Promotional content plan: the next frontier of branding
In today’s fast-paced world, grabbing the attention of your potential customers has become harder than ever.
People are constantly subjected to an overload of information, and their attention span is continuously threatened by brands striving to get their consideration.
To put this into context, it is estimated that the average person today sees or hears about 4,000 to 10,000 messages a day – twice the number seen in 2007!
With such a cognitive overload, marketing strategies that used to work just a few years ago have become ineffective, and building long-lasting relationships with clients has become a real challenge.
So, how can your businesses develop stable rapport with your customers, to ultimately convert them into loyal, returning clients?
The negative premises have led digital marketing professionals to rethink the way they can engage with their customers and to find the answer: promotional content.
Promotional content, indeed, has by far proven to be a more successful means than most of the traditional advertising methods in enhancing a business’ branding, and the reason behind that is quite simple.
By consistently sharing value with your customers, promotional content allows your brand to rely on something your customers truly care about and to convey such desires to your products or services later.
This even gets beyond today’s general lack of attention.
So, at this point, you may be wondering…
“How can I build a successful promotional content plan to improve my business branding?”
Let’s go over what it takes to build a buyer-centric, well-structured approach to promotional content, and what the main benefits of investing in such a strategy are.
What is exactly a content plan, and what are its benefits?
A promotional content plan is a strategy that outlines how your business will promote its products or services through various types of content.
Simply put, it’s a blueprint you can follow to get the most out of your resources and sustain your marketing efforts in the long run through the help of promotional content.
Among the most common formats it relies on, you can find blog posts, social media posts, and emails. Though, the list goes on and there are numerous possibilities you can leverage.
Finally, promotional content can rely on ads, too.
Unlike traditional advertising, though, promotional content ads focus on educating or engaging with your audience in a subtle way, without the need to sell something directly.
Just as it works with any other piece of promotional content.
Whatever format you choose to rely on, implementing a promotional content plan in your marketing strategy will come with many perks.
Here are the most relevant ones:
- Increased brand awareness
Promotional content can help your business reach a larger audience and get your brand in front of more people.
By sharing valuable, relevant content on various channels, you will eventually increase your visibility and build awareness of your brand.
- Engagement with audience
Promotional content can be used to start conversations and engage with your audience.
Creating content that resonates with your public and addresses their needs, in fact, can help your business can build relationships and foster loyalty.
This will also overcome the general deficit of attention in today’s digital market.
- Greater ROI
Promotional content can be a cost-effective way for your business to reach your target audience and achieve a better ROI from your marketing efforts.
- Differentiation
By creating unique, differentiated promotional content, your business can stand out from the competition and differentiate itself in the market.
Setting up your plan: all the steps you need to follow
Setting up a promotional content plan is a process that requires you to follow some straightforward, linear, and crucial steps.
Here’s all you need to do to create your promotional content plan:
- Identify your goals
Every project starts with a why. Before you start creating any promotional content, you need to know what you want to achieve.
Do you want to increase your brand awareness?
Are you trying to generate leads?
Or, is it your goal to drive sales?
Each goal will require a different approach, so it’s important to be clear on your objectives from the outset.
- Identify your target audience
Who are you trying to reach with your promotional content?
Try to be as specific as possible when defining your target audience. Consider factors like demographics, interests, and pain points.
This will help you create content that resonates with your audience and addresses their needs and interests.
- Research your competition
Take a look at what other businesses in your industry are doing to promote their products or services.
This can give you an idea of what works and what doesn’t, and help you differentiate your brand from the competition.
You shall strive to analyze your competitors by addressing features like how often they post, what formats they use, and, most importantly, their communication.
Literally, what do your competitors say?
What are their communicative angles?
Pay attention to the exact words they use to ensure their content resonates with their audience.
Finally, you can create a SWOT analysis (‘strengths – weak – opportunities – threats’) of your competitors, to have a clearer picture of the overall competition in your market.
- Choose your formats and channels
Once you know your goals, target audience, and competition, it’s time to decide on the types of content you will create and the channels you will use to reach your audience.
Will you be using blog posts, social media posts, emails, or some combination of these?
As we have seen, the possibilities are countless.
Anyway, the most important thing is to always stick to the information you gathered through market research, to create content that resonates with your audience.
As for the channels to use, again, there are numerous choices available, but the most popular are websites, social media platforms, and email newsletters.
- Schedule and create your content
At this point, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty of your promotional content plan.
Determine how often you will create and distribute content – this could be daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on your goals and resources.
- Track and analyze your results
Last but not least, to see whether your promotional content plan is working, you need to track and analyze your results.
You can use tools like Google Analytics to see how your content is performing and make adjustments as needed.
This will help you continually improve your promotional content plan and ultimately achieve your branding and business goals.
Spread your promotional content and improve your branding through guest posting
“How can I build an audience from scratch?”
“How can I make sure people will trust my brand?”
If any of these questions come to your mind, you’re going through reasonable doubts.
Amassing an audience from zero takes time and effort, and the process gets even more challenging when trying to make your brand perceived as trustworthy and reliable.
Yes – setting up a promotional content plan may be a solution, but it takes time, resources, and, especially, expertise.
When done wrong, indeed, promotional content may be more harmful than beneficial, leading you to both financial losses and damages to your brand reputation.
So, how can you set up a promotional content plan that boosts your branding, grants returns on your investments, and doesn’t harm your brand?
The solution is Getfluence.
Getfluence is a powerful and easy-to-use marketplace with over 10.000+ premium publishers from around the world, like Forbes and The Economist, designed to help you sustain your promotional content plan.
By offering you the chance to host your content on the world’s most renowned websites in your area of expertise, Getfluence makes it possible for you to:
- Expand your reach;
- Drive highly-targeted traffic to your channels;
- Increase your brand’s trust;
- Improve your overall branding.
On top of that, Getfluence can help you save up to 70% of your time thanks to its built-in messaging system, which allows you to share your files in the fastest and safest possible way.
Finally, you will save money thanks to Getfluence’s competitive rates, directly pre-negotiated for you with the world’s most renowned publishers.
Want to build a solid promotional content plan that grants you results over time?
Try Getfluence now and start to improve your branding.
Most asked questions about promotional content plans for branding
What is content promotion in marketing?
Content promotion is the act of marketing content (the so-called promotional content) to a specific audience. Some of its most common goals include driving traffic, increasing brand awareness, and improving branding.
How do I create a content promotion plan?
There are various steps you should follow to create a content promotion plan. You should begin by establishing your goals, identifying your target audience, researching your competition, and choosing your formats and channels.
Then, you can jump to the actual content creation, always tracking your results to improve your strategy over time.
What should be included in a promotional content plan?
There are numerous formats and channels you can use in your promotional content plan, like blog posts, emails, and social media posts.
You should always strive to choose your platforms and types of content according to the information gathered in your market research, to make sure your content resonates with your audience.
