Me, me, me! What brands forget about making great content
This is one of a series of articles that explore the tools we use at Iris to plan, make and distribute content.
At Iris we are often asked, ‘what makes great branded content’?
A good place to start is a definition of ‘branded content’ itself. This, from Wikipedia:
Branded content is the practice of marketing via the creation of content that is funded or outright produced by an advertiser… branded content is designed to build awareness for a brand by associating it with content that shares its values.
Good examples are Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Center, GE Reports, or the Barclaycard 31 Day Challenge.
So, what makes these ‘great’ and how can we learn from them? Let’s take a look.
At the start of an engagement we often review and audit a client’s existing ‘content’. “We’ve got loads of stuff!” they swear, “so much that I’m sure the job will mostly be repurposing”.
200 items later, what they call ‘content’ turns out to have been a combination of sales tools, product descriptions, promotions, adverts, leaflets and brochures.
That is not content. Or at least it’s not good content.
So, how can you ensure your content marketing is ‘great’? The answer is actually deceptively simple.
What you’re saying has to work for you, be of interest to your audience, and relevant the cultural context you’re in.
You want to talk to teen girls in the UK about tanning? Global CTOs about cybersecurity? Chinese mining engineers about lubricants? You’d better understand where they’re at, what they’re into, and what they’re looking for answers to.
Planner-style, we express this as a simple Venn diagram, with the red patch being the sweet-spot:
Looks easy, doesn’t it? But this simple thing requires a fundamental readjustment in mindset.
In our experience there is still a massive gap in understanding this.
Thing is, agencies and clients tend to have an inward focused. We want to define a brand’s ‘proposition’, a product’s ‘USP’, the brand’s ‘purpose’, etc.
We want to talk about ourselves endlessly.
And in the environment of push, interruptive advertising, that is the right approach. You’ve got 30 seconds in a TV ad-break. Just moments as someone walks past your poster. A nano-second as a user scrolls past your Facebook ad.
In that short space of time you’ve only got time to hit them with that one, perfectly crafted message.
Sure, once we’ve defined our message we start to think about how to sugar-coat it and make it more relevant. But the point is, we’re not audience-focused, we’re message-focused.
Problem is, audience-focused is where the great content is.
So, if you’re in a situation where you need to make great branded content, what can you do to stimulate, provoke and get everyone to push it in the right direction?
Here are five questions we ask of content to make sure it’s doing its job:
The Five Filters Of Content
Relevance: Is the content in the right general area? (Does it ladder up to agreed content themes/pillars?)
Customer focus: Can you articulate why the audience would want this content? Are you sure this content isn’t just a promotion or promoting a message?
Value: Does the content tangibly add value. Does it help or inspire consumers to achieve their ambitions? Or does it genuinely entertain? Does it teach them about something they want to know?
Credibility: Does your brand have any licence to talk about this topic? Is it believable and distinctive coming from them?
Branding: Does the content reflect your brand’s values and guidelines?
So, there we have it. When you are planning content, be generous to your audience. Make sure 1) you’re creating something they’re really want 2) it is relevant and 3) does what it needs to for your brand. But of all those three, audience is the most often overlooked, so a bit more focus on that will pay dividends.
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And let us know if there are other tools you use to make great content in the comments below.
