Creating engaging paid-for content

When creating paid-for content you are not thinking just about your well-known customer base or your brand’s tone of voice. You have a number of different audiences to take into consideration; you have to think about the media owner’s language without losing your own brand identity. Then you have to think about the new audiences you will be reaching without isolating your own valued customers.

To help you create content that works for all these specific areas I have created a list of questions to answer to ensure that you appeal to a media owner without losing your own voice.

1. How to appeal to a media owner

How can you collaborate with the media owner? The best paid-for work feels like it is part of the channel itself. How can you work with the media to create something that you know they want but also looks like a partnership rather than just a paid-for space on a page?

Will viewers share the content? If the answer is yes then you know the media owner will be interested as it will mean additional promotion and new audiences being driven to the site. How can you make the content shareable? Make it topical, relatable, valuable and remarkable.

Is there any way to involve the audience in the content? By being interactive you are again driving more engagement, adding more dwell time and pulling more audiences in. This will make it a more exciting proposition for the media. Interactivity can include submitting responses, providing ideas, adding commentary or even uploading videos.

2. How to keep your own brand voice

Are you remaining consistent with your own brand identity? Whilst it is easy to try to put yourself in the shoes of the media owner, this can be done at the detriment of your own personality. Stay true to your own voice, be it through your tone, your brand guidelines or your video style. Once you have that strong brand foundation you can play with content themes that you know will work for the specific media owner.

How are you communicating to the specific audience? You have to make sure that you are communicating in a language that the audience understands and that will make it instantly relate to you as a brand.

If the audience loves the content, can you make more of it? You should only create something that you would be happy to make again. If the audience loves the theme, the ideas or the format you have the opportunity to make a series of content that can build a relationship with new audiences and the chosen media owner.

3. How to appeal to old and new audiences

Is your idea coming from a place of genuine inspiration? If your video or story can excite the audience with real human insight then you will delight existing customers and surprise new audiences with your content.

Can your idea be fully appreciated by a brand-new viewer? Make sure that anything you create can be viewed, and understood, by someone who may not even know you exist. Put yourself in the shoes of a brand-ignorant consumer and only publish if the content is clear, consistent and character building.

Will the content get found through search or related videos? You are about to publish your work on another channel so you have a big opportunity to drive views from new audiences. “How to” video searches have increased 150% in 2015 alone, so what are you creating that will appear in your audiences Google searches?

Article written by Megan Murray Jones, associate director at PR firm Lansons