Is your brand’s owned content turning customers into loyalists? It can, it should, and we can help.

First, what is "owned content?" The term includes everything from social media posts, branded email distribution, press releases, to your brand's website content. Hey, this blog you're reading is considered owned content. Anything and everything published directly by your brand. It's a wonderful space where every aspect of your message is controlled by your brand and allows for direct communication with your audience. Owned content humanizes your brand and when done correctly, it inspires an active following and loyal audiences.

Here's a bonus: Owned content isn't typically where you spend paid media dollars, so investing the time in great owned content can have an impact on your budget!

Customers are Your Compass

The most valuable strategic weapon in your marketing arsenal is your relationship with your audience. Nobody knows them like you. Using data collected from how and when customers experience the brand gives you an excellent starting place in developing content that will resonate with them on your owned channels. It will help formulate brand messaging, including whether it should be short and sweet, or a little more in-depth.

Social Media, the Digital Town Hall

Think of your customer base as your brand’s built-in community. This makes running social media like hosting your own town hall, 24/7. Fun! But for customers, it’s a critical touchpoint for questions, giving praise, providing criticism, and callouts for customer support. Make sure your team is equipped to track social media sentiment and quickly steer critical conversations to a resolution by directly addressing customer needs. Sometimes they just want their criticisms to be heard and that’s okay. Thank them for their feedback. Your community management team can help you track upticks in certain questions or topics that can steer messages for other owned content channels. Is a certain question continuing to insert itself into your Facebook comment feed? Address it by writing a thorough blog covering the topic in detail. In turn, your customer experience elevates, your audience will come back to you for more resourceful information, and you got to control the narrative. Win, win, win! 

Flex your Expertise

Your brand needs a blog. Look where you are right now. Howdy! Consumers scour the web, jonesing red-eyed and frothy looking for their fix of content. Give ‘em some. When it comes to your brand’s owned content, start with topics relevant to your brand and industry such as design and product insights or sharing industry-relevant articles. You are a subject matter expert, so it’s time you flex it. Don’t forget you can always use social media to steer customers to your blog. Link in bio, everyone!

Not only does thought leadership position you as an expert in your field and therefore worthy of customer loyalty, but creating good content supports your overall search marketing efforts by improving your quality score for the topics you want to be recognized for. Dominating your owned channels will greatly benefit your comprehensive marketing strategy. 

Voice Reigns Supreme

We all read, speak, and type in our own voices. Brands have voices too. They use a combination of verbiage and sentence structure uniquely tailored to their audience. Its uniform implementation on websites, brand mottos and press releases ensures a cohesive brand experience.

Strategically, a brand’s voice resonates with audiences by directly speaking to them. For example, CRAFTSMAN Tools’ brand voice is like a DIY dad—simple, a little gruff, but with a heart of gold. Meanwhile, Mattel’s brand voice is fun, easily digestible and aspiring. Both brands use language inherent to their audience. If they were to swap voices, funny as it may be, customers would feel alienated and confused. Establishing a brand voice is essential to your owned content strategy. You lose trust if your blogs don't reflect the brand voice of your social posts or your branded emails. The goal is to stay consistent, establish community management guides, and brand standards. 

With owned content, chances are your channels are already in place waiting for you to make the time investment to optimize them. Make the investment to create new landing pages, start a blog, establish a branded email strategy, host a webinar. The results will follow when your audience starts coming back for more. Your brand is already in position, now it’s time to make your move.

Have questions about building a loyal audience using content? Drop us a message or read another blog on content here.