PR or Branded Content – Which Is Your Best Bet?

While native advertising still retains its appeal under the marketing umbrella today, the journalistic form of branded content has grown to become marketers’ new weapon of choice, as they have greater control over the content published. But is branded content really easier, faster and cheaper than PR?

Given the overlap between both strategies, some may even argue that branded content will eventually come to replace the jobs of public relations pros. When slapped with a budget limit, marketers are often forced to weigh one option over the other. Others are spoilt for choice on the channels to employ for their messages to be heard loud and clear. As a marketer, how do you decide which strategy works best for a business? Here are a few questions you need to consider.

Who are you targeting?

Defining your target audience from the beginning is key to shaping the outcome of your storytelling efforts. This includes having a strong understanding of the media consumption habits of your target audience – where do they “lurk” on- and offline, what type of content do they consume, and how do they react to various types of content?
It is also imperative to be on top of existing regulations and policies pertaining to branded content, especially on social media platforms. Facebook requires the brand to clearly indicate that the content published is branded, while Influencers collaborating with brands are required to explicitly highlight the commercial nature of their content with hashtags such as #sponsored or #SP.

How will your content benefit your audience?

While branded content allows companies to leverage on the reach and engagement of media publications, consumers have become more discerning than ever. This means they can easily tell branded content and advertorials apart from journalistic articles. It also means they will make a conscious effort to avoid such articles.

At the end of the day, if you’re putting your money on branded content, consider how you can craft content that is compelling enough to stir the interest of your audience or share new knowledge with them. A job board’s main purpose, for example, is to have jobseekers come on board, create their profiles and land a career with them. But with so many job boards readily available out there today, job boards have expanded into offering free, targeted career advice for jobseekersWhile career advice does not appear to have an immediate connection with a job board business’ main function, it serves as another avenue to drive brand recall while adding value to a jobseeker’s job search. The next time a jobseeker thinks about job searching, the particular brand whom they’ve interacted with would remain at the top of their minds.

How much time do you have?

Behind every successful PR campaign, is a great number of hours put into preparation. This includes crafting the right brand key messages, identifying the relevant media outlets, drafting press releases and building the company’s press kit. Having ample time to pull the materials together can aid to the overall success of the PR efforts.

But if you really can’t wait at least a month to start seeing some media traction from your PR team, branded content can be a quicker alternative to achieve a similar end goal. Whether it’s partnering up with a media house or collaborating with influencers on a post, a video or a blog post, these factors can all be controlled to suit your needs.

What are your budgets?

Just like advertising, branded content is a reliable way of securing desired placements within your choice of media publications, allowing your messages to get heard. However, it is the quality of that branded content that will make the difference – and producing quality takes time. But while engaging a PR agency for their expertise and contacts across multiple media outlets can cost a lump sum, engaging a well-known influencer for a one-off branded Instagram shoutout, or engaging a publication for a content partnership can likely cost just as much. You also need to consider that one post alone won’t do much, as consistency and continuous engagement will keep a brand in the consciousness of consumers.

Consider your end goal

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to choosing the marketing channels for your brand. Every channel plays its part in supporting the bigger picture of marketing. At the end of the day, it’s your understanding of your business’s needs, and knowing how to effectively blend various marketing strategies to put forth a cohesive message. That’s what will ultimately drive the best results for your business.

Want to talk more about getting your story out there? Drop us a message to [email protected] 

 

How to create a Buyer Persona

Sophie is 35 years old. She’s just been promoted to Marketing Manager at the Tech company she works for. She learned the ropes in a Marketing Assistant role and her seniors expect a lot from her position. Her first order of business: improving the effectiveness of the company’s marketing.

Here’s the catch, Sophie isn’t a real person. She’s a buyer persona – a representation of an ideal buyer.

With consumers exposed to as many as 5,000 marketing messages every day, creating user personas help businesses break through the clutter and capture attention with relevant content. It humanises your customers and paints the picture of an individual buyer, identifying their problems and values.

Apple’s success story

Apple effectively uses buyer personas for its different products. Check out their persona focus technique in this iPad 2 advertisement:

 

Now watch this:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTFPB4OUqrM

 

The first features the user scrolling stocks and investment portfolios, capturing the business professionals’ attention. Suddenly, they can see how this product would fit into their work life and visualise themselves using it in their day-to- day business needs. The second shows an adrenaline junkie preparing to take on the torrential rain with his iPhone 7. Creating this persona attracts the outdoorsy types and demonstrates the waterproof features of the new device.

How to create buyer personas

Creating the profile is probably the most important stage in the process – get the wrong persona and you’re marketing to a completely different audience, not to mention wasting your time and efforts.  Here’s a couple of steps to consider to get you started when creating your buyer persona:

1. Establish the basics

Segment your target group and ideal buyer by gender, age, job title and role responsibilities. Identifying these basics will give you a strong starting point of who you are targeting.

2. Learn from example

When you create a persona, you are creating an example of your ideal consumer. From this example, you can identify your consumer needs, objectives and potential obstacles. Doing this also gives insight into how your buyers view your products and services. Use this information wisely to improve your offerings.

3. Study, study, study!

To do this study their needs, concerns, frustrations, urgency to buy and ability to buy. This helps to develop and tailor content that appeals to your target audience, resulting in greater leads and sales.

 

If you need help creating your buyer persona, drop us a note at [email protected] – we can help you to tap into your target market!