7 Content Marketing Lessons You Need to Succeed
Who does content marketing well, is a question I’m often asked. The more important question for marketers, rather, is: what can you learn from these content marketing rock stars and how can you apply these lessons to your content offering to turn yourself into a rock star?
Here are seven examples of content marketing done well and what you can learn from each.
- Will It Blend? entertains. Industrial strength, blender supplier Blendtec created a series of entertaining videos. These videos demonstrated Blendtec’s Samson-like blending strength through a series of tests complete with lab coated technicians wearing hardhats and goggles. These videos consistently presented their branding, setting and message. Blendtec’s Mount Everest point was the blending of an iPhone. LESSON: Humor can engage visitors and get them to return to your content. Make sure that your content marketing has a fun approach. Everyone needs something to brighten their day.
- The Satorialist inspires. Every fashionista knows prolific photographer, Scott Schuman, with his keen eye for clothing style. His photos are eye candy for anyone in the fashion space. Schuman’s professional portfolio includes top name fashion magazines and brands. In addition, his work has been compiled into a coffee table book. LESSON: Follow your passion to engage and build your audience by stretching yourself and your skills (Photography is a field that lends itself well to blogs as evidenced by many wedding photographer’s portfolios.)
- Kraft Recipes simplify. Kraft gives its prospects, customers and the public what they want in terms of easy-to-use recipes that help make parents’ lives less stressful. Kraft knows its customers well and breaks these recipes into categories such as: budget, time savers and healthy living. LESSON: Know your customers and help them think differently about how and when they use your product. In Kraft’s case, this translates to making life easier by suggesting new dishes that can be made easily.
- American Express Open Forum educates. American Express’ small businesses portal has enough information to provide small business owners with a tailored MBA. American Express offers content created by top names in business across the breadth of the business field. (Of course, American Express is no stranger to content marketing; it’s been in the magazine publishing field for years with notable titles including Travel and Leisure and Food and Wine.) LESSON: Teach prospects by giving them the best high quality content available to help them to achieve their personal goals.
- Orabrush fulfills. What can a small healthcare startup, with a very limited budget, do to break through and get people to care about a product when they don’t know they need it and no drugstore will carry it? Orabush got a Brigham Young University marketing class to brainstorm ideas. The result: a funny, low-budget video that goes viral on YouTube. After seeing the video, people asked their local drugstores for Orbrush to brush their tongues and get rid of bad breath. LESSON: Size doesn’t matter. Your brand’s ability to entertain and connect with customers, helping them recognize and solve a need, is key.
- Hubspot teaches. Hubspot built their inbound marketing business by distributing a wide variety of free advice and research via blogs, research, webinars and presentations to attract a broader audience. Hubspot’s resources are deep and maximize every opportunity to cross sell and upsell. As a result, they’ve engaged marketers. LESSON: Teach them and they will come. Give them useful content that helps them with their jobs and lives and they’ll come back for more.
- Clutter Control Freak sells. This information-rich blog, written by several bloggers, serves up a variety of content around organizing stuff for Stacks and Stacks, a Container Store competitor. Their compelling content provides useful information that solves organization problems. Even better, their blog posts link prospects to the appropriate product when they’re ready to buy, directly driving sales and supporting search optimization. LESSON: Once you’ve gotten your customers in the mood for your offering, don’t leave them confused; show them the way.
The bottom line is that content marketing provides useful information to engage your prospects. What’s important is that you ensure it achieves your marketing goals with appropriate links and calls to action. To this end, make sure you use appropriate content marketing metrics.
What examples would you add to this list and why? What lessons do they offer for other marketers?
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
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Photo credit a4gpa via Flickr
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