To succeed as a brand, you must resonate with audiences. This is often achieved through valuable, high-quality content that people trust. Content sponsorships are among the best ways to do so if you want to get the most from your advertising efforts and connect with prospects.
While you might benefit hugely from content sponsorships, you may not know precisely how they work or how to sponsor branded content. Here we'll explore these advertising tools and how to use them to your advantage.
What Is a Content Sponsorship?
Sponsored content is a type of promotion that advertisers pay for while others create and share the main content. For example, you might sponsor a paid article on another brand's website to advertise your business. Content sponsorships always work best when you coordinate them with your core audience.
If you want to get involved in a content sponsorship, being transparent and trustworthy with this content is crucial in establishing trust. This means that your sponsored content must support materials that your audience enjoys. For instance, you'll want to ensure that a paid article you submit lands on a website with active, loyal readers who are likely to be interested in your offerings.
Types of Sponsored Content
There are many types of content that a brand can sponsor across multiple platforms. You can produce paid guest posts, videos, infographics, and social media posts. Generally, the most common sponsored content has other brands, influencers, or publishers creating and sharing it. Your sponsorship can connect your brand with this content and create a positive association among audiences.
When going about starting a content sponsorship, relevance is key. Find someone who already aligns with your brand and is likely to share with your ideal audience. For example, a fashion brand may sponsor a podcast discussing fashion as its core topic, with the host creating a dialogue that sponsors its products. This would offer a uniquely creative way to establish a strong connection with new potential customers. It would also be critical to gaining trust, as they likely trust the host's support of their sponsors.
Also, consider the specific type of content that would appeal most to your audience. For instance, if your audience consists of busy professionals who listen to podcasts during their commute, then a relevant podcast might be best to target. Other audiences, such as younger students, may respond more to social media posts and videos.
The Benefit of Content Sponsorships
Sponsored content is often far more memorable and helps brands stick out. It comes off as a genuine recommendation from a third-party source and requires less content creation effort on your part. Most sponsored hosts and influencers know how to resonate your messaging with your audience. Many of them have created plenty of sponsored content that their audiences enjoy, with a unique style that keeps people invested in the message they convey.
Stats also show that people love branded content published through partnerships, including sponsorships. Nielsen found that brands that distributed content through a publisher saw around a 50% higher brand lift than marketers who published content alone. Branded content on its own performed far better than pre-roll ads, with Nielsen discovering an average of 86% recall among branded content viewers. In contrast, pre-roll ads generated 65% brand recall. Generally, branded content is also 22 times more engaging than display ads that saturate people's screens daily.
Content sponsorships are critical for content marketing strategies, which you must have, considering 70% of marketers actively invest in content marketing. While having other types of content on your website and other platforms is essential, you should invest in content sponsorships when possible. You may find that the right opportunity helps you succeed with sponsored content in a way you wouldn't without it. You could land the perfect relationship with a podcast host, connect with the right influencer on social media, or discover another chance to connect with audiences.
Combined with holistic content marketing and advertising strategies, content sponsorships will allow you to flourish with your brand. To succeed in your efforts, you must form the right relationships and know where to place your content.
Find the Best Content Sponsorships with a Media Partner
Content sponsorships are invaluable assets for any brand. When getting started with sponsorships, it's important to head in the right direction. This is where a media partner like Mid-West Family South Bend can help. Our experts have the resources and experience with content sponsorships that can help you get the most from these opportunities.
To find out more about how we can lift your brand through content sponsorships and plenty of other digital marketing solutions, contact Mid-West Family South Bend today.
