How to turn summer planning content into a high-value advertiser program

If you’re looking for a way to add a little spice to your sponsored content offerings this summer, I’ve got an idea that would attract your advertisers’ attention and be really useful content for your audience.

The idea is to offer a summer spotlight series on ways that readers can navigate all that is great about your city, region or state and provide advertisers an opportunity to sponsor the content and also tell their unique stories.

Let’s get into how this would all work

What’s the overall strategy with this campaign?

The idea is to build a focused summer program around a few topics your audience already cares about, where you also have strong advertiser alignment already.

From there, you’re giving a small, exclusive group of advertisers two significant products. They show up in the guides readers are actively using to plan their summer, and they also have their own set of standalone sponsored content stories that go deeper into what they offer.

Here’s how I’d imagine you could structure something like this:

• 4 categories with exclusivity: You would provide advertisers in four different industries exclusivity (first come, first serve) to be the only business of their type to be featured in the program. I’d focus on industries like food and beverage, health and fitness, entertainment and travel.
• Sponsored content stories: Provide each of those four businesses the opportunity to have three sponsored content stories written about them throughout the summer. That could be anything from something new they are offering to showing off their expertise. But tie it to summer.
• Create lists and showcase them: Create lists that would be useful for readers throughout the summer but also ones that tie to those advertising categories, things like: Best places to cool off, easy family picnic spots and summer festivals worth the drive. The idea with these lists is to provide the advertiser the ability to have their logo at the top of the list in a presented-by fashion and be mentioned in the guide with a “featured advertiser” label with a description about them.

So the advertiser not only gets a series of branded content articles, but they also get mentioned in highly-read guides.

How would this work for a single advertiser?

Let’s take an attraction that might be in most cities, like a zoo and break this down.

Their branded content stories

Here’s a sample of what those three stories could look like. These all should have some connection to summer fun:

• Animals you can’t miss at the zoo this summer (and best times to see them)
• Is a zoo membership worth it? How families get the most out of it all summer
• A full day itinerary for a family day at the zoo this summer

Guide placements

Now, here’s a look at the guides you would create that aren’t all about the zoo but where the zoo could naturally fit in the listing as a “featured advertiser” at the top with a description.

• Best things to do with kids this summer including events attractions and local family favorites
• Outdoor attractions and activities including parks, trails, nature spots and places to get outside
• Family day trip ideas in and around town, including easy getaways, local destinations and things worth the drive

Why is this an effective strategy?

I love this idea because it creates scarcity around a specific industry and features a program that gives major visibility to an advertiser.

This idea doesn’t necessarily have to be done with 12 advertisers, you honestly could sell it to just one or two and make it work, but I do like the 12 weeks branding.

While I love what a traditional branded content story provides an advertiser, I also know that providing variety is important. That’s one of the reasons we like to feature things like Reels or interactive graphics with branded content. But it’s also why adding guides as part of this program works so well, they are likely  reaching readers who are seeking different experiences with their content.

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