If you want to make it in today's competitive market, your content has to be in line you're your brand. At the same time, your brand message has to be powerful, memorable, and compelling. When you combine these two factors together, you will get the formula for perfect branded content.
In this guide to writing successful branded content, you will learn some of the basics to make it big in the industry of blogging and websites.
This is the most common mistake beginner content creators make. Inexperienced writers often think that they can write high-quality content and that their career path and success in the digital realm will blossom organically.
This may happen, but you need to make sure you know what you want to achieve from the very beginning.
Before you start creating branded content, make sure you set the following goals:
As you can see, it's possible to have all kinds of motivation and goals as a creator of branded content. However, if you want to make a significant amount of money by writing, you have to make sure you have a clear goal and that your ideas are viable and relevant to the audience.
If you want to become a content star, your writing has to be recognizable. For example, your followers and readers should recognize that the article is written by you even if you are not listed as the author.
Take music as an example: you hear a new Adele song for the first time on the radio. You know it's Adele, but no one told you so – you recognized her voice yourself. This is what you should aim to achieve with your writing.
Sounds hard? Well, it definitely is. For many writers and artists, it's downright impossible to find a unique, original voice that's unlike anything that ever existed before.
According to Writer's Cookbook, here are 7 ways how you can improve and nurture your own writing voice:
Branded content has been around for some time now, and it's definitely here to stay. While it's challenging to enter a competitive market as a new player, this competitiveness and flourishing of the market also have benefits.
Branded content has been around for some time now, and it's definitely here to stay. While it's challenging to enter a competitive market as a new player, this competitiveness and flourishing of the market also have benefits.
Here are some of the most valuable tricks to make your branded content go viral:
• Powerful headlines: when it comes to content, headlines are about as much important as the very content of an article. That's why you should pay special attention to them because they motivate potential readers to click on your link.
• Buzzwords: marketing experts have studied the use of language in advertising for decades. Research has shown that particular words trigger strong emotions. Use these words in your writing to captivate your readers.
• Study the greats: with Internet and search engines, there's an inexhaustible source of websites that achieved great success with their branded content. Use these resources to identify their strong spots and replicate their writing patterns.
This step of the guide for writing successful branded content is actually the most useful when it comes to monetizing your articles.
If you want your users to take action, you have to include a call-to-action. It's irrational to believe that a user who's bombarded with tons of information every day will go out of their way to go through steps that will make you money.
Whether you're building an email list, doing affiliate marketing or designing an ad campaign, you should accentuate this and encourage your users to do the action you want them to.
Just like writing itself, the design of CTA buttons has become a science in itself.
"When designing Call-To-Action buttons, use a color that's in contrast with the background – make it pop on the screen and catch the reader's attention. Don't go overboard with the size, but don't make it unnoticeable either. Lastly, when you're writing the button text – ask yourself: would I click on this?", shares Diana Adjadj, a writer at TrustMyPaper.
If you want to engage your readers in the easiest way possible, add visuals like images, graphics, illustrations, infographics, and videos.
Not only does multimedia content help your text to become more easily readable by separating paragraphs and sections, but it also adds a dynamic note to the content. Just think of it this way: would you rather read an article that's full of images and animations or a plain-text post?
Chances are you answered with a multimedia article. This is normal: after all, human beings are highly visual and respond to imagery and symbolism much better than text.
So, if you want to create a great experience for your reader, don't forget to add images or videos, and make sure you attribute the source so you don't have issues with copyright - PixTeller editor is a great tool to make your own animations.
In the previous paragraph, we mentioned that human beings respond well to imagery. Well, there's also nothing that people respond to more than authenticity, credibility, and honesty.
As a creator of branded content, one of your goals is to make money by doing what you do. Don't think your audience is naïve – they are very well aware that you want to profit from your website. However, there's no shame in this and this isn't something that you should hide.
This is something that many websites do – try to hide the fact that they are making a profit by their readership. Nowadays, content consumers are much more media literate and everyone can see through this.
Simply be honest, straightforward, and authentic and your audience will appreciate you for it.
If you have decided to start on the path of branded content, you should prepare yourself for many ups and downs. This is a very competitive industry where a great website can easily get squeezed out by its competitor through budget alone.
Nevertheless, focusing on producing high-quality, attractive content will not come without rewards. If you consistently provide your readers with compelling content that's informative, educational, or entertaining, you can expect success.
Great content that reaches its target audience will always be successful, so just make sure you hold on to your quality standards and don't sacrifice the quality of your texts for quantity – it will be worth it in the long run.
Until next time, Be creative! - Pix'sTory made by Kristin Savage
Kristin Savage nourishes, sparks, and empowers using the magic of a word. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin was gaining experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. Now she works as a freelance writer at TrustMyPaper and GrabMyEssay.