Deliver value to your audience with branded content

It is a mistake for brands to only communicate advertising messages and focus on selling their products and services. The audience is looking for content that interests them, and that's where branded content comes in.

Branded content is a tactic that encourages audiences to interact with the brand based on entertainment, information, or educational value, making them more receptive to our message. It is based on who we are and what we have to solve their problems.

But saying without doing is pointless. According to Puromarketing, an isolated branded content action will not achieve customer loyalty, and each piece of content must be framed within a strategy that seeks to establish a long-term relationship between brands and their audience.

A report by Havas agency states that 83% of people expect brands to produce content, but 60% agreed that what is currently being done is poor, irrelevant, or insufficient. The study, called ‘Meaningful Brands’, surveyed 375,000 people from 33 countries about the world's top 1,500 brands.

The conclusion is that there’s a 71% correlation between content effectiveness and the impact on the individual consumer's well-being: the greater impact a brand has on personal wellbeing, the more meaningful a brand becomes and the better business results it achieves.

It is essential to note that most companies do a good job on communicating advantages and benefits but fail to deliver when it comes to personal wellbeing. Therefore, "globally consumers would not care if 74% of brands disappeared," states Havas.

Finally, the research suggests that brands need to understand what type of content works for their audience and where the opportunity lies: whether they should inspire, educate, help, reward, inform, or entertain; what is necessary and what should be discarded.