3 companies who are doing content marketing in the right way

branches&creaturesAccording to Content Marketing Institute, 90% of the companies are using content marketing, however only one third of third of them are satisfied with the response that they get. According to DemandMetric, it is 62% cheaper than the traditional marketing.

Is content marketing an integral part of your startup? Are you pouring in hours of hard work and efforts to build a strong brand on the plinth of content marketing yet failing in some way to get the desired traction? Often it is beneficial to adopt strategies that made the existing brands the best in business rather than searching for never-before tried techniques.

In this article, lets learn from these 3 companies who do content marketing in the right way to build customer centric brands, increase the product users, signups and get established as thought leaders in their niche.

HubSpot – HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales software started in 2006 with 3 employees, 3 customers that gained more than 10,000 customers, 668 employees and $77.6 million revenues in 2013. A feat almost impossible to achieve for a Business-to-Business enterprise.

How did they grow – HubSpot generates a huge amount of free content in form of e-books, webinars, blog articles and infographics that gets them millions of page views. The CMO at HubSpot Mike Volpe says that the inbound (organic) leads are converted twice more than the outbound (paid) leads. The strategy that worked wonders for them is that below each blog post is a free e-book or webinar based on that topic. The reader doesn’t have to look around for free resources, the relevant freebies are presented to him. So suppose I am reading an article on “How to create my Facebook business page”, at the bottom of the article is a call-to-action link to a free e-book on setting up the Facebook page and how to master all its features.

Key takeaway – HubSpot uses a range of educational, informative and actionable free content and free tools to help the potential customers. The content is separated into 3 categories – sales, marketing and agency to ensure that the content doesn’t mingle with the other niche and they allow their employees to create expert content for the blog.

Dollar Shave Club – Getting a sound footing in the shaving razor industry niche dominated by traditional honchos like Gillette and Procter and Gamble is a thought that would scare most of us. A four year old brand, Dollar Shave Club broke into this market with their own razor blades shipped to men on a subscription model using video content marketing to gain 12,000 customers within the first 2 days of their product launch. They now deliver razors and other men’s personal grooming products to more than 1.5 million happy customers who have a great relationship with the company.

How did they grow – Dollar Shave Club Wiki uses funny and entertaining videos to connect with their target audience and gain their attention. Their CEO Michael Dublin stares in each of these videos, they have no celebrity endorsements, they use such videos to launch a new product and their first video garnered 5 million views within the first 3 months. After understanding their audience’s pain points, they launch products to help the audience and speak in a humorous language that can be easily understood by even layman.

Key takeaway – Your content marketing doesn’t necessarily need a blog. First zero on the social networks where most of your audience is present, (in this case YouTube) and then adopt a content strategy that’ll attract the audience on each of these networks. Conveying your message in a humorous tone and with visual content has a better impact.

Buffer App – For the social media scheduling app Buffer, content marketing accounts for 70% of their daily signups. Each of their blog posts gets on an average 1900 shares! Buffer uses content marketing as their primary channel for growth, they’re known to have built their company on the platform of content marketing and guest blogging.

How did they grow – A blend of data-driven insights, curated content, storytelling and transparency has helped them catch attention of the target audience. Their content focusses mainly on making the job of their target audience (content crafters and marketers, digital marketers and social media marketers) easier. Their founder, Leo Widrich used guest posting to gain from 0-100,000 customers in the first year. Their blogs are an excellent example of content curation, which points to another fact – you don’t always have to reinvent the content creation wheel.

Key takeaway – Actionable, unique, thorough and detailed listicles that help your target audience simplify their task are always well-received by the users and audience. Guest posting unique and valuable content is far from being dead, it helps brands gain immense traction.

Content marketing doesn’t give instant rewards, it takes time to craft the best quality content, distribute it among the media sources, get attention of the target audience and gain the market leadership. When done consistently over a period of time, positive results start showing and it’ll help your brand scale up immensely.

Who plays a more incremental role in building brands? Loyalty or marketing

Congrats for climbing the corporate hierarchy to become the Chief Marketing Officer. You deserved it, after all the hard work that was poured. Now I offer my condolence. Until you step into the shoes of Chief Loyalty Officer, you’ll sooner or later be by replaced by someone else.

Am I sounding preposterous? Here is the best proof. Apple that dominates the smartphone market. Their all-time record breaking earnings released officially last year show that more than 87% of their revenues are generated by the sale of their iPhones. Although they come up with dazzling products such as Apple HealthKit, Apple Pay and Apple watch, disruptive technology and ideas, but our loyalty will always tilt towards the iPhone. Come in any polished iOS version or starts the preordering of a new iPhone and either we or some of our friends pre-order them before even its entry into the market. What sort of loyalty does Apple garner? The sale of 74.5 million brand new phones with least efforts in marketing and advertising! Apple’s marketing and advertising simply constitutes a few TV ads and bill-boards.

Yes I know very well that not every company wields power and dexterity equivalent to Apple and allowing the product to be the sole story-teller is a luxury very few brands can afford. But the lesson every brand can learn is: Try concentrating on building a solid customer loyalty rather than pouring in all efforts over traditional and modern marketing.

Almost every other person I ask derives the figurative meaning of marketing as selling a product. However it’s a one-sided endeavor where marketers are given the sole responsibility of selling the product. This may have worked previously, but social media has transformed the consumers into the sole advocates of a brand, their voice and opinion more influential than the traditional marketing.

While buying something, wouldn’t you prefer a brand which you’re more loyal to then going in for the one that has excellent marketing? Yes initially influential marketing plays a small role but it doesn’t always lead to inculcating loyalty. People are more inclined to choosing a brand whose brand values they want to be affiliated with. With a plethora of options available in the market why will a person choose your brand over the others? Does the brand resonate with the priorities and beliefs of the audience? So here comes the nagging question, how to build a brand powered by loyalty? A simple answer, curate or deliver content that is so specific that is defines the users/ consumers and the brand itself.

Another example, Chipotle, the good junk food brand with healthier meat that is antibiotic and hormones free, cheese obtained from pasture-raised cattle and produces that are local resonate a very high level of loyalty among fans. They are socially conscious, conveying their ideology that a person’s meal is not merely just food, it’s more than that. They come up with campaigns, one among them was “Cultivating Thoughts”, with writers such as Malcolm Gladwell coming up with small texts to appear on their cups and they have a dedicated microsite for them. Such ideas do not come from the marketing team’s cubicle or a PR’s agency, one fine day Jonathan Safran Foer was out of stuff to read at Chipotle. All these efforts are directed towards building loyalty. These efforts or resources won’t make direct money for the company, but sheds light on the efforts to build good faith, perfectly tailored for their customers.

What makes fans come repeatedly to brands such as Apple and Chipotle? It is their assurance at being a kind of person their target audience wants them to be. Apart from the convenience of transaction, people desire to understand the meaning behind a brand. A marketer’s words are merely a jumble of disorganized sentences aiming to make the customer buy a product that often bounces off the brain walls of the audience. While building loyalty involves loving the users, knowing them and interacting with them every single day. Each of these interaction should emancipate passion and a hunger to know the users deeply and their way of interacting with your brand or product. So what is the role of a Chief Loyalty Officer? To concentrate more on “What should our brand be?” rather than focusing their efforts on thinking about “What should our brand say?”