How to Choose the Right Sponsored Content Channels

Sponsored content is more than just getting as many people as possible to talk about your brand. In fact, it’s not all about your brand. Through sponsored content, you share an audience with publishers and influencers and you benefit from your content channel's credibility and authenticity.

That's why choosing the right content channels that can help you achieve your objectives is a crucial step.

It’s tempting to simply choose the online magazine with the biggest traffic or the influencer with the highest number of followers. But would the content you will be co-creating with these partners be relevant to your audience? And would they look and feel native?

When choosing the content channels to work with, you should ask two important questions: Which influencers or publishers match my brand? What are my communication objectives?

Choose publishers and influencers that match your brand

A good way for you to identify the content channels that match your brand is for you to think in terms of content categories. This is not just about product categories, but the kinds of stories that you brand can easily lend itself into.

Identifying the right content categories for your brand allows you to limit yourself to publishers and influencers who fall under these categories.

If you’re a travel brand, for example, you can of course easily weave your brand into stories by travel influencers and publishers but it also makes sense for lifestyle content partners to talk about travel and hint about your brand. Parenting content producers also talk about travel a lot.

Sponsored content channels in these categories not only effortlessly tell stories about travel and travel brands but also have audiences that are susceptible to your brand messaging. It also makes it much easier to think of potential content partners using these categories.

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Authority levels of sponsored content channels

Once you’ve identified the sponsored content channels that match your brand, the next step would be to filter the list down based on your campaign objectives.

We at GetCRAFT find that sponsored content channels tend to fall under three authority levels: emerging, niche, and established. We recommend that you work with publishers and influencers across these levels as you along the marketing funnel.

Emerging publishers or influencers tend to command lower authority among audiences and also limited views. These content partners are however inexpensive, highly creative, and produce content that is more relevant to audiences compared to that of established content partners.

Niche sites or influencers are often the most effective channels to focus on. Although they have weaker authority compared to established content partners, they tend to generate high total views because of their targeted nature.

Established sites or influencers have the highest authority levels but are also the most expensive. Halo effect makes them good for boosting brand reputation. The fact that they cater to wide audience segments, however, makes them less relevant, and also limits their creativity.

Filter sponsored content channels using campaign objectives

In the brand awareness phase, your goal is to have everyone talking about your brand. To do that, we suggest that you work with as many channels as possible—across emerging, niche, and established categories—and put out as many as 20 messages in only two or three days.

In the brand building phase, where building credibility is key, we recommend focusing on niche channels. The goal is to establish brand recall among audiences, often through the production of a series of some 20 messages in a month.

In the product consideration phase, we suggest pushing out messages through established and niche channels. To give your audience enough time to participate and so as not to bore them, we suggest you space out some 20 messages in a week.

Its benefits notwithstanding, sponsored content can be daunting. Imagine having to reach out to influencers and publishers individually! That's why we're making it easy for you through our Marketplace, which connects you with thousands of content creators and sponsored content channels.

Visit the GetCraft Marketplace