In Part 1: Why Your Business Needs a Content Marketing Strategy, we discussed the definition of content marketing, and its benefits. In Part 2, we discussed how content marketing can be applied to organizations. In this post, let’s review three organizations across different industries, and take a look at how they’ve created meaningful content that helps them to market their brand.

Wine Library TV (www.winelibrary.com)

If you’re an internet marketing junkie like me, then you’ve probably heard of Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk immigrated to the U.S. as a small child with his family from the U.S.S.R in 1978. Years later, he took his parents’ small liquor store in New Jersey to a new level by launching the video blog (vlog) Wine Library TV in 2006. On Wine Library TV, appearing weekdays via YouTube and podcasts, Vaynerchuk tastes, discusses and rates a selection of wines. Through his casual approach to wines, paired with online media, Vaynerchuk was able to reach out to a whole new group of wine lovers, 90,000 viewers in total, a market segment previously untapped by traditional media.

Slice Network (www.slice.ca)

When Canadians hear Slice Network or Slice TV, they may think of the actual television station with the popular female-oriented programming, but one visit to their website and you can see that they offer much more than just reality TV shows. Along side a library of all of their televisions shows, they have Web-exclusive footage, webisodes (web-only episodes), blogs, advice columns, fashion, health and lifestyle news, articles and podcasts. This is a great way to surround their target audience with information relevant to them. Personally, I could spend hours at a time surfing their website, which I’m sure is great news for their advertisers.

SickKids Foundation (www.sickkidsfoundation.com)

SickKids Foundation is one of North America’s largest charities and is one that has touched the lives of many people. They leverage this fact by encouraging patients and former patients of Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids Hospital) to share their experiences and in turn inspire others.

Their most recent campaign, “I’m a SickKids Kid,” enlists the help of celebrities who are former patients of SickKids Hospital to share their experiences there, and express the need for support so that other kids can get better, just like they did. On their website, former SickKids patients from all over the world can upload photos and written pieces in which they “Share their Story.” Website visitors can then read these stories, reinforcing an emotional connection to the cause.

Through the use of traditional advertising, web advertising services and  social media marketing services to promote the campaign through Twitter and Facebook, SickKids Foundation encourages people to indeed share their stories, as well as watch stories that are already posted.

Using different media across different platforms, SickKids Foundation is able to generate inspiring content that supports their overall messaging (“Together We Will”) that reaches both potential donors and the community.

What all three of these organizations have discovered is that creating meaningful content with consistent messaging not only strengthens your brand but it can gain you a new following and keep customers loyal. So when developing a marketing strategy for your organization, be sure to keep content marketing top of mind.

In Part 1: Why Your Business Needs a Content Marketing Strategy, we reviewed what content marketing actually is, its importance in the overall marketing strategy and its benefits. In this post, we will discuss how a company can use content marketing to meet their business objectives.

Since we defined content marketing as “quality content created on any format for all types of marketing, that is shared and distributed in order to engage consumers and prospects,” then the first step in creating a strategy for your own business, product or service would be to take a look at your customer. Ask yourself the following questions about your customers:

1. Who are they (socio-economically, demographically)?
2. What needs to they have that my business/product/service can meet?
3. Why would they want to consume content that we provide them?
4. Where can I find them?
5. How do they consume most of their information?

Once you define question 1, use the answers from questions 2 and 3 to put together a content plan and deliver it to your customers through the answers from questions 4 and 5.

In other words, take a look at who is your target market, their needs and the channels through which you can reach them. Produce useful, entertaining information that will both position yourself as an industry leader while passively communicating the benefits of what your business has to offer. Distribute this information through those channels.

 For example:

You are a high-end running shoe company and answer the above five questions with the following:

1. Men and women ages 25 to 55 with an average household income of $50k+/year. They are ambitious, urban and health-concious.
2. This demographic buys fitness equipment and clothing on a regular basis and is not afraid to spend a little more money to receive the best in quality and comfort. Your line of sneakers meets this need.
3. If we leverage our heath and fitness industry expertise, we could provide them with useful information in this topic.
4. You can find them online at health-related websites, in gyms, organic food markets, etc.
5. This group tends to be very technologically savvy, and spend a large portion of their day online for information and news consumption: whether on their personal computers, smart phones or on their portable electronic tablet.

With the above answers in mind, you decide to create a series about the importance of fitting an exercise regime into a busy schedule. This is also congruent with your overall Healthy Living marketing campaign. Therefore, you use the following channels in order to provide your target market with information on why it’s important to exercise and tips on how to integrate it into their daily or weekly routine. You narrow down your list of relevant channels used to communicate this information to the following:

• An article or series of articles in your e-newsletter or in an email deployment to your house file
• A Daily Fitness Tips app for mobile devices
• A podcast featuring interviews with top fitness experts
• A Pay-Per-Click campaign that offering a free e-magazine download for every shoe purchased from your online store
• A series of blog posts
• And an entire microsite devoted to the subject

All of the messaging communicated through these channels will be consistent, relevant and useful to consumers in your target.

With the implementation of an engaging content marketing strategy, you will develop a relationship of trust, relevance and community with your client or consumer by providing them with practical information they can use. When done correctly, content marketing can not only position your brand as a leader, but also retain customers and attract new ones as well.

In the online marketing space, the demand for content is increasing dramatically as more and more businesses go online and need additional content for internet users to consume. Competition for online space – both off-site and on-site – is becoming increasingly tough. Therefore, websites need to have content that is all at once useful, engaging and SEO-friendly. In short, a website’s overall marketing strategy needs to include a content marketing strategy.

Content marketing can be defined as quality content created on any format for all types marketing that is shared and distributed in order to engage consumers and prospects. Start to look around you and see what content, especially free content, is available from companies that create products and services you pay for. Some examples of different formats are:

• Magazine supplements to main publications
• Newsletters – print and online
• Website content – exclusive and web adaptations
• Email blasts
• White papers
• Webinars
• Webisodes
• Podcasts

Notice that many of these formats are web and digital – free content is available all over the web. Businesses must be active in as many relevant formats as possible, in a way that provides quality information and engagement to its readers, participants and customers.

With all this talk of creating content, especially free content, a business might wonder what are the benefits to the business?  In parts 2 and 3 of this blog post series we will review the benefits in more detail, but in a nutshell they are:

Search Engine Optimization – The more on-site content, including relevant keywords, that your website contains, the more likely it will rank high in search engine results pages (SERPS) for those keywords. Note of caution: do not keyword stuff, or use other “black hat” SEO techniques or your site will be penalized by the search engines.

Reputation management – The more content you have online, using the various formats and channels available, the more “real-estate” you occupy in SERPS, pushing any web pages about your business that you can’t control further down in the search results.

User engagement – this on its own might not seem like it directly affects the bottom line, but it does. If an internet visitor listens to your company’s podcast, downloads a whitepaper, or opens an email blast, they are interacting directly with your brand for a period of time and building a trusted relationship with that brand. Plus, they are more likely to visit other channels through which your business communicates to its market – off and online – increasing the chances of a purchase or lead generation.

Brand loyalty – provide quality, free (or very low-priced) content on consistent basis and customers will continue to come back for more.

Leadership positioning – if you provide useful information that is relevant to your service or product, you distinguish yourself as a leader in that category.

User engagement, brand loyalty and establishing your company as a leader can have the ultimate effect of retaining current customers and increasing sales and leads, making content marketing an important part of your marketing strategy.

Stay-tuned next week for Part 2 of my three-part content marketing series, where I discuss developing and maximizing your own content strategy.