4 Myths About Sponsored Content Debunked!
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Content is what drives the entire digital marketing strategies for promoting a brand and getting it enough recognition. Marketing brands organically has always been considered as a matter of pride for the brand marketers. Obviously, marketing with only efforts and not investments has always been desirable. Well, content marketing isn’t just about that today. The mushrooming of too many brands leading to ever-increasing competition in the market, the increasing expectations of customers from brands, and of brands from marketers, call for the need of integrating the sponsored content in digital marketing strategies. In past one decade, content marketing strategies have evolved a lot.
So, what is sponsored content?
Sponsored content is that part of the content used in marketing, that enables the brand to reach out to its larger audience. It places the brand at the forefront, and therefore gets it lot of attention and engagements.
Despite that, there are numerous myths associated with sponsored content. Let’s dig deep in o debunk them right away!
Myth #1: Sponsored Content is Not Genuine
Sponsored content is the content used in digital advertising that involves paying to promote that brand product or services. Due to this reason, there is some audience that ignores the sponsored content, considering it just the ‘paid’ content that won’t be carrying any value.
That’s what is said According to Contently, there is a real stigma that surrounds sponsored content, as 66.42 percent of respondents to their 2014 survey said that they are less likely to click on an article sponsored by a brand.
“Not genuine, that’s why sponsored,” they would think and carry a perception about sponsored content, and this is what keeps some of the brands reluctant about posting sponsored content.
That should not be so.
Sponsored content is rather, is a step ahead of the organic content, that presents the products and services much better with images pictures and their proper descriptions. The audience tends to click on such posts that are well presented, and they ignore the rest.
Owing to its relevance and role play in the digital marketing strategy, it is reported that the businesses are expected to invest $15 billion on paid content marketing by 2022. People who spend a lot of time on social media are likely engaging with influencers, and sponsored content gives you the ability to reach these users.
Myth #2: Sponsored Content is all About Advertising & Zero Value
Yes, yes, advertisements are meant to promote a brand, product or service, and they talk that only. The objective of an advert is to inspire the audience and make them take the desired action like clicking on the ad, visiting the website or landing page and buying something. Earlier the content used to be tagged promotional, now it’s majorly about Native advertising, which involves promotional content blended with regular content.
The tag of sponsored content makes the people do nothing but ignore it, thinking it is just an advertisement, a sponsored piece of content that has no value.
The native content is far from just being promotional. It is created in the reader’s perspective and gets them good user experience unlike the regular ads, that just go gaga about the brand, product or service. Native content is though sponsored but carries value for the readers who later become customers.
It not just promotes the brand, but informs first, in a way that people are able to relate themselves and feel the need of what the brand has in store for promotion. The likeliness of sale gets far more than in case regular promotional content. So, the sponsored content may not be simply about marketing, but may also carry value for the reader.
Myth 3: The Reality of Sponsored Content Should Be Hidden
It is thought by many brands and brand marketers that the objective of the sponsored content should be hidden, and should rather be presented as a regular informative content. Only then it works.
Well, this is just a belief and may not be true. This belief has stemmed up from the stigma associated with sponsored content, and is not to be taken seriously. In fact, the hideous content that pretends to be what it is not actually, may rather worsen the situation, that could have been better otherwise. Today’s consumer is very smart and carries the capability to unmask all that looks suspicious to them, even by a bit. A good content carries emotional value, that people can relate with. Only then do they consider going through all of it. If at any point of time, they realize that what they had been trusting in and relating with, is scandalous, they may feel cheated and feel really bad about your brand being anyways associated with such a misleading content. The sheer disappointment and disgust will haunt the brand till eternity.
It will be rather better if the brands maintain transparency, which generates trust. If the content is informative and relevant, even if it is ‘sponsored’ it works as it develops trust among the readers.
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Myth 4: Sponsored Content is an Old School Content
Well that’s certainly not the case. It has rather evolved in past a decade, with better performance. Gone are the days, when you would come across the adverts as sponsored marketing content used by the brands for promotion. Today the advertising happens even without letting you realise. It leaves an impact in a way that the desired action is initiated on its own.
The sponsored content is more than just an old marketing collateral. It has rather become informative content that the reader needs and related with, before finally taking the required step. This is the part of influencer marketing, the highly evolved marketing.
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Content marketing is all about providing great experience to the reader by means of relevant information that they need, which eventually leads to building of trust in the brand. It is not meant for hard selling but requires enough time and effort to understand the audience and all that they would show interest in. It is intended at establishing an emotional connect with the audience, which eventually leads to conversion.
Are you also a brand looking to sell sponsored content, but believed in these myths some time ago? You don’t need to, now. Simply connect with us!
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