You’ve probably encountered it before: that content that suddenly locks up after just a few seconds, requiring you to enter your contact information to access it.

GIF Source: Giphy

That’s what we call premium content! 

But what exactly is it, and why do so many brands use it? More importantly, how can you create your own compelling premium content?

In this guide, we’ll dive deep into the world of premium content. We’ll start with the basics and work our way up, exploring what makes premium content so effective and how you can leverage it to engage and convert your audience.

What is premium content?

Premium content is a type of content your audience pays for or provides their contact information in exchange for it. 

An example is the popular Google Ads Masterclass by Skillshare which costs $32 per month. 

And the goal is to give users access to content they can’t get for free. 

But, what makes this content format ‘premium’?

Several things, as you’ll discover below.

What are the key characteristics of premium content?

Typical premium content should have the following characteristics: 

• Highly targeted: It’s usually aimed at people in the middle of the funnel (MOFU) who understand their challenges and are considering your brand as a possible solution as well as people at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) who are ready to buy. 

People in these categories are ready to take action and don’t mind paying for content that offers them a solution. The point is that premium content is exclusive because of whom it’s targeting and the value of its information.

• High content production value: Another reason this content type is premium is because of the work that goes into producing it. It has to be high-end material, worthy of its price tag. This includes properly designed layouts, classy color schemes, professionally edited videos, and high-res photos.
• Exclusive information: Premium content has to be original, and hard to get. Because you can’t say it’s premium if they can find it elsewhere. 

As such, the data used has to be from in-depth research, interviews, surveys, or proprietary data. The more exclusive the information, the more valuable the content. 

• Visually interactive: People should get lost when engaging with great premium content. It shouldn’t be like other materials they start reading and drop after 10 minutes. You want to move readers from being passive consumers to actively engaging with interactive content by clicking, swiping, or hovering over visual assets.

Now, to know what content passes as premium content, let’s discuss the different types available in the next section.

What are the different types of premium content?

There are several forms of premium content you can use but here are our top selections:

1. Webinars

This form of premium content allows the audience to engage with you in real time. 

You invite experts and industry leaders to speak with participants in a closed online meeting and they get to ask questions and receive feedback. 

Now, how does this classify as premium content? 

Because the audience gets exclusive access to the training by registering for it with their personal information. 

2. Digital magazines

These are e-versions of traditional print magazines we loved growing up. But unlike their static counterpart that’s usually paid for upfront, e-versions usually adopt a freemium strategy. 

They offer free content to users and ask them to pay for exclusive value. 

With digital magazines, you can offer exclusive content to paying subscribers without the stress of printing a typical magazine. 

This is kinda the approach the New York Times uses. Most of its content is exclusive so visitors have limited access to content or have a minute to glance through the piece before they’re asked to become paying subscribers. 

Image Source: New York Times

Digital magazines are considered premium content because the content there is typically obtained from research, interviews, and experts. So readers will defo be getting exclusive information from it. 

3. Interactive e-books and white papers

E-books and white papers have been the ‘poster kids’ of premium content for a long time in content marketing. 

They are usually available in PDF format that’s accessible when the audience provides their contact information. 

You do lots of original research, write about it or provide in-depth unique solutions to people’s problems, and voila…you have premium content. 

While that works, you’re kinda limited in what you can do with this type of content. You can’t really prep it for search engine optimization (SEO) or monitor its performance. You can only track the number of leads generated or PDFs downloaded. 

A better approach to this is to make the e-books and white papers interactive by adding audio, interactive graphs, or clickable assets people can engage with.

This makes both types of content more attractive and exclusive, like this white paper by Venminder, a risk-management software program.

Plus, you can optimize them for SEO and monitor how people engage with the experience. 

4. Podcasts

While most podcasts have freemium content, there are exclusive versions that require a monthly subscription to access them. 

In these premium versions, the audience can listen to experts and high-profile guests have in-depth conversations about different niche topics that aren’t available in the free content. People also get access to the podcast's transcripts and bonus episodes, or lifetime access to all the podcast creator’s content. 

That’s what Photographers Keeping It Real did with their podcast.

Each of their podcasts has a standard version everyone can listen to for free. But there’s an extended version where they discuss marketing, business, etc., that’s available only to their members. 

The members also have personalized podcast links sent to them via email. 

5. Case studies

If you create killer case studies that can help your audience find solutions to their problems, it can become premium content for you. 

An example of a brand that does this is Harvard Business Review. 

Image Source: HBR

It’s an institution that has created case studies and simplified complex dilemmas for its audience for over 100 years, so its content is gold.  

People who want the premium case study have to pay for it. It’s not even available to HBR’s paying subscribers. It’s exclusive premium content. 

6. Checklists

Think of checklists as a guide giving you a detailed step-by-step process on how to make money from your blog. 

Would you be open to paying for content like that?

We bet you would, especially if it’s from an industry leader you trust. 

That’s why checklists can be tagged as premium content. You outline what people need to do to get successful results. 

GIF Source: Giphy

Essentially, it’s valuable content based on experience and a track record of success that people can apply to their business or life if they want success similar to yours.  

7. Interactive annual reports

Interactive annual reports are materials that outline your business’s accomplishments from the previous year in an engaging way. 

But how do they fall in the premium content box?

While people don’t necessarily pay for an annual report, they usually have to provide their details to access it. 

And that makes it premium. 

Instead of monetary profit, you get new leads you can mail offers to.

8. Templates

Templates are similar to checklists. But instead of a detailed process to follow and mark when completed, you have a layout to edit. 

Let’s say you want to write a business proposal but don’t know how. Then, someone with a track record of 20 approved proposals offers you their template for a fee. 

All you have to do is tweak it to suit your needs and that’s all. 

It saves you time and effort, possibly increasing your chances of getting the proposal approved. 

Templates give you a headstart and simplify processes that would otherwise be complex.

9. Research reports

Doing research in any industry is no easy task. 

You do field work by surveying or interviewing people, compiling their responses, analyzing them, and drawing data-based conclusions.

It’s original work no one has done before and is expensive. 

So, it can be classified as premium content. 

You attach a price tag to it or ask interested visitors to provide their details in exchange for the report. 

That’s what eMarketer, a market research company, does. Marketers can access the latest industry trends, insights, and stats if they’re subscribed to the platform. 

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Overall, premium content can be any content type in any format that offers people value they can’t get anywhere else.

But then as a marketer concerned about giving every visitor or client a great brand experience, creating premium content probably doesn’t sit well with you.

You want everyone to have all they need when they visit your website. 

We feel you!

So let’s explain why creating premium content can be a good move for your business.

What are the benefits of premium content?

Let’s cut right to the chase… premium content helps increase your revenue. 

If you’ve been looking for ways to increase your monthly earnings as a brand, premium content can be the answer. 

And if you leverage the subscription model for payments, you can even predict profit monthly inflows. 

But that’s just the beginning, creating premium content offers your brand…

• Better engagement: Premium content helps increase user engagement with your brand by providing valuable content that looks cool. Now because the solutions to their challenges are presented uniquely, they’re encouraged to spend more time engaging with the content. 

Take Allen Matkins, for instance, a law firm that started creating premium content. Their content used to be static and boring PDFs leading to less engagement from readers. 

Then, they decided to use Ceros, a content creation platform to produce premium content, making it engaging by adding interactive elements such as animations and clickable assets. 

That move to premium content became a game-changer. The interactive content created on Ceros attracted and sustained visitors’ attention longer than their previous content. 

Plus, they noticed a surge in engagement across their digital platforms. 

• Better reach: People looking for solutions to their challenges love valuable content because it caters to their needs. And when they do find it, there’s a chance they'll share it with people in their network. That, in turn, will increase your brand’s reach. 
• Improved time on page: If you offer people high-quality content in a visually appealing way, they’ll stick around to see all you have in stock. In Allen Matkins’ case, their audience spent more time engaging with their content. 
• Better user experience: Another reason premium content is important is because of the user experience it offers compared to free content. Users won’t have to skip ads or read through them when engaging the content. They can focus on the material with no distractions. 

Netflix or other paid streaming services are great examples of this benefit in action. How often do you have to wait for an ad to finish to enjoy movies on Netflix? Never, yeah? That’s why premium content is great and people love it.  

• Higher conversion rates: You see people love the idea of ad-free content. They feel the content will be more relevant, unique, and accurate. So when you create premium content, you improve the chances of raising your conversion rates. 

That’s what the New York Times has experienced since making its news content ad-free and premium. In 2020, the year of the pandemic, it added 2.3 million digital-only subscriptions. One of its news products got about 1.7 million subscribers, a 48% increase from the previous year.

Now that you know why premium content can be a gold mine, let’s walk you through how to create it.

How to design premium content

If you want to create premium content that can bring in the recurring revenue we spoke about, here are the steps to follow:

Identify your target audience

Premium content isn’t for everyone. As such, you should know your audience before creating content. What are their demographics, interests, industry, and needs?

One way to do that is to interview existing customers or conduct surveys. Figure out what challenges they face so you can create content that solves them. 

Now, your premium content audience can also be competitors who haven’t experienced the same success as you. 

Want to know who they are? 

• Do keyword research. Input some of the keywords associated with your brand, industry, or product in search engines and look at people who’ve created content around that.
• Check out online communities like Reddit or Quora. Again, you can use industry keywords to find those communities. You’ll even find issues some of them are facing.  

Use professional tools for high-quality content creation

Your next step after identifying your audience is to put together tools to help you produce unique, high-quality content. 

Here are some tools and software that will come in handy:

• Ceros helps you make the premium content engaging and interactive by adding different assets like animations, quizzes, clickable elements, and games. 
• Statista or eMarketer for market research and monitoring trends. 
• Tableau to analyze and visualize research data. 
• Grammarly to proofread your content.
• Zoom or Google Meet to organize, host, and record online webinars.

In addition to these, it’s also helpful to hire professional content creators, writers, and designers to ensure the content looks polished. 

Create high-quality content at scale

Now, it’s time to use the data obtained through research, interviews, or experience to create content. 

Not sure how to even begin?

You can go through some exclusive examples on Ceros for inspiration. 

Find templates for different types of content; digital magazines, interactive e-books, case studies, reports, etc. to help you start producing digital content quickly. 

This way, you can produce content that sets you apart from competitors. 

Implement a robust distribution strategy

If you want this content strategy to be effective, you need to have a plan to reach your audience. 

This could mean creating social media posts (video content, images, or infographics) from the material to promote on social sites your audience spends time on. 

Here are other distribution options to consider:

• Collaboration with industry influencers and leaders to create a post about it. Typically, you want to give them access to the content so they share honest reviews and tag you to it. 
• Launch an email marketing campaign. Send newsletters to existing clients, new leads, potential customers, and competitors. 
• Host a free webinar on a related topic and refer the audience to the premium content. 
• Run paid ads. You can set up paid targeted campaigns on social media or Google Ads.  

Track, measure, and optimize

As people begin to access and engage with premium content, you need to start tracking its performance. 

You can start by using social listening tools like SproutSocial to check what people are saying about the content on social media. Simply connect your social media platforms to the tool and it’ll sift through data to find relevant mentions of your brand. 

Check if people are mentioning the material or the solutions they’ve found using your product or service. Do they have positive or negative reviews?

This will give you a general idea of what people think about your brand or the material in general. 

Since it’s premium content and won’t be accessible to everyone, you want to track how people engage with it. Find out…

• How much time do they spend on it?
• What page or section of the material do they spend most of their time on?
• How many times have they gone through the content?
• What devices do they use?

And how do you know all that? Using Ceros Analytics! It helps you track the content performance and provides you with insights needed to make the content better.

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That, folks, brings us to the end of this guide. 

We’re not big on goodbyes…so instead of that, we’d rather go with some parting words you’d like to hear.

Over to you!

You’re ready to start creating premium content but worried it won’t have the high-quality look you’re going for. 

Does that sound like you?

Well, you’re in safe hands. 

Ceros is a tool known for creating premium content that will keep people hooked to the material from start to finish. 

One of our users, the VP of trade marketing at NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company said, “A lot of those interactive Ceros pieces have driven sales over the line.” 

So, yeah, we’re not just being proud. 😀 We’ve actually helped our clients bring in the big bucks.

If you’d like to join the train, book a demo with Ceros today, and let’s take things up from there.