Creative Sparks That Hit the Content Mark: 9 Lessons From 75 Brands. Want to know the secrets of building creative, compelling, impactful content — the kinds of powerful, relatable experiences that memories, memes, and Medium articles are all made from and that motivate minions of followers to make a purchase from our brands? To inspire your business to make a little magic of its own, we’ve compiled 75 of our favorite content efforts into our latest e-book, 75 More Examples to Inspire Your Content Marketing Success. Enabling your audience to share how your products and services are featured in their everyday lives. Lesson 2: Place your products in a practical context Creating content that provides exclusive tips, reveals hidden functionalities, or offers helpful user hacks and shortcuts can deepen your customer engagement while helping your customers get more out of their investment in your brand. Bitly leveraged the e-book format to highlight the unexpected ways its link-shortening service can be used to make a big impact on branding, social media, metrics, and content marketing efforts. By including over 30 third-party examples, along with perspectives from marketers who are personally using the service for their business, the company makes a compelling case for marketers to buy in to Bitly. Those that are most compelling tell an emotional series of personal stories that your customers can relate to or enable them to experience those emotions firsthand. Lesson 6: Encourage deeper brand explorations Content works best when it’s focused on building a subscribed audience because this level of support is often associated with increased engagement, loyalty, and brand evangelism. As an experienced content management consultant, Jodi focuses on helping businesses analyze their content needs and resources; build infrastructure and operations; and create and distribute relevant, engaging brand messages across multiple media channels and platforms.
Want to know the secrets of building creative, compelling,
impactful content — the kinds of powerful, relatable experiences
that memories, memes, and Medium articles are all made from and
that motivate minions of followers to make a purchase from our
brands?
Well, so would I. Wouldn’t it make our jobs as content creators
a heck of a lot easier?
OK, so there may not actually be a
secret formula; but we can all recognize the signs of marketing
magic at play — and it happens any time a brand finds an authentic
story to tell and a smart way to communicate it to spur its target
audience to take action.
Even without having mapped the genome of content genius, content
marketers have been making tremendous strides in their efforts. In
fact, as our
2017 B2B Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America data
shows, 62% of marketers report that their organizations are more
successful at content marketing now than they were a year ago. Of
those who are more successful, 85% attribute their increased
success to content creation factors (e.g., producing higher-quality
content and/or doing so more efficiently).
To inspire your business to make a little magic of its own,
we’ve compiled 75 of our favorite content efforts into our latest
e-book,
75 More Examples to Inspire Your Content Marketing Success.
Updating one of our most popular e-books of all time, this year’s
version illustrates best practices for a wider range of tactics and
formats — from content marketing mainstays like blogs and print
magazines to visual-centric social media platforms to innovative
multichannel experiences.
While there may not be a set path to content marketing success,
many valuable lessons can be learned by observing the craftsmanship
of some of the
best and brightest brands in the content business. Here are
just a few of them to help you create your magic formula for
success:
Lesson 1: Help fans tell their stories
What’s more powerful than content that tells your brand story?
Enabling your audience to share how your products and services are
featured in their everyday lives. Give them a way to express their
ideas, opinions, or artistic talents — and recognize them for their
contributions — and you’ll earn a special place in their
hearts.
Case in point: Shot with iPhone
Apple combed through social media for outstanding photos taken
with the iPhone, gathering shots from 77 people in 24 countries.
The stunning showpieces were then featured in an ongoing series of
videos, TV spots, and outdoor ads, with little to connect them to
the brand, save for the tagline: “Shot on iPhone.” Despite the
minimalist approach to content creation, the campaign was able to
tell complex and emotional stories — without saying a word.
Lesson 2: Place your products in a practical context
Creating content that provides exclusive tips, reveals hidden
functionalities, or offers helpful user hacks and shortcuts can
deepen your customer engagement while helping your customers get
more out of their investment in your brand.
Case in point:
37 Ways Brands Use Bitly
Did you know short links could be used to help marketers track
leads or find the best channel to push a particular product
promotion to? Bitly leveraged the e-book
format to highlight the unexpected ways its link-shortening service
can be used to make a big impact on branding, social media,
metrics, and content marketing efforts. By including over 30
third-party examples, along with perspectives from marketers who
are personally using the service for their business, the company
makes a compelling case for marketers to buy in to Bitly.
Lesson 3: Solve problems with real-world utility
Answering customer questions and helping them more quickly
address problems like service issues or equipment malfunctions is a
great way to increase their satisfaction with your business — not
to mention it can save some wear and tear on your sales and service
teams and call centers.
AT&T U-Verse recognizes the importance of responding to
customer-service inquiries quickly and resolving phone, television,
or internet connectivity issues promptly. Its UFix diagnostic
system was designed to offer customers on-demand, self-service
access (online and on mobile devices) to some of the same
troubleshooting tools its own call-center technicians use. The tool
helps the company cut down on wait times by enabling customers to
check for local service outages, diagnose the most likely cause of
their problem, follow step-by-step instructions to manage
simple…
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