Content Marketing: Two Case Studies to Fuel Your Creativity

According to Social Media Today, “69% of content marketers feel a lack of time is their greatest challenge”. While content marketing can be time-consuming and overwhelming, it is absolutely vital to your digital marketing strategy and the overall growth of your company. As you'll recall, content marketing is the concept of creating and sharing information about your company, your products/services and other things you have to offer. We have taken two well-known companies, Colgate and Coca-Cola, and conducted high-level case studies of their content marketing strategies in order to help get your creative juices flowing. Hopefully, this blog will introduce you to some new concepts, helping you to save time with your content marketing strategy.

Colgate

As part of their content marketing plan, Colgate has created a Resource Center on their website featuring all of their top content in a variety of forms. This concept works well because it encourages the creation of many types of content and provides a platform for sharing it all. Below are key aspects of the resource center.

Your Dental Resource
Colgate has named their resource center page “Oral and Dental Health Resource Center”. The concept of this resource center is to be your dental resource for all things oral health. Some companies create media mash-up pages (integration of all social media feeds and blogs) and news sections. This particular resource center is both aptly named and all-encompassing. It is the ideal “content marketing” outlet.

• Oral Care Videos and Interactive Guides
  As mentioned above, Colgate’s resource center offers more than just news. They have created videos on things like “Understanding Tooth Sensitivity” and “Brushing for Kids”. These types of content are great because they can reach a wide audience and allow for content consumption in different forms. Their interactive guides are also great for providing pertinent information and keeping visitors on the page longer.
• ADA News
  Colgate features a news section on their resource center page, providing an ADA news update. The ADA section links to articles from the American Dental Association. Visitors can stay up to date on all things oral health from one easy-to-navigate location.
• Oral Care Articles
  The “Oral Care Articles” section of the resource center is sort of like a blog for Colgate. They feature a host of original and external blogs and articles categorized by hot topics. This really sets Colgate up to be the one-stop-shop for all oral health information.
• Newsletter
  Colgate does a good job of linking to their newsletter sign-up in the main navigation. This is a key conversion path and content marketing in its own right. The SmileTalk e-newsletter is a large part of the Colgate content marketing plan. By prominently placing a link to the sign-up on their Resource Center, Colgate is cross-promoting their content initiatives.

Take Away: It’s time to develop your content marketing plan for 2014. Consider creating a resource center, like Colgate's, or media mash-up page to host on your website. You can filter in your social media feeds, news articles, blogs, newsletter sign-up, video library, reviews and so much more.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola not only developed an outstanding marketing plan but they decided to share it with the public. This case study reviews the basics of their Content 2020 marketing plan as well as their 70/20/10 plan.

1. Content 2020
   The concept behind Content 2020 was simple: to create liquid (contagious) and linked content. In other words, they wanted viral content that worked with other types of viral content to promote their brand on a wide-spread level. In an ironic yet clever example of their Content 2020 campaign, Coke created a series of videos explaining the plan. Thus, they used liquid and linked content to explain the concept of liquid and linked content!
   
   Watch Content 2020 Part 1
    
2. 70/20/10 Marketing Plan
   Coca-Cola’s 70/20/10 marketing plan is very fascinating and apparently, very effective. The concept behind this is:
   • 70% Low Risk Content
   • 20% Spin Off of Low Risk
   • 10% High Risk Content
   In other words, nearly three-quarters of their content will be what they consider “low risk”. These will be things they have done in the past that have worked before, such as recycling past commercials. Then, 20% of their content will be a spin-off of the low risk content. Coke takes things that have worked in the past and slightly tweaks them to make them fresh again. Finally, 10% of their content will be what they consider “high risk”. In other words, they are developing new concepts and ideas and testing them out. This creates a cycle. The high risk content that doesn’t work is retired and the content that does work may eventually become low risk or spinoff content.

Take Away: Watch the Content 2020 videos to become inspired and take some notes from the beverage company. Also, consider implementing your own 70/20/10 marketing plan. This will encourage you to always strive for fresh, new ideas, without completely throwing out what has worked in the past.

If you need assistance with your content marketing strategy or creating a "Resource Center" or "Mash-Up" page, please contact Informatics.