Virtual Content Marketing: Craft Beer Tasting by Ballast Point Brewing Company
Lovers of craft beer festivals who couldn’t attend one during the pandemic did not need to worry. Ballast Point Brewing Company’s virtual craft beer tastings helped the craft beer community come together with hearty laughter and drink.
Even with beer festivals operating again, Ballast Point Brewing Company continues to host virtual craft beer tastings for enthusiasts across the United States. Guests experienced a virtual tasting and brewery tour, then played trivia—all without leaving their couch. Attendees also had the luxury of ordering items they would typically find at beer fests shipped right to their door.
For breweries that thrive on human interaction and events to promote their product, the pandemic took away a crucial part of their marketing strategy and revenue. However, Ballast Point kept the craft beer community together by creating a virtual tasting, and consumers felt like they weren’t missing out on their favorite beer fests.
In the wake of the pandemic, businesses had to adapt digitally to stay afloat. And while shifting from brick-and-mortar to full-on digital was a challenge, businesses could try something new and find creative ways to reach people.
Case Study Content Marketing
Slack’s Case Studies
Case studies can be a very useful form of content marketing, but that doesn’t mean they have to be plain, boring, and purely promotional. Take Slack, for example. Slack took their case studies and turned them into inspiring stories that users could connect with.
In doing this, Slack spotlights the customer as they share how this communication software was beneficial to them.
Slack takes a storytelling approach to share their case studies to show how customers have been impacted by their product.
Storytelling is a compelling form of content marketing, since our entire lives revolve around stories. When creating your next content marketing piece, try incorporating more relatable storytelling to better connect with customers.
Using a quiz:
Airbnb, the popular vacation rental service, put together this short quiz with the help of design experts at Domino. For users looking to spruce up their space, this quiz helps them discover their design personality.
Quizzes can be a momentary bit of fun, especially for those taking it out of sheer curiosity, but they can also drive a user to other parts of a website.
Although simple, the quiz is well laid out, easy to follow, and provides an accurate answer for those genuinely wanting to upgrade their space. The answers page contains recommendations for places the user might be interested in staying. Then leads them to Domino’s website, where they can view more examples of their preferred style.
For interactive content like quizzes, it’s essential to keep things brief, clear, and engaging, so users get the most accurate answer. But that’s not all the user gets. They also get recommendations from Airbnb on where to stay next along with more content from Domino on how to upgrade their space. It’s also a great demonstration of two brands partnering up to market their services in one place.
EBook Content Marketing Examples
Ann Hadley’s How to Newsletter eBook
Can a PDF be a party? “Everybody Writes” author Ann Handley says, “YES, IT CAN” in her ebook on How to Newsletter. When she started her newsletter, she had a little over 2,100 subscribers. According to data included in her eBook, 43,000 people are opening emails three years and 100 issues later.
So what led to a 2,000% increase? In “How to Newsletter,” Handley shares what worked, what didn’t, how she keeps her subscribers engaged, and the “weird metrics” she chooses to follow.
Handley provides practical advice for writing engaging letters, keeping her love and desire to write at the forefront. She touches upon the use of white space, letting the words breathe in the eBook. At only 14 pages long, “How to Newsletter” is very digestible and includes a checklist to help you navigate building your own newsletter. Check it out using the link below.
Take your time, utilize white space, offer practical advice, and don’t overwhelm readers with information when building your thought leadership in the industry.
YouTube Content Marketing Apple watch
In this campaign, Apple emphasizes how its Series 7 smartwatch can potentially save lives. Over a series of videos, Apple introduces real-life scenarios of people stuck at sea, in a car accident, or in other distress. They also demonstrate how the Apple Watch Series 7 got those in danger the emergency help they needed.
Apple plays on customers’ fears, using events we all hope never to experience. At the same time, they provide a solution. If customers believe that a small device can get them help when they need it, it puts their minds at ease.
Calming real, normal fears we all face as part of your content marketing strategy makes for a strong campaign. It also brings in that human element by tugging on our heartstrings.
Traits of Effective Content Marketing
With so many companies creating and publishing content online, it’s essential to go beyond your standard industry fare. A secret? HubSpot strives to meet the following criteria to ensure that all of its content meets their readers’ needs. The result? Millions of visits to their blog posts and web pages per month.
You can achieve similar results for your company if your content:
1. Provides value beyond your product offerings.
Content marketing isn’t just about sharing your products’ virtues to get readers to become customers. It’s essential to provide value that empowers your customers to do something more efficiently, such as making their businesses more profitable or shortening their morning routine.
Whatever the case, strive to create content that provides a solution for your customer’s most urgent needs. Your product may be a solution, but if you’re not explicitly writing a product page, you should only incorporate product mentions if they make sense.