Liz Huff

Developing a great branded content campaign takes effort and planning. You want to educate and inform your audience, but you also need to deliver meaningful, measurable results to your advertiser. Promotions like quizzes, photo contests, and ballots are your key to answering this challenge. Liz Huff, Director of Affiliate Success for Second Street, has 3 reasons promotions should be part of your branded content strategy.

This post is part of the first edition of a branded content guide for local media organizations, a playbook released by the Branded Content Project, a partnership between the Local Media Association, the Local Media Consortium and funded by the Facebook Journalism Project.

 

1. Promotions Drive the Results Your Advertisers Want

Your advertiser wants a unique opportunity to connect with your valuable audience. Whether this is their first dive into branded content or not, they’re ultimately looking for you to bring them results they can use. According to data from Borrell Associates, Inc., in addition to traditional advertising, your advertisers want something trackable. Promotions are optimized for lead generation. With a registration form, you can take a simple piece of content and make it something that delivers results and at the same time give your users an interactive and meaningful brand experience.

2. Promotions Enhance Your Storytelling

While revenue is good, your storytelling is what keeps your audience coming back to your site. Branded content relies heavily on audience interaction with your content. It’s your responsibility to create pieces that not only deliver the results your advertiser is looking for but create content meaningful to your audience. Create a more robust branded content package by incorporating promotions. If you’re creating written content or on-air content, a promotion is an excellent way to make your branded content campaign an interactive experience that will drive your audience to take action.

3. Promotions Create Standalone Content

Branded content can be daunting and time-consuming if you’re just getting started. However, promotions are a simple way to jump into the ring and create powerful branded content campaigns. While they can be a way to elevate existing content pieces, the benefit of quizzes, photo contests, and ballots is they can stand alone as their own branded content experience. Promotions are engaging content experiences that users interact with eagerly. While your competitors may be writing another article or presenting another on-air feature, a promotion allows you to tell the client’s story in a unique, interactive way, setting your client’s company a step above your competition.

FINAL THOUGHT

Promotions are an excellent way to get started with branded content or enhance an already existing program. They’re ideal for creating a meaningful experience for your audience while delivering measurable results to your advertisers.

The expert: Liz CriderHuff – Second Street

Liz is the Director of Affiliate Success at Second Street and has extensive background in media. Having spent nearly ten years working in sales at two St. Louis television stations, Liz led her team to achieve and surpass their revenue goals by delivering measurable results for their advertisers and significant sponsorship revenue. Liz helps media companies of all sizes deliver outstanding results on a daily basis within their organizations including sales, marketing, audience development and editorial.

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Catch another planning article from the branded content guide – 7 tips for creating a successful branded content initiative

What’s your game plan?

What’s in the guide? The pages are filled with advice for those creating their first branded content initatives, those who are leading sales teams who have branded content in their toolbox, and those that are creating content for advertisers and looking for best practices and techniques. The articles in the guide are written by experts in the branded content space who have built impressive programs and are able to share strategies to help you navigate through this unique and sometimes complicated area of potential business. We’ve also included checklists geared toward sales, content, and development to start and grow your initiatives.

Take a tour through the guide to get action plans, step-by-step instructions, advice, and recommendations. And don’t forget to check out the checklists before you get started.

If you are taking your first step into branded content or giving your program a refresh, take a deeper look into our “DEVELOPING IT” section and get actionable advice from branded content experts.