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The Way Amazon Keeps on Catching On

Hello everyone, For this week’s blog, I wanted to examine the effectiveness of Jonah Berger’s all six principles on a single brand. I wanted to try examining a brand’s virality upon the way it utilizes social currency, triggers, emotion, publicity and practical value, whether it was planned by the brand or just happened to be a part of it. I thought the best contemporary, viral example for this analysis would be Amazon. The company’s popularity goes beyond imagination! And here are a couple of facts that blew my mind. According to The Motley Fool, approximately 35 Amazon.com-products are shipped every second. Also, this brand is so popular that one of every 10 Americans is actually an Amazon Prime member.

Read through to see how Amazon made it to such popularity in relatively a short period of time.

First, Stories. I am pretty sure Amazon generates a considerable amount of stories among people on daily basis. I was thinking of the number of times I heard someone says “I got it from Amazon for X bucks!!” Also, the fact that Amazon is well-known worldwide and that it ships internationally, it became the easier option for social media bloggers and others to share their stories and experiences about products available at Amazon.com.

Second, for Amazon, I’d say the most basic factor that makes its products go viral is step number six, practical value. And the reason for that is because Amazon shoppers can predict the functionality and quality of products they are willing to purchase through a variety of ways. First, reading reviews of people who purchased the products and shared their experiences. Second, the clear, helpful product description displayed with every product you can buy at Amazon. The clear description, rating and product reviews help consumers expect what practical value they would be receiving from products they desire.

Third, Public. Amazon provides consumers with so many ways to examine the publicity of a product. As Berger links the Public principle with the saying “Monkey See, Monkey Do”, Amazon is a master at showing shoppers other shoppers’ stuff! There are so many factors in an Amazon shopping experience that guide to Berger’s Public principle. First, customer reviews. Second, the number of customer reviews. Third, and the most effective in my opinion, is Amazon’s lists of best sellers. For so many people, the way to start shopping or looking for something on Amazon.com is going through the best sellers list. Because in consumer’s mentality. If it is public and widely used, then it is good enough.

Forth, Emotion. If you take a look at product reviews on Amazon.com, you’ll find a whole lot of expressed emotions. In the pictures below, I randomly selected a few products that made it to top sellers and took a few screenshots of emotional reviews from different product categories that provoked emotions. •    Electronics

AWEE!

•    Books

•    Toys & games

•    Clothing

AWEE!

•    Beauty and Personal Care

Fifth, Triggers. Berger discusses that if a brand has something that gets people involuntarily think about its product, it possesses a trigger. In Amazon’s case, I think the top service that made it to a trigger is Amazon Prime especially for students. What do college students automatically think of before purchasing a textbook? Definitely, weather or not it is included on Prime! Amazon offers a free Prime membership for students (with a valid school email). This not only got students make Amazon their first shopping destination, but also professors to encourage them to use it. Moreover, I think there are other factors that led to Amazon’s current popularity, the easy shopping experience, the convenience and availability of products, and the sufficient amount of shipping options, all contributed into making Amazon as a whole, a trigger for online shopping.

Sixth, Social Currency. With Amazon Prime, Amazon is utilizing game mechanics; if you have Prime then you are a premium, you receive benefits (more) than other shoppers. In fact, Prime users are rarely purchasing other products that are not Prime included. So this made not only customers to become Prime members, but also companies to make their products included in Prime. Second, Prime also “makes people feel like insiders” when you are an Amazon Prime member, you are more loyal to the brand, you are more likely to shop at Amazon and you are more likely to tell people about it. Berger also discusses another way brands can utilize Social currency; “Identifying what is remarkable about your brand”. For a leader in the online shopping industry, Amazon is remarkable for its services; fast shipping, easy navigation, great customer service, and exclusive deals and offers, alongside the endless Prime advantages.

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Most Remarkable Halloween ‘17 Content-Marketing Campaigns

Happy Halloween everyone!

I think we can all see how businesses cease holidays and special occasions to swamp us with marketing campaigns.

Some companies consider holidays the perfect way to engage consumers in marketing campaigns. And I think that a reason behind that is that holidays are traditional; and traditions are practiced and celebrated by the majority of a community, which makes it easier for businesses to “find their way” to grab a customer’s interest using content marketing.So this is not only the case for Halloween season. 

At the beginning of October the Halloween vibe begins. Then once its over, Thanksgiving marketing begins. Then there is Christmas. Then the New Year. Then comes Valentines Day, Easter, Independence Day, and the list goes on and on.

So companies have the choice to continuously utilize triggers throughout the year based on special occasions. Among these holidays, there is also a huge utilization of emotion. Just like they way there are lots of love and security emotions aroused around Christmas and Thanksgiving. And the way 4th of July and Memorial Day are associated with pride and FOMO emotions, Halloween comes around with lots of adrenaline and a range of emotions like fear, thrill, horror, excitement, fun,

Now that Halloween was two days ago. Lets talk spooky!

Utilizing Halloween season to promote products and increase sales is an ancient tool companies have used throughout the years. But what's not ancient is utilizing content marketing for the season. On this post, I will share examples and techniques companies from different industries used during this Halloween season. Also, I will be referring to Berger's STEPPS to explain how those companies' campaigns became successful and went viral.

 ·      Burger King’s #ScaryClownNight

This is not the first time Burger King trolls one of their biggest rivalries, for Halloween purposes. The video shows a clown that looks like a scarier version of Ronald McDonald dining in Burger King and asking for his Whopper. The fast food chain invited customers to come in during Halloween night dressing up as a scary clown to get a free Whopper. The whole #ScaryClownNight event of Burger King is for the second time, using their biggest competition’s mascot as a trigger for having Burger King for Halloween dinner. If BK continuous to nail this event for several years, McDonald’s clown might turn to an official trigger for Whoppers!

·      Lyft’s Strange Mode

This car service app offers different types of ride experiences like Lyft Line, Lyft SUV, Lyft Premier and others. But during Halloween weekend, they added a temporary ride mode called “Strange Things” in collaboration with Netflix. People in Philadelphia and Los Angeles were able to select this ride mode to experience a one of a kind spooky ride. Yes, Lyft delivered this unique content marketing experience that got people talking all over social media. With scary sound and lightening, Lyft engaged the fear emotion, and with the overall experience, it engaged thrill and excitement emotions.

·      Snapchat’s Customized Filters

If you were using Snapchat around Halloween time, then you have probably came across Snapchat’s own five-second ad promoting a “Make your own Halloween filter” tool. It is worth mentioning that this is not a new feature on Snapchat. It’s been over a year since Snapchat introduced the design your own geofilter feature. However, Snapchat was smart enough to reinforce it using the Halloween trigger. To me it felt like Snapchat was saying “if you’re not wearing a costume this year, at least make it special with a customized filter”. Besides encouraging consumer participation, another reason why I think this was a smart move for Snapchat is because there so many parties and gatherings full of people on Halloween, and it becomes fairly easy for a feature like this to go viral when Snapchat users attending a party use a geofilter to “show off” what they are doing that night. With that said, and through this Halloween campaign, I think Snapchat triggered Halloween rituals, aroused fun-times emotion and made its product public and very easy to share.

·      M&M’s Interactive Horror Story

The trick-or-treat king launched a Halloween campaign that appeals to a larger audience than their trick-treating ones. Across their official Facebook and Twitter pages, the company asked audience to participate in finishing a story they started in late September. On every week till the end of October, they would publish one chapter of the story and ask people to “to help them create the best Ghost Story ever”. Then the following week they would publish the story their audience helped them construct captioned with “Thank you for helping us create chapter X, Tune in Thursday for Chapter Y #MillieAndMax #Halloween”.   M&M’S already has its Halloween trigger secured but this time they have achieved virality through telling stories and arousing spooky emotions.

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Bling-blinging Marketing (cont.)

Hello everyone,

Last week’s blog was about the content marketing progress of luxury brands.And I am back with part two of my analysis.

It seems from what I’ve seen so far that high-end brands are trying to approach a wider consumer segment than their actual clients. The internet and the great spread of social media allowed companies to prove their powerfulness by reaching more than just their target customers. High-end brands offer very costly products, but through content marketing, they are actually giving out stuff for free! When you’re for example using the Tiffany& Co. app to find the perfect ring for you, or Hermès’s s app to learn how to style your scarves, you’re technically using their product. Moreover, if say only 30% of the population can afford those luxury products, almost 100% can enjoy connecting with the brands through free products of content marketing.

I personally felt connected and enjoyed watching Rolex’s Science and Exploration videos, using the Silk Knots app of Hermès and browsing through the Inside Chanel website the most that now I am making my mind about purchasing those companies’ product once I am able to. That being said, Rolex, Hermès, Tiffany& Co., Chanel and other luxury brands are succeeding building relationships with a wider range of customers using content marketing.

5.     Dior- Product into Art

Christian Dior is another luxurious France-based company that is excelling at digital and content marketing. Christian Dior became an important name in the fashion industry. Its top quality and highly creative products and marketing campaigns appeal to the sophistication of its target customers.

·      Key Content Marketing Tool

Dior definitely is a master at content marketing. And I will explain to you why. First, its Dior Eyes. The one of a kind, innovative campaign that provides store-goers with a virtual experience of attending a fashion show and accessing backstage of their latest runaway shows through virtual reality headsets.

Smart marketers utilize technology that serves the brand, and innovative marketers actually create ones that represents the brand and its vision perfectly.

Another content marketing campaign by Dior was the Dior Poison Club video which was targeted primarily to millennials. On its YouTube channel, it posted a dance-centric film featuring a young celebrity, Camille Rowe as well as a group of other dancers challenging and inviting audience to follow their choreography.

6.     Louis Vuitton- Fashion and Authenticity

Louis Vuitton is a major and extremely popular high-end brand around the world. In fact, it was ranked the top one most powerful luxury brand according to Millward Brown’s list of 2011. The company is also French-based and it specializes in making products ranging from leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes, sunglasses, jewelry and watches. LV’s marketing strategies nailed it at reaching target consumers the right, and hip, way. It heavily utilized celebrity branding and endorsement throughout the years and is currently also playing it right with content marketing.

·      Key Content Marketing Tool

Two content marketing methods of LV that grabbed my attention. First, its Nowness website. If you browse through the website you can hardly even notice that it’s a product of LV! This website publishes a variety of high quality, artsy videos that express different topics ranging from food and travel to beauty, art, animation, photography, sports and fashion with almost no branding for the company itself. (picture)

Second, which also happened to be another website of theirs, is the My LV World Tour This website allows customers to personalize an LV bag, luggage or wallet that they wish to purchase. Again, consumer participation and the availability of customization is a key tool to content marketing.

7.     Chanel- Class and Sophistication

Chanel is a French couture known for its classy, feminine production. It is a home for fashion, jewelry, makeup and fragrance. Chanel is famous for its classic purses since 1913. The luxury brand takes digital marketing very seriously; it posts regularly and constantly on various social media accounts that are up to date with new features and trends.

·      Key Content Marketing Tool

The historical brand definitely realizes the importance of content marketing. On chanel.com, I –obviously- found tabs specified for their product lines, but I also came across the “Inside Chanel” . This page tells the story of the brand broken down into 21 chapters, a timeline and a film. Inside Chanel illustrates the journey of its founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and takes audience through developments of the brand ever since.

8.     Hermès of Paris- Elegance Rules

Thiery Hermès founded the company in 1837 in Paris with a vision of serving European noblemen. Their marketing efforts were considered one of Forbes’ most 100 innovative companies. The company reported phenomenal profits last year and I am guessing, their use of content marketing, was a factor. The company excelled at digital marketing in the past few years through being active in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube and operating their well-developed, very appealing website.

·      Key Content Marketing Tool

Hermès created two free innovative apps; Silk Knots which provides a how-to guides on 24 different ways consumers could tie their Hermès scarves, and Tie Break which was targeted to male consumers in a comic way and provided them with fashion tutorials.

Another great content marketing tool Hermès utilized for it anniversary was their illustrated virtual store that looked like a grand house with a French luxurious feel. The playful Lamaisondescarrés.com website allowed audience to view and purchase products in a fun, interactive way.

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Bling-blinging Marketing

Happy hump day everyone!

Welcome to my page one more time.

Another week, another marketing talk.

I brought to you more content marketing examples practiced by high-end brands that I’ll be discussing on today and next week’s posts.

High-end brands that sell extravagant products, like the ones I am writing about today, rely big time on the social currency they provide to their customers to generate world-of-mouth and sustain their upscale brand image.

Rolex, Tiffany& Co., Burberry, Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Hermès are considered some of the world’s most powerful and dominant luxurious brand.

Read through the analysis below, and return next week, to see how those seven huge, global companies managed to excel at creating and sharing valuable information and experiences to their target customers.

  1.     ROLEX - The Timeless Classic

Rolex has a long history of creating a standard for luxury watches.  The Geneva-based Swiss company designs and manufactures watches since it was first founded in 1905 and was the inventor of the first ever waterproof and dustproof watches.

Rolex is known for its timeless classic brand image. But what keeps Rolex ticking? Well, Rolex uses different traditional marketing platforms like billboards, magazine advertisements, TV commercials and sponsorship of events.

For their digital marketing, Rolex owns a website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram accounts.

·      Key Content Marketing Tool:

Although Rolex hit the social media world a little late, it was smart enough to start with content marketing right away. Rolex launched its YouTube channel in 2012, as well as its World of Rolex Science and Exploration Page, to publish content that is not at all related to its products. Instead, Rolex decided to publish in-house documentaries capturing scientific experiences. Some of the videos published contain trips to the top of the Himalayan Mountains and to deep-sea investigations of polar ice caps.

Rolex treats content in a way that suits its brand image. Looking at their content gives you the same high quality feeling of looking at a Rolex wristwatch.

2.     Tiffany& Co.- Complete Romance

Headquartered in New York, this leading luxury brand is known worldwide for its fine jewelry, china and sliver products and its wedding registry services. Engagement rings is what comes to my mind when I think of Tiffany& Co. Obviously, this brand not only relies on emphasizing social currency in their marketing efforts like most luxury brands, but also heavily utilizes emotion in every way they promote their products and their content. Tiffany& Co. is a leader in promoting the idea of romance and linking it to their products.

The company managed to launch a number of successful digital marketing campaigns that went viral. Also, the company operates a soothing-looking website in addition to their Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Snapchat presence.

·      Key Content Marketing Tool

Filling consumers’ needs is a key device to content marketing. The Tiffany & Co. Engagement Ring Finder app is a way the company created to fill a void that their target customers faced throughout the years. This tool was basically the company’s way of sharing valuable and compelling information to their niche, brides and grooms to be. iPhone and Android users could find the perfect ring for them through taking a picture of their hand using the app that would give them a variety of ring options they could virtually try on.

  3.     Burberry London- Trendy Chic

Ever since it was founded in 1856, Burberry was considered the leading luxurious British brand globally. The company produces cosmetics, sunglasses, fragrances, outwear, fashion bags and accessories, and their known-for trench coats. Burberry moved towards targeting a younger audience recently and that explains its prominent social media presence in the past few years. Burberry operates a grabbing, well-developed website with online shopping and store locator options as well as links to their appealing social media communities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google Plus.

·      Key Content Marketing Tool:

The British legend did not settle for its social media popularity. Instead, it constructed better content marketing plans to become more appealing to their millennial target audience. Burberry excelled at two content marketing campaigns recently.

First, the Art of the Trench tab on their website. This is where Burberry engaged audience interaction. Brand fans and Trench Coat owners could submit their own pictures wearing the famous coat to the official website that later on would be viewed publicly to website visitors.

Second, the Burberry Kisses project in collaboration with Google in 2013. This creation was a part of Google’s Art, Copy & Code initiative which aims to "humanize technology" through emotive digital experiences. Through the Burberry app and through kisses.burberry.com, people could plant a real kiss on a cellphone screen that then would transform to a digital one that they could send to whomever they want.

That’s all for now! Come back next week to see how other luxurious brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Hermès are taking advantage of the benefits of content marketing.

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Brilliant Marketing Campaigns that Went Viral

Hello everyone,

Hope you had a productive week.

This time, I brought to you some cool facts about marketing and viral videos. I will tell you about a couple of advertisements that gained substantial popularity across the internet in addition to why they went viral, based on my analysis of Jonah Berger’s book, Contagious.

 In his book, Berger discusses some factors that result on the “virality” of ideas, products or in this case, videos.

Today, I chose three leading advertisements that achieved positive audience reaction, millions of views and evidently higher sales; and as a result gained a whole lot of popularity.

 1.     Dove- “Real Women, Real Reward”

In 2013, Dove, the personal brand owned by Unilever published a short video titled “Real Beauty Sketches | You’re more beautiful than you think” that, so far, has over 67 million views on YouTube

This three-minute video was part of Dove’s “Real Beauty” marketing campaign.

For this advertisement, Dove collaborated with a forensic artist (a person who draws crime suspects based on the description of witnesses) who was first asked to sketch self-portraits of women based solely on how they described themselves. Later, the artist was asked to draw the same women but this time, based on the verbal description of other women who saw them.

The result of this experiment that ended with two self-portraits of each woman concluded that women usually think of themselves less beautiful than they really are.

Furthermore, this ad went viral. It touched many. And people praised it for the message it conveyed.

Now, let’s talk marketing. What made this short film “contagious”? What was so appealing about it? And what caused it to become viral?

In my understanding of Jonah Berger’s Contagious, I analyzed the campaign and came up with two factors that might have been the reason for its popularity.

First, emotion. The “Real Women, Real Reward” evoked a lot of emotions and I am guessing boosted many women’s self-esteem. The more emotion people felt with this ad, the more they shared it.

The second factor that I think contributed to the virality of this ad is the way it told a story. Berger mentions that brands plant their products and ideas in stories that people want to share.

People, and most particularly women, loved the story that Dove told about them. The ad represented a healthy, social idea and carried a strong message that people wanted to believe and therefore, excessively shared.

2.     Metro Trains-  Dumb Ways to Die.

One of the most talked about campaigns in the recent years is an Australian public service announcement promoted by Metro Trains. This video was published on YouTube in November 2012 and as for today, has over 155 million views. Yes, you read that right!

This innovative campaign did not only gain so many views but also so many awards worldwide.

The original purpose of this ad that’s created by a public organization was to influence metro-riders’ behavior. It basically aimed to warn them to be more careful when riding the train to avoid “dumb” ways of getting hurt.

However, the Dumb Ways to Die music video, that featured animated creatures expressing ridiculous but true ways that could cause death, went viral in Australia and across the globe!

Now, let’s analyze the ad. What made it go viral? Why do a lot of people still watch it today? And how did this campaign end up with people downloading its game version on their cellphones?

Based on Berger’s principles of why things catch on, I think that this remarkable ad utilized the practical value principle; at least in the beginning.

Berger points out that a practical value of an idea relies on the useful information it carries.

The promotion of an idea with a practical value also results it the desire of people to share it. We enjoy helping others and we enjoy sharing useful information!

  3.     Three- The Pony #DancePonyDance

Finally, one other advertisement that went viral across social media a couple of years ago was a one-minute video of a dancing pony. Awe!

In fact, as you might have observed, the most popular YouTube videos of all times involve either cute babies or adorable animals.

This advertisement featuring an adorable dancing pony was created in 2013 by Three, a mobile phone network and internet provider based in the UK. The purpose of this ad was to encourage people to keep on celebrating ‘silly things’. In other words, keep on sharing silly internet videos; perhaps one that features a moonwalking pony!

In a marketing book called #Hooked, author Patrick Fagan states that it’s proved that cute or emotional animals can actually result in significant and concrete business outcomes. In fact, according to insightfulux.co.uk, Three netted 168 thousand additional customers the same year it promoted the Dance Pony Dance campaign.

The reason why I think this humorous video and many others involving animals went viral is because it evoked an emotion. And according to Berger, emotions drive people to action. In this case, it drove viewers to share the video as well as –evidently- build stronger connections with the brand.

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Social Ice Cream?

Hello everyone,

 Say it’s 85 degrees outside and you were walking down the street, then you come across an ice cream shop. What would you do? Start wondering how ice cream brands utilize content marketing? Well, that is what I did!

So I thought I would blog about ice cream marketing. I asked myself, what could the marketing manager at an ice cream store do to achieve marketing objective? What actions can the marketing department take to build brand awareness, target new customers and ultimately increase sales and grow market share? 

Well, first and foremost, they could learn from the best!

Baskin Robbins and Ben & Jerry's are leaders in the industry. So I thought I would analyze their visible marketing efforts and see what they are doing right.

 Throughout this post, I will be introducing each of the companies with some background information, examine their digital and social marketing and then summarize their content marketing outcome so far.

 Read through to see how can ice cream become social!

The Numbers

Let’s start with the world’s largest chain of ice cream specialty shops, my favorite one, Baskin Robbins. According to their official website, the company was first founded in 1945 in Glendale, CA. (Too close! Got me excited). The company operates nearly 2,800 stores in the U.S and over 5,000 located around the world and over 300 million customers throughout the years visit those stores.

This great success and continuous expansion of Baskin Robins signifies its positive achievements in not only marketing, but also global marketing.  

 The Social Media Facts

Website- Well developed, gripping and fits the brand image. Besides interactive online games, the website offers a store locator and an order online tabs; different tabs for different products offered; and links to their active social media channels.

Facebook

·      9,242,694 likes

·      9,132,708 followers

·      1,627,983 visits

Instagram

·      658 posts

·      604K followers

Twitter

·      184k followers

Youtube

·      11 videos

·      2,676 subscribers

Pinterest

·      6,055 followers

 Content Marketing Attempts

·      The Create Baskin’s Next Favorite Flavor contest where “ice cream enthusiasts can become digital dessert chefs”. This allowed people to create a new ice cream flavor through putting together their favorable ingredients via a special website. A few months later, a winner flavor is chosen. This whole campaign increases customer commitment to the brand; and as we learned from Coca-Cola, the content marketing master, customer engagement is key to content marketing.

·      The “Fun Facts” tab on baskinrobbins.com provides ice cream lovers with interesting facts.

·      On Pinterest, Baskin Robbins shares free recipes that are mostly associated with holidays and occasions. Also, the company runs a special section of “Bright Words” where they share positive quotes and phrases.

The Numbers

Moving on to Ben & Jerry’s, the first ice cream scoop shop was opened in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont in 1978, according to their official website. Today, Ben & Jerry’s serves millions of customers in thousands of places around the world. The wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever is well known for its remarkable product donations and social contributions across the globe.

 The Social Media Facts

Website- Well designed, constantly updated and heavily interactive, Ben & Jerry’s website that speaks with a comic, humorous tone, is colorful and fun to navigate through. The website also offers a store navigator and an online order tab. Quizzes and interesting articles are published on benjerry.com as well.

Facebook

·      8,694,833 likes

·      8,596,273 followers

·      494,170 visits

 Instagram

·      1,683 posts

·      738K followers

Twitter

·      329K followers

Youtube

·      300+ videos

·      18,104 subscribers

Pinterest

·      9,159

·      Variety of boards

 Content Marketing Attempts

·      The interactive Fan Foto contest. Fans are invited to share their own shots of Ben & Jerry’s ice scream scoops by posting photos on Ben & Jerry’s wall on Facebook and label them with “Fan Foto”. Weekly, the company publishes a few favorite Fan Fotos on many platforms like Facebook, Instagram and the official website.

·      The company continuously publishes free ice cream recipes on their website. The irresistible recipes are grouped into different compelling categories (Desserts, Vegan, Shake, Sundaes, and Breakfast).

·      The recent “Pint Slice Tour” campaign. Where specialized Ben & Jerry’s trucks went on tour around the country from coast to coast. This brilliant strategy encourages fans engagement by asking them to tune in to a hashtag  (#PintSliceTour) to follow their trip and stops. If lucky enough to find the truck at the right time, fans could try the new Pint Slice product for free and play the “Slice Machine” game where they could spin the wheel and win prizes.

·      Guided factory tours. This might be one of the very few content marketing activities we see nowadays that aren’t communicated digitally. However, I am guessing this is an ancient, classic content marketing technique that companies had practiced throughout the years. In my opinion, I think that visiting a firm’s facility might result in building stronger connections between audience and the brand. In other words, and although they aren’t always convenient, factory tours seem like a powerful content marketing technique.

See you soon with more interesting marketing topics!

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10 lessons for young entrepreneurs - inspiration

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Sephora’s Creative Content Marketing Approaches

Happy Thursday everyone,

I have got more content marketing techniques to share with you today.

In the last few years, many of us sure had noticed the extraordinary growth and popularity of the cosmetics store chain, Sephora.

According too Bloomberg.com, Sephora Inc, owns and operates over 700 store worldwide. These stores feature about 300 brands of makeup products, cosmetic tools, fragrance, nail products, skin and hair care products, as well as Sephora’s own private brand. Different services are also offered at their locations such as custom makeovers, personal one-on-one makeovers, facials and other free product matching services like skincare IQ, color IQ and fragrance IQ where the focus is finding the perfect product for each customer.

Moreover, this French company excelled in becoming an essential partner in fueling what I call the “makeup revolution”.

About four to five years ago, as Instagram and Snapchat were gaining more popularity, a transformation in the beauty and cosmetic industry was initiating.

Beauty bloggers and makeup artists were using better ways to interact with their audience. Many beauty influencers share videos of DIY makeup looks in addition to sharing their personal social media accounts. And right there, we started noticing a rise to a new category of “famous” when plenty of social media users became celebrity. Audience would watch those makeup tutorial videos regularly and as they get more impressed with certain makeup artists and their work, they would then add and follow them on social media platforms.

Once the beauty industry gained more attention, beauty amateurs stepped up their game and became more motivated to apply the same techniques and -most importantly- purchase the same products and tool they saw makeup influencers use.

Obviously, cosmetics brands also played it smart and took advantage of the situation by utilizing product placement and celebrity endorsement to promote their products through those makeup tutorials that convinced viewers to buy them.

Well, who do you think is the mecca of cosmetics that took the best advantage of the great rise of demand to beauty products and services? Duh! That is Sephora.

I have always wondered how much growth this famous brand has gained in the past years and I really would provide you with numbers and statistics; however, Sephora is a private company, which means that they would not share that kind of information to the public.

Let us take a closer look at how this great company seized the opportunity of the popularity it gained to utilize content marketing techniques.

First, Sephora does its best to thrive in social media marketing. The company operates its own website and is active on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, Youtube and more. 

One smart content marketing technique Sephora is using is implied through operating a numerous number of social media accounts that are addressed to specific countries and regions. They run different accounts for their audience around the world like their Sephora España, Sephora Americas, Sephora Singapore, Sephora Middle East and a lot more where each account speaks to specific audience. On their pages, they collaborate with popular beauty bloggers and makeup artists -from different regions- to film short videos of them creating step by step makeup looks and stating the products they used; that are for sure found in Sephora.

Additionally, I had a personal experience with Sephora's content marketing. One time I was at the shopping mall with my friends and we went in Sephora to try out some new products. We were greeted and welcomed to try out whatever we wanted. A sale assistant approached us, and after making sure we tested enough products, she asked us to sign up for their membership rewards program. She also asked us to sign up to their e-mail newsletter. Later on, she informed us about their beauty workshop services; she told us that we could attend a makeup class at Sephora for free, which was very appealing to us. A couple of days later we attended the class. It was very informative and each staff member seemed very generous in sharing valuable information and letting us use a variety of low and high-priced products.

After we were done practicing makeup techniques and creating our own makeup looks, we decided to purchase even more products. With that being said, I guess Sephora's content marketing had an immediate effect on us, their audience.

In summary, from a point of view of an audience as well as a content marketing student, I think that Sephora succeeded in building connections through creating and sharing valuable, relevant and compelling information that appealed to me – a target audience- and indirectly encouraged me to invest money on their products.

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Ideas For Internet Marketing

The internet has transformed business marketing. No matter what you do, the internet is likely to be at the heart of your marketing strategy. Travis Beauchesne will demonstrate to you a couple of ideas that you can apply to empower lead following from the internet Marketing.

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Coca-Cola’s Approach to “Content 2020″ And What Marketers Could Learn From It

Hello everyone,

Today I am going to discuss in detail a powerful vision of one of the greatest companies worldwide, Coca-Cola. 

Coca-Cola has a great history in influential marketing. Many companies around the world learn and become inspired by the efforts Coca-Cola invests in its marketing plans.

As we discussed last week, Content Marketing is very important and is becoming the next big thing. Therefore, we know for sure that a great marketer like Coca-Cola would understand its significance and play a big part in the field.

 For starters, I brought to you an influential example that shows how Coca-Cola used content marketing and customer participation to boost the value of the brand. Most of you had probably seen this before; The Share a Coke campaign.

Coke lovers could customize bottles with whatever text they want on the label. The ad also persuades customers to share these customized bottles as gifts or use them to celebrate an occasion. To achieve better content marketing, the company also encouraged customer engagement by asking them to upload their Share a Coke experience online.

Coca-Cola had been using Content Marketing for years. What is different now, is its 2020 Content Vision.

This revolutionary vision was very well planned and created by the company. 

 https://youtu.be/G1P3r2EsAos

  I will break down the rest of this blog post onto five parts. Each part will consist of a key change that Coca-Cola is making to approach content excellence and of what I think that we, as marketers, could learn from those changes to improve our Content Marketing skills.

  1.     Coca-Cola plans to achieve content excellence by the development of liquid and linked content. The company believes that its content excellence’s purpose is creating uncontrollable ideas that are linked to its business objective, its brands and their consumers’ interest. Coca-Cola plans to create conversations and earn a substantial share of popular culture through sharing stories.

What we could learn- to own a slice of popular culture; it takes the commitment of constantly spreading compelling ideas and sharing powerful stories.

2.     There are three key drivers to Coca-Cola’s plan for change alongside the achievement of content excellence. First, doubling the size of its business. Second, using the distribution of technology that approached consumer empowerment and connectivity better than ever before. And third, relying on its creative distribution of creativity using its previous knowledge on creating stories. Coca-Cola believes that it must include technologists to its core creative team and must develop direct relationships with technology companies.

What we could learn- in unity, there is strength. When a huge company like Coca-Cola initiates collaborations with other businesses, this tells us that dealing with the “headache” of working with another team is worth it. No matter the size of your business, you may gain greater success in less time working with others than working alone.

  3.     Coca-Cola plans to evolve its storytelling techniques. The company believes that it must move from one-way to Dynamic Storytelling and use content excellence as the “editor”. The Dynamic Storytelling criteria that Coca-Cola plans to achieve must consist of serial, multi-faceted, immersion and discovery, spreadable and most importantly, engaging stories.

What we could learn- the importance of storytelling in content marketing. The Content 2020 emphasizes the significance of storytelling and its abundance and powerfulness amongst all cultures.

  4.     Implementing positive impacts through content marketing. Coca Cola’s “Live Positively” is a large-scale campaign that offers a set of initiatives to make the world a better place. The company plans to make its content marketing practices consistent with its commitments toward sustainability, climate protection, education and women empowerment.

What we could learn- Social responsibility and giving back to the community is crucial to all kinds of business and becomes more critical when sharing widely accessible and convenient information. Also, showing the world that you care increases the credibility and influence of your content.

5.     To create liquid content, Coca-Cola plans on applying new “70/20/10” investment principles. This investment plan would divide the content marketing spendings into three sections based on the level of risk associated with their content marketing practices; 70 percent of investment should be on low risk content, 20 on deeply engaging content and 10 on high risk content.

What we could learn- be on the safe side! Plan wisely when constructing your content marketing budget. The success of your content marketing relies heavily on the perception of your audience. When you choose to share unique or controversial content, play it safe and do not start doing so with a substantial amount of your resources.

That is all I got for today.

Keep learning and stay passionate!

[a-rawaah]

Content Marketing. Marketing Using Content

          A big part of a business’s success relies on marketing. And a big part of the duty of marketers is to build trust and strong connection with customers. A relevantly easy way to do so is by using Content Marketing.

           Today, I will be discussing this side of the marketing strategy that companies should definitely focus more on as its results are mostly pleasing but aren’t always visible in the short term.

            Content Marketing is an aspect of marketing that concentrates on benefiting the consumer. This type of marketing has different goals compared to the ones accomplished by traditional marketing and advertising. The job of a content marketer is delivering valuable and compelling information and deliver them to the target customers to fill their needs. In contrast, the job of a traditional marketer is promoting and selling products and services to these customers.

           As content marketing is supposed to be advantageous to the customers, not the company’s profit, it is still indirectly beneficial to the company in the long term.

           From small to large enterprises, businesses use content marketing to create relationships with their niche. When companies create strong, valuable, compelling and constant content, they are providing target customers with helpful information for nothing in return. However, when a customer reacts to their content with enthusiasm and appreciation, they would be subconsciously building a sincere relationship with the company. Eventually in the future, customers who received beneficial content would become loyal customers to the company and its products or services.

            Now that you know what Content Marketing is and why businesses use it, I will provide you with some examples of how Forbes and Whole Foods utilized it in a relevant way that grabbed my attention.

             Forbes is an American business magazine that publishes articles twice a week. This company’s main objective is informing readers about topics about business trends, industry, marketing, investing, finance, etc. Forbes is personally my go to resource to find articles and one thing I noticed recently about their website is their “Quote of The Day” program. Once you visit www.Forbes.com , the first thing that will come up is an inspirational though that Forbes content marketers thought will grab your attention and fill your spiritual need. I personally as a Forbes fan love this idea and look forward to read these quotes which I think made me appreciate their business better.

            You might not be surprised that this chain grocery store that was recently acquired by Amazon is the second example I am sharing with you is Whole Foods’ content marketing strategy. 

             Whole Foods is an American grocery store that explicitly sells healthy and organic food. Instead of dedicating their website and official social media accounts to online selling or promoting, they devoted their e-effort to building a stronger, caring relationship with their customers. On their website, Whole Foods posts various healthy food recipes. On Instagram, they post various pleasing pictures of food and on YouTube they post cooking how-to videos as well as different recipes and relevant food trends. This type of content that Whole Foods is sharing had certainly took the relationship with their customers to a different level. Shoppers now are inspired to purchase more products to prepare meals that they might have craved from watching a picture or a video posted on their website or social media platforms.

In conclusion, companies that are using content marketing strategies are saving their self a lot of time gaining a loyal customer base. Nowadays with all these available social media platforms, it is becoming easier for businesses to keep in touch with their customers. On the other hand, it also becomes more and more challenging to stand out between other competitors that are using the same strategies.

[a-rawaah]