Branded Content is positioned as one of the many marketing strategies that exist to take your content to another level. It brings multiple benefits and advantages for a company, especially if we focus on Inbound, a methodology that focuses its efforts on the creation of quality content focused on the customer. But how can this strategy be better understood? With examples.
There are plenty of examples where you can see how companies create branded content to communicate their products or services in a different way. We already know that a visual or audiovisual format is always stored in the memory much better than a written one. Therefore, reading the story of a company is not the same as seeing and listening to it. The feeling of empathy that is achieved with audiovisual content is not comparable to that achieved with written text. In other words, "a picture is worth a thousand words". But let's not forget the importance of written content.
what are the keys to branded content?
This strategy, like any other marketing strategy, consists of the following key elements that make it more successful:
- Conveying brand values: The company aims to create branded content that identifies it and makes an impression on the audience. To do this, it uses its values, transmitting them and making users empathise with them. All this, with complete control of the production that is carried out. By transmitting the values, it increases the possibility that users will trust the brand and come to feel identified with it.
- Branded Entertainment: What is known as Branded Entertainment. This fuses advertising techniques with entertainment. The added value provided by the latter two aspects makes the audience interested in the products or services offered by the company, as well as entertaining them. It is a kind of appeal to users who are truly interested in the products or services and which moves away from the conventional way of producing advertising. Closer to Inbound and moving away from the traditional forms that were followed with Outbound
- Social networks: they are a fundamental tool within Branded Content. Why? Because they open a multitude of ways to expand the company's branded content. Social network dissemination is the key for the content that the company wants to transmit to reach the audience. Therefore, it is very important that every company has its social networks updated, because thanks to a good use of them, its growth will be reflected.
- New smart devices: Just as social networks are important, the advanced mobile devices that we have in our hands today are also one of the keys to the Branded Content technique. We need to be updated and know the new technologies. That is where smart devices such as smartphones or tablets come into play. Thanks to them and an Internet connection, we can make use of social networks and the dissemination of branded content through them. And this fact is what causes mobile devices to remain one of the best allies of Branded Content.
can I include Branded Content in an Inbound strategy?
Inbound Marketing is a widely used methodology that is constantly growing. Thanks to the positive experiences that you generate through it, the impact that your company has on customers is greater. To achieve this, you use relevant and useful content. You interact with users who are potential customers and, in this way, you generate links and a relationship of trust. This great and growing methodology goes through four specific phases: attract, convert, close and delight.
Branded Content can be included in this methodology. Firstly, you attract the audience with educational content, you convert them by offering information about the different solutions available, you close them as customers by sharing your differentiated brand over the competition and you delight them by transmitting customer-centric values. In this way, Branded Content is used in a different way, outside of conventional advertising. An original way applied at all times to the Inbound strategy, going beyond the traditional to enter into a content designed exclusively to meet the needs of customers.
The 3 best Branded Content campaigns
We can find a multitude of Branded Content campaigns because companies are aware of how important they are and the benefits they can bring to their businesses. Big brands such as Estrella Damm, Red Bull or BBVA are some of the best known brands that have achieved great success through this technique.
The well-known Catalan company and beer producer manages to surprise us every year with its brand content using the Storytelling tool. They choose a catchy and striking song. One of the campaigns with which Estrella Damm has been most successful was in 2015. Its title was Vale and it starred Dakota Johnson and Quim Gutiérrez. It was directed by Alejandro Amenábar.
Red Bull has always been known for its branded content and for the great success of all the content it creates. One of the platforms it exploits the most is YouTube. Its channel has almost nine million subscribers. Among the different Red Bull Branded Content contents, the one entitled Red Bull Stratos stands out, in which you can see the stratospheric jump of the parachutist and ex-military man Felix Baumgartner.
In its video The beauty Inside, the computer company shows the importance of what's inside everyone. It wants to convey through branded content that what's really important is what's inside everyone , and its aim is to transfer this to computers as well. In this case, the company offers its products in a metaphorical way, making use of people and their feelings.
But, best of all, branded content is not only for big companies such as Toshiba, Red Bull or Estrella Damm. Both SMEs and freelancers can make use of this technique through their website or by creating a blog. A large investment is not necessary. What is really needed is the desire to connect with the audience in a different way, in an innovative way, to provide valuable content and educate them about the solutions that exist for their needs.
did you know the importance of Branded Content and how it can be applied to the Inbound methodology? Have we helped you to better understand what this strategy means with the examples shared? Did you know that it is aimed at all sizes of companies? If you are looking for advice, please contact us, we will be happy to help you.
