An Advertorial is Perfect for Growing Your Business
Gain Visibility While Educating Your Customers
Have you ever read an interesting article to only discover that it is an advertorial instead? An advertorial is a cross between an advertisement and editorial content; therefore, the name advertorial. A company sponsors, pays for and often writes it or hires an agency to produce the content. An advertorial can be published in print publications and in digital media. Its goal is to inform prospects about a company’s product while also providing educational content. The words, sponsored content or advertorial, are posted either at the top or the bottom of the piece.
An Advertorial Offers Many Benefits
As you develop your 2021 marketing plans, you should include an advertorial in your list of various types of content. Below are the benefits it offers over traditional ads.
1. Provide an Impactful Message
Advertorials are highly effective. Readers are much more likely to read an advertorial than a traditional ad because it is not a pure sales pitch. Advertorials not only present information about your product, but they also tell a story. These stories allow you to demonstrate your company’s expertise in a particular market.
The diamonddog Marketing team created the above advertorial, which was published in Mobile Sports Report.
2. Increase Engagement
Since advertorials are less intrusive than other types of ads, consumers are more likely to not only read them, but also to interact with them in various ways.
- According to a Reader’s Digest study, advertorials resulted in 81 percent more orders than traditional ads.
- Compelling advertorials lead to more shares on social media than classic advertisements. The links shared in posts increase your brand’s visibility.
- Advertorials not only increase brand visibility, but also brand lift, which is a positive shift in a consumer’s awareness of a brand.
3. Retarget Your Existing Customer Base
Advertorials are valuable pieces of content that can be repurposed for your next newsletter. You can include a portion of the advertorial in the newsletter and then drive your subscribers to your website to read the entire piece, which can be in the form of a blog. You want to encourage your subscribers to share it on their social media sites, which will again lead to enhanced brand awareness.
Tips for Creating an Effective Advertorial
An advertorial may take time to produce, but if done properly it is an invaluable piece of content. The tips below will help you create a successful advertorial.
1. Conduct Research
Before you begin to write the content for your advertorial, your first step is research. You should investigate different media outlets and create a short list of the best ones for your advertorial. Next, do a deeper dive into the publications on your short list. Your research should include reviewing previous articles to obtain a good feel for the publication’s tone. Also, you should review the outlet’s media kit, which often is readily available to download on the publications’s website. If it is not online, you can request a copy using the contact us form. A media kit provides key reader demographics, such as job title, geographic area, industry, and much more. Also, read any comments, reviews, or forums to gain better insight into readers’ questions, concerns and areas of interest. By clearly understanding the publication’s audience, you can develop an advertorial that will resonate.
2. Write Informational Content, Not a Sales Pitch
After you finish your research, it is time to get down to writing your advertorial. An advertorial’s content is educational and positions your company as an industry expert. You can write your advertorial with the goal of repurposing it into a blog post. People look at blogs as trusted sources of information. In fact, 81 percent of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs. And, millennials and Generation X are the biggest readers of blogs.
3. Demonstrate Your Company is a Problem Solver
Of course, an advertorial is supposed to help your company, but ultimately, it should demonstrate how it solves a customer’s issue. Often prospects have similar problems that need to be resolved; therefore, advertorials often turn readers into new customers.
4. Include a Call-to-Action
Now that you have educated your reader and introduced your company’s product to them, the last step is an effective call-to-action. It should not be overly powerful, but a subtle message. It can include a direct link to your website’s home page or to a particular product page. Also, you can link your advertorial to a landing page for an exclusive offer or to download a longer piece of educational content, such as a case study or a white paper. Finally, the call-to-action should be very specific to the featured brand or product discussed in the advertorial.
Spice Up Your Content Marketing Strategy with an Advertorial
An advertorial allows marketers to tell their story in a different and interesting way. It is an effective tool that is not only informational and inspirational, but also pre-sells to target audiences. When planning your content marketing strategy include an advertorial.
If you would like to learn more about advertorials and how they can help grow your business, the diamonddog Marketing team is here to help. Contact us at 847-269-1422 or info@diamonddogmarketing.com.
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