Working Class Content
Part of my role with small and medium-sized businesses is to create a content marketing plan.
What is content marketing, you might ask?
Before I describe content marketing, let’s step back for a moment to acknowledge one fundamental truth of 2019: digital marketing has changed business forever.
Consumers (ie. your buyers) are deciding when, where, and how they will engage with you. If your business isn’t creating engaging content across ALL stages of the buyer journey, then you are losing ground to your competition.
Think of your own behavior. Where do you find a company’s telephone number? How do you reach a company’s customer service department? If you have a problem with a company, what’s the first thing you do?
As consumers, we have a myriad of channels to reach a company: Google, Your website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Email, SMS, Telephone and even DM’s, Facebook Messenger, etc…
As a business, these are all legitimate channels where content lives.
The idea behind a Content Plan is to identify a company’s purpose, what it makes, what it offers, where it’s coming from and how you feel. You then create content themes which show (not tell) in images, videos, posts and narrative around a company’s purpose.
Ibex is a great example. They are a wool clothing company based here in Vermont.
Here’s what they believe:
“Ibex Outdoor Clothing is a wool clothing company. We’re a natural fiber company. A thoughtful design company. An excellence-in-product-development company. We’re a hiking-before-dawn company. A dogs-in-the-workplace company. A bike-to-work company. We’re also a community-supported-agriculture company, a cross-country-ski marathon company, a coffee-in-front-of-the-woodstove company.”
Over the past 15 years, Ibex has resurrected wool as an outdoor performance fabric. They have used the tag line “The Art of Wool” to describe their company mission in just 4 short words.
Take a look at two videos:
And then this one:
Ibex: The Art of Wool
These videos are great examples of content which supports an overall content marketing strategy.
Here’s why:
- These videos show who, what, where and how wool garments are made.
- They convey Ibex’s personality as a company and their product offerings without being overtly promotional.
- They support an overall strategy of redefining wool as a performance fabric
- They show the quality of construction
- They communicate “The Art of Wool” for consumers.
So what?
These pieces of hard-working content will be viewed thousands of time on YouTube, on their Website, in a Facebook feed, posted via Twitter, shared via email.
They will amplify Ibex’s mission around creating the best natural fiber garments for the outdoors.
They will extend their reach, create awareness and influence customers to consider Ibex garments in the future. In short, this is how marketing is done in the 21st century.
More and more companies are recognizing the impact of content marketing, so those who choose to ignore it will increasingly fall behind.
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