THE BRANDING ISSUE
CONTENT MARKETING CASE STUDIES
THE LATEST FAD OR A PROVEN TACTIC ? IT GOES BACK FURTHER THAN YOU THINK .
MICHELIN We ’ re all familiar with Michelin Stars when it comes to restaurants , right ? And we all know that Michelin makes tyres . How many of us have connected those dots before ?
In 1900 , the Michelin tyre company were facing a challenge , in that only 3000 cars were on the road in France . The frequency of tyre purchases is linked directly to the volume of travel , so the company created the Michelin Guide : a book containing the best hotels and restaurants . Why ? Simply to encourage more car travel . They perfected the book in France and launched globally – and watched their tyre sales soar .
JOHN DEERE Back in the late 19th century , John Deere began publishing its own magazine , The Furrow . Why ? To stay connected with American farmers , provide accurate , unbiased information to farmers , and firmly establish itself as the fountain of knowledge for all things farming .
It ’ s certainly not a promotional push ; you ’ d be hard-pressed to find more than half a dozen mentions of John Deere in the content , and that impartiality is the reason why it ’ s still in publication all of these years later .
RIVER POOLS AND SPAS This small US pool company was hit hard by the GFC , and decided it needed to get creative in order to give itself a chance of survival .
The business started blogging , and the results were incredible . Within five years , the company ’ s website was getting more traffic than any other pool site in the world , and today has franchise stores across the States as well as being a major manufacturer too .
Just from blogging ? Yep . They decided they wanted to become the ultimate resource for information about fibreglass pools in the world , and dived in headfirst . Check out their website riverpoolsandspas . com – the depth of information they have on there is superb .
How did they get started ? They created blog posts in response to every single question a prospective customer had ever asked them . Simple , but spectacularly effective . n
34 GEMCELL . COM . AU OCT – NOV 2021