Emails and newsletters
Emails and newsletters are also effective ways to get high engagement. Placing sponsored content on popular newsletter platforms can boost your brand’s reach to relevant audiences, allowing your brand to make a personal connection with them.
Webinars and online events
Sponsoring webinars and online events gives brands a chance to showcase their expertise. It offers an excellent opportunity to connect with potential customers. All you get is based on showing real-life solutions that your service or product provides.
Infographics
Infographics work best to establish authority in the platform. They contain the most important information about the topic with diagrams and images, making it easily digestible and shareable among online users. So, sponsoring infographics is highly recommendable.
How to create effective sponsored content
Understand your audience
First and foremost, do thorough research to understand your target audience. That includes knowing their demographics, personal preferences, interests, fears, wants, and pain points. Prepare your content according to that to cater to the audience’s needs. Keep in mind that the content must be prepared in a way that matches the tone and style of the platform. It must showcase real-life experiences.
Choose the right platform
You must choose the platform or influencer with the same audience you want to target. The platform or influencer’s audience must align with the targeted demographic, interests, preferences, and pain points. Most importantly, the collaboration must be authentic and friendly so that the audience can naturally resonate with the content.
Focus on quality rather than quantity
You should prioritize the quality of the content you want to sponsor over the quantity of it. The content must provide value to the audience. It can contain information, entertainment, and inspiration. Moreover, it must be well-written and visually appealing, highlighting all the benefits. If possible, you can also include storytelling with a compelling narrative, as stories are more memorable and engaging than direct promotions.
Don't forget to include a call to action
In the end, mention a way to take action and contact you for the services. Encourage them to visit your website, sign the newsletters, or contact you for the services. At the same time, let them know how your product and services can solve their issues or add value.
Monitor and optimize
Keep track of the progress of the sponsored content. You can do this by using metrics, which include engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Take note of the feedback and other data to improve the approach and practices. After getting the results, readjust your strategies as many times as necessary to enhance their effectiveness.
Examples of Successful Sponsored Content Campaigns
BuzzFeed and Purina are famous collaborations on video content containing mini-series. The mini-series is named “Dear Kitten.” It features a cat and a kitten, where the cat advises the kitten. The short videos have been loved by many people in the audience. Some videos got more than 20 million views in a short time and went viral. It has an incredible engagement rate, which includes thousands of likes, shares, and comments. As an outcome, the sponsored videos helped increase Purina’s brand awareness. The audience of Buzzfeed found storytelling about the super cute Cat and the Kitten relatable and resonated with it positively.
American Express started running a sponsored content campaign to promote holiday shopping. It’s about promoting shopping from local businesses on holidays. The campaign has successfully made almost 100 million consumers engage with the content. Furthermore, it generated organic traffic from social media and got a lot of support on Tweets. And the hashtag #SamllBizSatUK and #SmallBusinessSaturday trended, which attracted many targeted audiences. In turn, the sponsored content positively impacted small businesses’ sales.
The New York Times and Netflix partnered and sponsored an in-depth content article. It was for promoting the drama series named “Orange is the New Black. The content topic was centered around issues of female incarceration in the U.S. It has high-quality journalism and resonates well with the show’s themes. Following this, the content got significant praise for its authentic reviews and relevancy, which gave it a high engagement rate and social shares. Overall, it benefited the show and Netflix’s reputation in building strong credibility among the targeted audiences.
To make a long story short, sponsored content is a marketing strategy to promote business. Is it worth your money and time? The simple answer is YES, only with the right approach and consistency.
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