Penny Riordan is the Director of Business Strategy and Partnerships for the Local Media Association.

For some in news media, branded or sponsored content may be considered a dirty word. Are we trying to trick audiences into reading an article that is an ad? At the Local Media Association, that’s not how we feel about it. More and more businesses and brands are turning to content marketing to connect with their audiences, according to a 2022 study from Borrell Associates. 

So naturally when discussing advertising with local media sources, they would be interested in less traditional forms of advertising such as banner ads. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes, would you rather read a well-researched article on the topic of energy efficiency for your home sponsored by a window company? Or would you rather look at an ad? 

Branded content can be an effective way for news collaboratives to bring in revenue for several reasons:

• News organizations can work to develop the content with the advertiser, instead of just accepting a banner ad. 
• It may be easy to find banks, universities, local nonprofits, chambers of commerce, who are very much invested in the topic your collaborative is reporting on, which means they will want to support your work because it aligns with their mission. 
• Advertising revenue often has fewer restrictions on how the money is spent than grants from a foundation, or tax-deductible donations. Many collaboratives we’ve worked with often struggle to find funding for project managers, because their work isn’t as focused on a specific reporting topic. 

At LMA, we run a program called The Branded Content Project in partnership with the Local Media Consortium. The Branded Content Project website has tons of free resources and training materials for how to launch a branded content strategy. And we also have some real-world examples of collaboratives growing revenue through branded content. 

First, both of our News is Out collaborative and our Word In Black collaborative, have launched branded content campaigns with AARP. The organization’s goals were to reach Black and LGBTQ+ audiences with relevant content they have for older adults. 

• For News is Out, the focus was on caregiving for LGBTQ+ series in a campaign called Caring for Community. 
• For Word In Black, the most recent campaign focused on brain health.
• Our News is Out collaborative also did a campaign with myGwork, a company that promotes LGBTQ+ friendly businesses and jobs. The campaign was to drive more audience to a series of live events they had during Pride in June. 

Why would these companies want to partner with a collaborative? There are a few benefits for them: 

• They know they are reaching a dedicated audience that is interested in the topic.
• Through collaboratives they get to advertise with multiple news outlets at once, which means less paperwork, more reach, and more impact. 

If you are a newsroom or collaborative looking to get started with selling branded content as a revenue source, here are some suggested next steps:

1. Poll the group to see if the newsroom or collaborative is comfortable moving forward with branded content. Here are some ways to get the group aligned: Have a guest speaker talk about branded content initiatives they have done. You can also work on parameters for the campaigns, such as how they are labeled and what disclaimer language is used to note that the content is advertising.

2. Make a list of local and regional advocacy groups, businesses, universities, etc., who are aligned with your mission. 

3. Come up with some informative topic ideas that align with your mission. Here’s some examples:
   1. If you’re focused on climate change, local businesses such as window companies, solar companies, or other energy efficiency companies may be interested in partnering with you on a campaign. They could sponsor a series on home energy efficiency. 
   2. If you’re focusing on seniors and caregiving, assisted living facilities could sponsor a series on how to know when it’s time for a loved one to transition to being cared for in a facility.
   3. If you’re focusing on housing solutions, consider having a bank or mortgage lender sponsor the content.

4. Identify who will be pitching to businesses. This could be a project manager if they don’t have a strong hand in the reporting and editing on the topic to avoid any conflict of interest. You could also have an existing salesperson on the staff sell it on behalf of the group. 

The last step to selling would be to structure the package in such a way that you cover your costs for the work and you bring value to the advertiser. 

Here are two resources that you can use for your own revenue building plan

For example, assuming you have 10 local markets in a collaborative, and you sell one campaign on a series topic (education, climate, listed above) estimated at a $500 cost for freelancers to complete the series. If you price that campaign at $2,000 a month across all the collaborative (keeping in mind the total audience for all members), you can generate $15,000 in monthly revenue. This calculator is adjustable, so play around with it.

Here is a calculator you can utilize to estimate the revenue you can bring in with branded content

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Cite this article

Riordan, Penny (2024, Oct. 9). How branded content is an effective revenue strategy for newsrooms. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/how-branded-content-is-an-effective-revenue-strategy-for-newsrooms/