Sponsored content – How to add value?

Sponsored content, also known as guest post, is a leading trend in the digital marketing industry. This new phenomenon enables corporations to push their product to audiences with subtlety, along with the added benefits of expert opinion to influence buyers.

Across the world, websites and blogs are tied up with brands that use their influence for advertising and promotion. Although this is a major new avenue in the business world, sponsored content needs to fulfill a basic quality parameter to satisfy two major entities – the consumers, as well as the publishers. Apart from the basic necessity of featured content, namely to incite interest among audiences, content posted on a blog or a website also needs to satisfy the publisher’s standards.

Therefore, despite the strong potential of it, blog-based content marketing has some firm standards that companies need to fulfill to taste success. To generate leads and to make the effort pay off, firms need to create high-quality content that is also tailored to the right set of guidelines to make it work. Here are a few relevant guides that can help anyone make a marketing impact with guest content that stands apart.

Choose the right Blog/Website

The very first step in the entire process is making sure you knock the right door. One of the prime benefits of this process is that advertisers are given more control over their potential target audience. To reach a particular target audiences, firms need to do their bit of research and target a blog that deals with the same topic as they do, for the most relevant flow of visitors. This forms the very foundation of any company’s success in the digital marketing industry.

Choosing the right publisher blog can take place through an analysis of the leading blogs and websites available on the web. For better background information about a particular site’s audiences, you could have a look at their Facebook and twitter pages for information on their followers and visitors.

Be Transparent

A powerful step towards building trust with audiences is with transparency. A majority of brands use sponsored content for influencing public opinion to their needs. Viewers that browse sources are rarely aware when reading guest content and this is viewed by a large majority of them as unethical behavior.
Taking a step to show respect to the audiences goes a long way in kindling a bond with audiences, while at the same time, boosting your brand image. Ask your host website or blogger to clearly specify in your article that it is sponsored and not his own. This prevents mistrust and promotes a sense of integrity among your audiences.

Aim for value-added content

The entire point of getting audiences’ attention is being relevant to them. In other words, shift your attention from your own product to the audiences’ necessities. In today’s world, value-based content has taken a backseat, allowing marketing interests to permeate the entire web space. When you write featured content on any website that aims to promote yourself, aim to make the experience as reader-centric as possible. In other words, instead of selling something, also try to empower your audience.

Make sure you’re always creating content that’s highly relevant to your readers. It’s no longer about selling yourself; it’s about empowering your audience.

For doing this, marketers need to take a different approach towards the development of the content. Instead of writing blandly about your product or service, make content that helps to solve problems relevant to your product. For example, if you’re selling lawn mowers, your target audiences probably care about the external appearance of their yard. Therefore, you could write featured content about maintaining the perfect yard.

Keep it trimmed

The web space now hosts countless different websites about every topic available. With readers flooded with content all day long, they are less likely to have a stronger attention space. Keeping content short and concise serves the interests of the reader, as well as yourself. When developing guest content, aim to organize your information and present it as effectively as possible, without having to compromise on value.

Using bullet points and numbers for a neater presentation of information helps while underlining the most important areas of the write-up in bold for the best reception.

Provide anecdotes/examples for a more engaging tone

This is another helpful step in keeping audiences entertained and attentive in an era where attention is shrinking. While content needs to be rich and informative, it also needs to have the substance of healthy entertainment. Insert some real-life scenarios that people can understand and relate to. This process allows you to appeal to specific groups of people with specific examples and more relevant details. Therefore, aim to humanize your content by adding examples and real-life cases that people would relate to.

These are some basic steps that promote a livelier and more vitalized spirit for you to write content in while promoting your brand. These principles form the foundation in any marketing attempt, with the reader and the customer placed at the center of the entire experience.