Dec. 1, 2012
Today I was told to master content marketing. What does this mean? Simply put, content marketing is sharing information (text, videos, photos) with your customers and potential customers without a direct sales pitch. For instance, if you sell sugar, you might provide a recipe for cookies. If you build cars, you might tell the story of someone who helped build the car, or someone who is enjoying the car today.
Exactly 27 minutes after learning about content marketing from industry pro Joe Pulizzi while at a PR conference, I stumbled upon a perfect, real-life example.
This holiday season, Bulgari installed metallic, light-up snakes at its New York, Rome and Tokyo stores, and made a video about it. I like holiday displays (who doesn’t?), so I watched the video.
I’ve never stepped into a Bulgari, but am generally familiar with the brand name. Now having watched the video, which brilliantly captured my attention even though I’m not in the market, I know more about the company. The video prompted me to visit the Bulgari website, where I learned that they not only sell jewelry, but fragrances and leather goods as well. I also learned that they are donating $20 million to Save the Children.
The script-free video got the job done. No, I didn’t buy anything, but my awareness of the company, its products and its cool factor, are way up.
Watch the video on NYMag.com here.
~April