It’s essentially impossible for most businesses to ignore content marketing in their digital marketing strategy. From the need to offer quality content that attracts search engines and feeds their algorithms, to the recognition that consumers increasingly wish to be informed and entertained rather than force-fed advertising, content is still “king”.
There are many forms of content – from videos that are only 6 seconds to much longer ones, and even live-streamed events. There are images and infographics, animations, informal postings such as blogs and vlogs, short informational pieces including ebooks and checklists, and high-quality in-depth research, articles and white papers. Luckily for every hard-worked producer, there’s often the possibility of getting satisfied users to create content for the business, rather than having to do everything in-house.
Content that’s topical, valuable and well-targeted to the desired audience can be highly effective, and far more memorable to consumers than the average commercial (which they tend to tune out and even to block online). In October of 2019 (which happens to be National Pizza Month), DiGiorno offered free delivery to customers who tweeted using the hashtag #DeliverDiGiorno and the name of their city. Certain cities were chosen for the free delivery, and there was also a contest for people to guess which cities these would be. As a result, 1,100 pizzas were delivered in five cities, and the campaign received over 55 million impressions.
Successful content campaigns can also be repeated and recycled – Spotify is well known for their year-end “Wrapped” compilations of the most popular songs, artists and albums. At the end of 2019, they included personalised summaries of the past decade, showing how users’ tastes and preferences had evolved over time. This perfect combination of personal appeal and nostalgia generated huge levels of sharing, meaning that Spotify could rely on their followers to promote the content for them.
And Blendtec have been producing episodes of their famous “Will it Blend?” videos since 2006. It’s been so successful that they’ve even created a line of “Will it Blend?” merchandise such as t-shirts. Blendtec’s YouTube channel has received nearly 291 million views!
You don’t need an established brand or a major marketing budget to find success through content. Robert Ellis founded Bavarian Clockworks in 2015 as a US-based, family-owned business selling high quality Black Forest cuckoo clocks. They focused on creating content that not only offered tips on clock care and maintenance, but also related information about German travel and culture. In addition to posting on their own website and social media, they gave interviews and wrote guest posts for sites with readerships that matched their target audiences, relying largely on organic (i.e. unpaid) growth, although they did hire a good SEO agency. And it worked – after only three years from starting at zero, the business sales exceeded $1 million.
You can see the themes here – creating content that’s valuable, engaging, intriguing and shareable, and partnering with sites that have complimentary themes or audiences, and attaching offers that lead people to engage with your business wherever that’s relevant.
Content can be very powerful, but there is a lot to think about. That’s where our new lessons on content marketing come in. We help you to develop a “content mindset” and we explore what’s involved in a good content strategy. We can’t make your content for you – but we can certainly offer plenty of insights and ideas to get your creative juices flowing!
