Elite Solutions is a creative communication agency, working primary with content marketing. It prepares complete marketing campaigns from brand strategy to online banners for its clients. But content marketing is something they are really passionate about. “For example, content marketing is very entertaining in connection with HR activities. It is not the easiest way but if you do it well, you can really get a funny tool. And quite effective, too,” says the Jan Javornicky, CEO of agency.
What is content marketing for you?
Content marketing is a current hype, a buzzword and who knows what more. It is something which is often talked about and sometimes it is even used. But it is definitely not a new method. You can find some successful content marketing projects even in the first half of 18th century. The living legend of content marketing is Michelin’s guide, first published in 1900. Although content marketing is such an ancient method, it is often confused with publishing of PR articles or social media posts which is of course nonsense. Content can have many forms, but the fact that you use PR articles or Facebook doesn’t mean you do content marketing. If you really want to be good at content marketing, you must be prepared to create and share content which someone is really interested in.
Content marketing plays a huge role in achieving success throughout your campaigns. Recent data shows that 71% of content marketers have seen content marketing grow in significance in the past year, where 40% of marketers have a well-documented content marketing strategy.
Additionally, 78% of content marketers reported that their organizations plan to invest or continue investing in video, with 48% of marketers having a monthly budget of up to $5000 dedicated to content marketing."
What other successful content marketing campaigns next to Michelin would you like to mention?
Talking about history, I must name a radio soap opera surprisingly promoting soap. Using this campaign, Procter & Gamble wanted to address women. From 1933 we can move to the current times and Hasbro company with its frontal attacks on children through Transformers or Battleship movies. And we can’t forget the Lego movie!
Battleship game was used by Hasbro as a theme for Battleship movie.
Zdroj: YouTube
What is essential for a well-functioning content marketing strategy ?
As always, you have to know exactly what you are doing, why, for who and what do you except. When we ask “how,” there are many possible answers and you can find more correct ones among loads of nonsense. And today it is not hard to find a consultant.
For which products is content marketing suitable and vice versa?
For me the product segmentation doesn’t make sense. It depends on many things and what’s more, it may be different even in individual competitive companies. Content marketing can be used even for low-involvement products, that means those products where the customers don’t really care about the brand. It reminds me of FMCG like bottled water, transport or insurance companies. Even they can think of something that distinguishes them from others and erases that original “low” characteristic.
Can you use content marketing to promote some highly specialized products, such as software for professional use?
We often hear from our clients that their product or service is the only one and extremely specific. That’s why they think that classic marketing doesn’t work in their cases and that their marketing stuff have tied hands. But I have never seen these claims confirmed in reality. You just need to think about your marketing in a fresh way and from a different angle. It can be challenging to find new ways to promote a product which you think about for hours and hours every day. This also applies to B2B communication because even if your clients are corporates, you still talk to people. There are always people who decide if they want to pay for your service or product.
Felix Baumgartner's jump from stratosphere is perfect example of content marketing campaign promoting Red Bull drink and GoPro cameras.
But it must be much easier to create content strategy for such a sexy brand like Red Bull than to promote for example CRM system through related content…
A sexy brand is just your mind set-up. In fact nothing like that exists. Red Bull is a so called function drink. Its sexy brand was done by great marketing and thanks to a decision not to show it as a product for tired manual workers and truck drivers or as an ideal liquid for teenagers to mix with cheap alcohol. Instead, Red Bull has become what we can see in it today. Will your brand and communication be sexy? That’s your call.
What exactly would you recommend to the little company with big dreams?
You always need to understand your target group in a deeper way. CRM is definitely something they talk about, but it is probably not their favorite topic. What else do they have in common? For example their needs which are solved through acquiring a CRM software. Don’t get me wrong but no system ever solved anything just by itself. And this is a great area where you can help your customers with their common problems in different ways. This is the moment when you can start with clearly targeted and well prepared content marketing. Or you can send us an e-mail…
Do you want to add anything?
I just remember a quote of Jiří Caud. He says that Elite Solutions always bring at least one idea so crazy that he could fire them on the spot. But he adds that for him personally, it is much more interesting to think about that idea for a moment.
Jan Javornicky, CEO of Elite Solutions agency.
Read article about content marketing in Business section of our blog.
