You hear “What else?”: what do you think immediately? You visualize a neat decor, you remember good times watching with a smile the videos featuring George Clooney and John Malkovich, you hear the musical signature… Then, you associate it with the Nespresso slogan. But you don’t think “only” about coffee.
This is the greatest strength of a successful brand content strategy: building a full-fledged universe that makes your brand memorable with the help of a brand strategist or a motivational speaker.
It is a strategy that consists of transmitting the values of your company to your prospects, your customers and your ambassadors. To do this, you must hit your target in the heart, by forging a strong emotional bond with them.
The challenge of brand content is to create a real culture around your brand and create a unique experience for your customers. This starts with the creation of a brand book.
62% of consumers expect a company to commit to major contemporary and global issues, such as sustainable development, transparency, corporate social policies… Today, consumers do not only buy the quality of a product, but the values attached to a brand.
The good news? You don’t need millions of dollars in investment or movie stars to create an effective A-Z brand content strategy.
#1 — Define clear objectives for your Brand Content strategy
Setting clear goals will allow you to set up a roadmap so that you can move forward step by step.
A branded content strategy can pursue one or more objectives such as:
- Develop your brand awareness
- Increase your visibility
- Generate more traffic to your website
- Increase conversions and your sales
- Generate engagement on your social media posts
- Develop the loyalty of your existing customers.
Do not multiply the objectives: choose only those that really serve the strategy of your brand. To do this, you can use the SMART method — for example, set goals:
- Specific (S): precise and easy to understand
- Measurable (M): simple to measure using key indicators
- Ambitious (A): sufficiently motivating to achieve
- Realistic (R): attainable while remaining motivating
- Time-bound (T): Well-defined in time.
Concrete illustration:
- The example not to follow: “increase the number of LinkedIn followers”.
- The example to follow: “reach 20,000 LinkedIn subscribers by the end of June”.
#2 — Identify your target audience
With your goals, you know where you are going. Now it’s time to figure out who you’re going to involve in your brand content marketing strategy. Indeed, knowing your audience well is an essential condition to be able to forge a strong emotional bond with your targets.
Even if brand content is more centered on the brand (brand-centric) than on the customer (customer-centric), you cannot ignore a detailed knowledge of the profile and aspirations of your customers .
You probably already have in mind the typical profile of your ideal client. But be sure to dig deeper:
The values to which your target audiences are attached
The societal commitments to which they are sensitive.
For example, one can imagine that Nespresso’s target is the CSP+ category, with high purchasing power. They are young city dwellers, passionate about coffee, who like modern products and are sensitive to the aesthetics of the product. In terms of values, the brand’s targets are epicureans, gourmets, but also sensitive to ecological issues.
#3 — List the values your brand holds dear
In order to create a deep connection with your target and to set up a memorable brand content strategy, look for the themes or values that your brand defends. By positioning yourself as an opinion leader, you will associate your brand with these values in the minds of your target.
For example, if your company is positioned in the circular economy sector, your content marketing will leave a lot of room for environmental topics. Likewise, if you work in a new technology company, it will be wise to bring your vision of innovation.
Nespresso, for example, called on its employees to bring out the values of its company. This approach has identified 4 strong values: conviviality, team spirit, conviviality, agility and daring. These are also the values shared by the brand with its customers. In addition, the brand has strong CSR commitments, such as the commitment to youth employment, professional integration or to promote the reception and employment of people with disabilities.
Also think about timing: there are certainly major dates that punctuate the life of your company, such as the anniversary of its creation, or key events, such as an annual conference. These are important opportunities to promote your brand image.
#4 — Create your Brand Content editorial charter
Your branded content strategy is not the exclusive domain of your marketing department. Indeed, branded content can be created by other stakeholders in your company: HR for the employer branding aspect, communication for the work of the brand image, etc.
However, even if several of your teams are already involved in the creation of content for your company, it is crucial to set the rules. These rules allow you to ensure that all the content created is consistent, and in line with the strategic objectives of your brand.
To do this, you must develop your brand content editorial charter. This document, centralized for all strategy stakeholders, sets out the elements that will help your employees create consistent content through an inspirational speaker.
This editorial charter contains:
The tone of your content. Do you know your target finely? Explain to the employees involved how to address her, what positioning to adopt, to provoke emotions and commitment to your brand. State clearly in your editorial line that storytelling is essential: brand content tells stories and does not describe products!
The different possible content formats. Editorial content, such as blog articles, white papers or infographics, interactive, such as contests, or video: give your collaborators clear instructions as to which formats to use.
Your branded hashtags, if any. Nothing better to claim your presence on the web and generate relevant and authentic content around your brand!
Examples to follow. Use clear examples and counterexamples to explain what tone and language your people should use when talking about your brand. For example:
– Don’t: Messages are conveyed more effectively by video than by image.
– To do: video conveys messages more effectively than images.
Content templates, to facilitate creation and to inspire your collaborators. For example, you can create ready-to-use templates, social media posts, or examples of content that has worked well. Also think about creating scenarios for your videos!
If we continue with the example of Nespresso: when you drink a Nespresso, you drink more than coffee, you enter a universe. This is the world of affordable luxury. The tone of the brand must therefore convey this feeling of rarity. Whether through mailings, reception in stores, television advertisements, the consumer feels that he is unique at each stage of his journey.
We imagine that Nespresso’s editorial charter includes rules related to personalization, the use of vocabulary related to elegance and travel. We find many words such as quality, great vintages, exclusivity on their website.
With this editorial strategy formalized in a charter, it is impossible for your communication strategy to go in the wrong direction!
#5 — Develop your content delivery plan
Now is the time to determine on which channels you will distribute your branded content.
At this stage, one word must resonate in your head: multichannel. Indeed, a successful brand content strategy relies on several distribution channels to reach the right targets at the right time.
So, remember to include in your content distribution plan:
Your website which will be the flagship space of your brand strategy.
The company blog to share your news and improve your natural referencing.
Social networks relevant to your business, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn.
Advertising, whether on the web (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, etc.) or offline.
Landing pages for specific products or services.
Emails, such as newsletters or automated email sequences to keep in touch with your target.
A well-designed branded content delivery plan will help you see more clearly about the type of audience you want to reach. Plus, it will give your insight into the constraints of creating branded content.
For this step, you can use tools like Trello, which offers Kanban visualization, or even Airtable and Notion.
#6 — Set your editorial calendar
Most of your brand content strategy is ready. You still have one final step to make your communication a success: the design of your editorial calendar.
This tool, shared with all stakeholders, makes it possible to organize the creation and distribution of content over time.
So, remember to include in your editorial calendar:
- The different contents to be published, as well as their deadlines for creation.
- SEO-related elements, if your article is aimed at natural referencing. In this case, remember to include a column indicating the keywords on which to position them.
- The target audience for this content.
- The channels on which the content should be broadcast.
- The expected release date for each content.
- Those responsible for creating and distributing content
- The status of the content: such as “to be written”, “to be proofread or even “to be published”.
You can also include a short brief for each content to be created, to guide your collaborators (such as your Content Manager, your Community Manager or your video manager) in their missions.
An essential part of preparing your editorial calendar is to follow video and other content trends in order to create quality content that appeals to users.
For an effective content marketing strategy, you can work in terms of campaigns. The principle is simple: you determine which key theme will take center stage in your planning over the next X months. The whole point of this operation is to really work on a key objective of your strategy and thus produce relevant content.
Because your editorial calendar is a crucial element of your brand content strategy, PlayPlay has decided to share its best practices in this area. Discover our editorial planning model now and get inspired as much as possible!
Bravo, you have just finalized the essential steps of your strategy! You are now ready to make your brand resonate and reach your targets in the heart.
And if you want to go even further, we advise you to consider the concept of the internal content factory!
