It is important to be clear that creating, launching, and maintaining your own brand media is expensive. At the same time, there are no guarantees that these investments will pay off (especially in the near future).

You need to create media with a clear understanding of why you are doing it, what tasks you want to solve and in what timeframe. This tool mainly works at the upper levels of the sales funnel and helps to solve long-term tasks:

generate demand;
increase awareness;
increase SEO traffic;
Build audience trust in the brand.
As you can see, this list does not include short-term tasks with specific KPIs, such as "get N applications", "reduce CPL by X%", "sell Y products". If you are now prioritizing such tasks aimed at making a profit, proceed to reading this section. And if you are ready to act for the long term, then stay here — we will show you what tasks can really be solved with the help of the media.

Brand media should directly or indirectly influence the company's business performance: the number of leads and/or their conversion to the next stage of the funnel. If we focus this on specific tasks, we can distinguish:

Growth of company awareness. The chain is as follows:

create an interesting media that the audience we need will read and subscribe to;
We add recognizable elements to the content: the logo and the name of the company, corporate colors, company products and links to them, mentions of experts from among employees, cases.
That's it — thanks to the media, N new people learned about our company.
Growth of SEO traffic. If the media publishes high-quality information content for search queries, then the site will receive more traffic.
Lead generation. Brand media can be used as a large multi-page form of capture:

release content;
attract an audience from external sources to it;
"Close" the audience for the next step of the funnel: subscribing to a newsletter or social networks, downloading a lead magnet followed by a series of taps, registering, signing up for a consultation with the sales department, etc.
I know that some companies start brand media so that the audience has more confidence in them.  But this effect is difficult to measure, so I see it as a nice bonus.

When Brands Definitely Shouldn't Create Their Own Media
With a limited budget for promotion. If you have a small marketing budget, it's better to allocate the money to promoting the brand itself, products, and useful content, rather than creating media. That way, you'll see results faster and more likely.

For example, you can write useful articles, post them on your blog or in specialized media, and launch advertising: this way your content will find its reader and begin to work on building the loyalty of the target audience to the brand.

If your main task is to sell a product. The media will solve this problem much worse than advertising, since it is a brandformance tool. And you won't see the first results soon, at least in six months.

Not everyone needs brand media. You need to create your own media when all other marketing tools have already been tested and either work well or work ineffectively. In-house media is expensive, does not solve the problem of "sell more right now" and begins to produce results at least six months after launch.

Regular advertising works according to the following principle:

I need a refrigerator;
I see an ad for a refrigerator;
Buy.
Commercial media follows a longer chain:

I see an article about refrigerators;
Wow, they also told me about TVs, it's a pity I didn't read it earlier;
There are so many cool articles here — I guess I'll subscribe;
wow, it turns out that these articles are written by company N;
company N is cool, knows so much about technology.
Getting to know the client will pay off only when he really wants to buy a refrigerator and is the first to remember you as a company that shared its knowledge for a long, honest and interesting time.

You need to understand that brand media will not sell your refrigerators now and maybe even in a month. It will be difficult to track commercial efficiency: if you don't set up end-to-end analytics, you can never say for sure whether a person bought a refrigerator from you on the advice of a friend or because they read your articles every day. But it's easy to track media effectiveness: how many people follow you, how much time they spend on your content, what they share with friends.

There are not many good brand media on the market, because few people are ready to spend 1-1.5 million rubles a month to increase loyalty. Especially if the first results appear only 7-8 million rubles later.
How Brand Media Unites People and Does Everyone Need It
Brand media can become a space where you will form a community from scratch or where you will bring your audience from other channels: social networks, blogs, etc. Then your community will gather in one place and become the basis of your target audience — it will be actively involved in interaction and buy your products.

Interests bring people together. A community within brand media allows people to get the information they are looking for and communicate. Right now, users have a need to belong to a community. Athletes, vegetarians, marketers — each group has its own brands that share their values and help find answers to their questions.

Audience trust and value don't just help brand media increase reach — they lead to regular sales and a longer customer lifecycle.
However, not all brands really need their own community — not every service is sold through content. The choice of specific ways to warm up/generate demand depends on how users consume your product: what their path to purchase looks like, what influences their decisions, which factors are important to them and which are not. A user does not always need to be part of a community to buy a product.

The community is the core of the audience, the most loyal readers. They are among the first to buy the company's products, recommend them to read the media to their friends, and sometimes even participate in the creation of content themselves. But this is not a panacea: not every company necessarily needs to form such a community. The main factor here is the consumption pattern of the product.

Let me explain with our example. The agency "Sdelem" has two directions: the creation of editorial offices for business and the sale of courses for copywriters and editors.

It doesn't make much sense for us to form a community for the service of creating an editorial office. Our clients are those who want to delegate content management to a reliable team and have peace of mind about this area. Why would such people subscribe to us, read us all the time? For them, this is unnecessary: they are more likely to study the market, find a contractor, build work with him, and do other things. Content is not their key interest.

But in the sale of community courses, it is necessary. It's the other way around: copywriters are interested in reading something about content all the time, they live by this topic. That's why they subscribe, follow new materials, like, comment — in short, get involved. And this engaged audience buys our courses because they know we won't do.
5 Tips to Make Brand Media Useful for Both Users and Businesses
Tip 1. Think carefully about the main topic of your media. It should equally:

be interesting and useful for users;
match your product.
Then the content will be read, and you can easily lead users to promote your products.

In order for the media to appeal to readers and at the same time fulfill business tasks, first of all, you need to choose the right topic — one that is interesting to immerse yourself in and through which you can easily lead the reader to the product.

In my opinion, it is very important not to engage in charity for business money. And this often happens: for example, a company is engaged in the implementation of CRM systems, and the media is about how entrepreneurs feel mentally good and cope with difficulties. The message is good, but readers won't go to implement a CRM system just because they were helped to calm down.

It would be better if this company made a media about how to automate sales. Or more broadly: how to increase conversion into sales, sell more, and not lose deals. Such content will attract those who will potentially need a CRM system.
Tip 2. Create SEO content. It will drive additional traffic and introduce your media to a wider audience. Who knows, maybe these users will also become your regular followers.

You need to work with content within the framework of two approaches: media and search. That is, you need to release bright articles that correspond to the agenda, but optimized for search queries.

In general, I recommend adding SEO topics to your content plan. At first, you should publish more search-oriented articles, and then more media articles. In this way, the company will promote its site in search results (and this affects the attraction of customers) and at the same time form a positive reputation.
Tip 3. Work with your audience. First, draw up a portrait of her, analyze her behavior, and only based on this data, form a content plan. It is important to know what problems your target audience is concerned about, what information they lack, and how you can help. All this data should be used in your materials.

It is important for brand media to share the values of their audience. Don't talk about your product, but about the benefits it can bring. Help with tasks and questions. Make recommendations within the framework of the blog. For example, Aviasales prepares travel routes with a list of places to visit and approximate prices. Ozon creates product reviews and helps you make the right choice. Sberbank shares news and helps entrepreneurs take their first steps in business development.

I also recommend arranging interactive activities for the audience: for example, conduct tests and quizzes. These can be entertainment formats that lead to the selection of a brand's product or help you learn more about it.
Tip 4. Promote your products natively. For brand media, a head-on promo is a bad manner. Users come to you for interesting and useful content, not for ads, so it's important to stay unobtrusive.

Remind users of the features of your products in a gentle way. In a native form, offer to get acquainted with new products, talk about promotions, offer test drives and remind about special offers.
Tip 5. Be predictable in a good way. Make a clear publishing plan and always follow it: for example, post new content on a certain schedule, launch regular columns, talk about what comes out on your site and when. Let users know when and what content to come to you for.

When running brand media, keep in mind the regularity and structure. Create rubrics, use various formats of materials, follow the tone of voice and brand identity (visuals are no less important), and regularly fill your resource with content. The audience should know that on Monday they will have a portion of selections, on Wednesday — a test, and on Saturday — an interesting story from the brand ambassador.

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