Content Marketing

CONTENT MARKETING

TURNING THINGS AROUND. We believe that a different way of operation opens up a clear path towards success. We are not trying to be different just for the sake of it. Instead, we’re focused on bringing the desired results to everyone who is working with us. We believe that marketing is not an expense. Rather, it’s an investment that will always bring you a deserved return. If things are done right, for the first time, there won’t be a need for repairing, recovering and/or rebuilding. Our main strengths are focus and experience. After years of experience, we’ve learned that focus is the key. Doing something with a clear focus provides the possibility of undisturbed work which is the only way in modern times. By uniting the company ‘Akcija’ and the startup, ‘FenixApps,’ we’ve gained a new driving force towards the ultimate goal of providing the best possible service in the world of digital marketing. Through this fusion, we’ve acquired two engines for excellent business mobility - communication and technology. By focusing on them, we’ve achieved what we are today. Our communication department concentrates on the creation of the appropriate strategies for marketing on social media, internet advertising, and content marketing while our development team excels in creating a beautiful and functional design powered by the advanced technologies of full-stack programming. Besides our primary work, we also like to educate and share our knowledge, and we do so through our ebooks, webinars, blogs, live lectures and consulting. Nothing’s left to chance. Because this is Kontra, a full-service digital agency. Still, our work, blog posts and books tell the best story about us. Services we offer: SOCIAL MEDIA INTERNET DEVELOPMENT CONTENT EDUCATION AND MARKETING ADVERTSING AND DESIGN MARKETING CONSULTING

CHAPTERS 1. About content marketing 1 1.1. What can be implied as content? 3 1.2. What is content marketing? 3 1.3. Traditional vs. content marketing 6 1.4. Why do world brands use content marketing 9 1.5. Steps in content marketing creation 11 2. Forms of content marketing 14 2.1. Blog 16 2.2. Infographics 19 2.3. Ebook 21 2.4. Case study 22 2.5. Video 23 3. Top examples of successful content marketing 24 3.1. Hubspot - Blog 25 3.2. TED - Videoconferences 26 3.3. Zomato - Posts on social media 27 3.4. The Furrow - Content marketing in reality 29 3.5. Lush - The combination 30 4. How to measure the success of content marketing 31 5. Case study - How to promote a city with the help of content marketing and blog writing - Love Zagreb 33 5.1. Challenge: How to create a story? 34 5.2. Goals 35 5.3. How did we achieve what we wanted? 35 5.4. The results 36 6. Sources 37

1 ABOUT CONTENT MARKETING

1. ABOUT CONTENT MARKETING There’s already a ton of ebooks written about content marketing so you probably ask yourself why should you read this one. Well, there are a couple of reasons for that. Besides the obvious one (that you should read it if you haven’t read any other), there are some other reasons. This ebook offers a firsthand experience in content marketing and a slightly different overall picture. In addition to it, it provides a number of solutions to problems you may encounter in your work along the way. A true content on content marketing. Before defining content marketing, we’d like to define the word content, linguistically. What does that word even mean? Well, the beautiful and interesting thing about it (and we’re saying this in the most sarcastic way possible) is that it means a numerous amount of things, making the word ‘content’ a genuine confusion creator (if not put in the right context that is). For example, if we use it as an adjective, it’s describing a person satisfied with something but not exactly overwhelmed. On the other hand, if it’s used only as a noun, it can, again, mean a few different things. Take the box of cereal you ate this morning and turn it to one side, you will probably find a table which says ‘Nutrition facts’, and that’s basically a table of contents your cereal contains. Eggs have a high protein content, and it is what you’re going to be digesting in the next couple of hours if you ate one for breakfast this morning. Also, the page before this one is titled ‘Table of contents’, and that’s another use of the word ‘content’ for you. CONTENT MARKETING 2.

At last, we reach the meaning of the word ‘content’ which is important for the topic of this ebook. In modern day, the word ‘content’ took a new form and now, it describes any multimedia ‘substance’ (so to say), created by someone (or something). The word hasn’t got a real distinctive function in some languages, making the word content even more disconcerting, but that’s something we’re all going to have to deal with. 1.1. WHAT CAN BE IMPLIED AS CONTENT? Now that we’ve defined the word content and explained all of its meanings, it’s important to explain the implication of the word content in the context of content marketing. Content can be anything from an image, video or sound to blog, podcast, ebook, webinar and so on. Can then someone’s live lecture be labeled as content, you ask? Well, not actually, because it can’t be distributed. BUT! The footage of that lecture, on the other hand, very well can be! Copy that? 1.2. WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? It is a form of marketing using multimedia content with the purpose of attracting interest. Just like any other marketing activity, its final goal is the increase in some form of sales. But I got a little ahead of myself with that statement because, first of all, before selling anything, you must raise the awareness of yourself, your brand or of your product and/or service. CONTENT MARKETING 3.

There is an abundance of content about content marketing (How about that, eh?). One of the extensive sites about it is contentmarketinginstitute.com. There, you will find all kinds of interesting blog posts, studies, and seminars. We’ve pointed out many times the importance of creating relatable and interesting content for your business, so we won’t repeat ourselves. Rather than that, here are 5 stages of content marketing: attracting the visitors conversion of your visitors (content consumers) into potential buyers converting your potential customer into a customer making your customer a loyal one analyzing the processes for onward decisions and strategies When the content is published, the activity isn’t over. It is crucial to close the entire circle. Otherwise, the whole strategy, like any other, loses its point. Content marketing is, in fact, a form of inbound marketing that uses the methodology of attracting potential customers and converting them into leads and transferring them into potential clients later on in the so-called ‘buyer’s journey.’ Another important thing that has to be emphasized when we talk about inbound marketing is that it’s valid for the B2B type of business as well as B2C. Content marketing represents a form of communication with your customers through a method completely different from your everyday, classic advertising which is not fun for anyone anymore because people in the modern world are buried under a ton of ads saying: ‘Our product is the best!’ or ‘Our product is the most efficient one!’, etc. These sentences simply don’t influence people in the measure they’ve had before. Rather, people tend to ignore classic ways of marketing. The example of good content is this video which, in short, explains a few basic things you should know about content marketing and about the benefits it brings. It’s a great example because it educates, informs and entertains. Yeah, that’s right. Marketing was always about entertainment, from its very beginning. This hasn’t changed in modern marketing either. Rather, the wanted level of entertainment increased because today, entertaining people is becoming increasingly difficult. But, if you want to get someone’s attention, the easiest way to do so is to entertain them. This is the challenge of content marketing. CONTENT MARKETING 4.

Content marketing has an entirely different approach. Its purpose is to give the answers to the questions a user might have, provide solutions to user issues, educate them and help with their choice. The product is not brought to the front, the users are, and the content that interests them as well. Needless to say, as the trends in fashion change every year so do the ones in digital marketing. In the following video, you can find out what are the latest predictions on how the world of digital marketing will look like. CONTENT MARKETING 5.

1.3. TRADITIONAL VS. CONTENT MARKETING Traditional advertising has certain attributes which can be described through 3 points Ads can draw the customers attention for a very short period of time Ads are obstructing buyers, rather than giving them value Classic ads can be significantly more expensive than content marketing It is important to offer the alternative, to attract the attention without obstructing, to engage the audience so they want to hear the message being sent, rather than avoiding it. These are the main reasons, content marketing is getting its points of importance. Basically, you could say that traditional marketing is searching for a customer, while content marketing allows the customer to search for a product. According to the data published by CMI, 90% of companies are using some form of content marketing. In addition to that, their data states that 60% of companies are planning to raise their content marketing budgets. When we’re talking about the advantages of content marketing as opposed to traditional marketing there are several most important ones: 1. Content marketing offers some value to the customer While the traditional ads tend to irritate and obstruct the target audience to that measure that they want to run away from it, content marketing is adjusting the content delivered to the user, drawing his attention and making him interested. Good content is useful and educating so the user will have no problem spending his or her time on learning a bit more about a brand. By doing this, the user will create a certain opinion about it and develop a relationship with a brand, even before he or she buys that brands product. 90% of buyers think of content as useful, and 78% of them think that organizations who are creating content have a bigger desire for developing a relationship with their customers. 2. Content marketing educates buyers so that they could come to the decision of buying much easier People often aren’t buying a product because they don’t understand the value it provides for them. Let’s imagine that content marketing existed when a prototype of a product like personal computer came out. When it first came out, people used to CONTENT MARKETING 6.

think that it’s obsolete and that its use won’t ever become a common tool for everyday work and entertainment. And why was that the case? When the first advertisement for the computer was published it said things like: “It’s available for use in your home” or “It’s finally affordable for everyone”. Imagine how the use of the computer would have rocketed if it was advertised through the process of educating people not “What can they do with the computer” but rather “How can they do it”. The tools of content marketing such as blogs or videos can educate potential customers so that they would understand why do they need the product that’s being advertised. As high as 60% of product buying decisions are brought before coming to a store. 3. Content marketing helps with the long-term connecting with the target audience When you’re providing a free and quality content to your customer, as is the case with content marketing, they will come back to the source of information, because he or she is learning and developing through it. This way, the customer is starting to perceive you as an expert in that area. The book written by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderquist called “The Netocrats” somewhat talks about exactly that. Money is no longer the main value in the world. Information is. 4. Content marketing attracts customers organically Rather than paying for the ads designed to attract the visitors on your page, with good content, they could be attracted organically. If you develop your content strategy well, the content you’re creating will last through your businesses entire lifetime and attract users through that entire time. The created content is exceptionally important because 42% of buyers read an article or a blog in order to find a recommendation for a product. 5. Content marketing creates the content that’s being shared If you look at the way people online act, you can notice that most of them are sharing content from some website, but not the link of that website. They’re sharing it through social media, where that content will be seen by their friends who can share it even further and that content can easily become viral. 6. Content marketing helps with SEO Each written blog is a new page indexed by Google. What does that mean? More blogs equal more indexed pages and with it, the possibility of showing the potential CONTENT MARKETING 7.

buyer your page rises. Companies that write blogs have 55% more visits on their websites from those who don’t. 7. Content marketing enables easier targeting Content is primarily created for the targeted audience. That way, the content is delivered to a more suitable audience who can become the buyers (and even promoters) of a product much easier. Also, when you compare the invested with returned, the average expense of inbound marketing in creating leads (users interested in product/service) costs half as much than traditional, outbound marketing. CONTENT MARKETING 8.

1.4. WHY DO WORLD BRANDS USE CONTENT MARKETING? ‘Content Marketing Association’ conducted research to answer this question and they reached 5 main reasons for it: 1. Sales increase Content marketing represents a new form of product sales, and the research by CMA showed that 50% of inquired people think that content marketing has a positive effect on the decision about buying and 61% agreed that it had a positive influence on the perception of a brand. 2. Maintaining the customer The increasing fragmentation (companies are customizing their products for smaller groups of their customers, all according to their needs and wishes) and competition on the market are making the attraction and maintaining customers even harder. With the regular communication through content marketing, you’re building a connection with customers who are then more prone to staying loyal to a company. 3. Developing brand awareness Every company wants to send a message about its brand to a larger part of their targeted audience. All that in a safe and effective way. The researches showed that 79% of companies are using content marketing primarily for creating brand awareness. CONTENT MARKETING 9.

4. The possibility of integration The key thing for content marketing is the distribution of the content which is done through different marketing channels; from print media, websites, cell phones, and social media. Although the content is specifically created for each of these channels, they’re acting as integrated parts of a whole, together creating a well-rounded story which improves the efficiency of the campaign. 5. Long-term customer engagement By maintaining everyday communication with the customers, a long-term relationship is built, their trust is strengthened and with that, their satisfaction level as well. In the following video, you can find out 8 more reasons why content marketing is important for bettering your business. CONTENT MARKETING 10.

1.5. STEPS IN CONTENT MARKETING CREATION The creation of content is not nearly as simple as it looks. Another thing that very much changed with the emersion of modern marketing is that you constantly have to come up with something new. The Internet doesn’t approve of the television way of advertising where you can see an ad on TV and learn it by heart because you’ve seen it dozens of time. On the Internet, that’s called a re-post, and it’s considered a sort of infringement in the online world. That’s why it’s crucial to invest a lot of time and effort in coming up with content and on its creation. Implementing a Harry Potter-inspired vocabulary, it’s important to be aware that content marketing is no magic wand giving instant results. It’s closer to that Grand Staircase that’s constantly changing, meaning that content marketing demands time and effort for its potential to be fully and rightly exploited. The strategy for content creation consists of several important steps as follows: 1. Defining the target audience Who are designated products or services intended for? Who is the content created for? It’s important to ask questions like: What does my targeted audience do? What do they do in their free time? What are their problems at work? Where do they educate themselves? Where do they live? How old are they? Which technologies do they use? ... The more details you have about your targeted audience, the easier the content creation for them will be. And it will also be more attractive and concrete for them. CONTENT MARKETING 11.

2. Topic or subject selection If you’re creating content such as a blog, you can write about whatever you want to. Because, well, the author has that privilege. But, does that really make any sense? Is that really so if you have goals to achieve? You have to take time and think about the potential subjects, constantly having the target audience on your mind. You also have to create a calendar and write down the topics you’re about to work on in the following period. It’s a good idea to use Google Keyword Planner for the selection of the right topics. By using that tool, Google proposes a few related topics for a term you punch in. 3. The writing of content should be planned Each time, writing is a new challenge. You can make your life easier by spending 1/3 of your time planning, thinking about topics, searching literature and sources. After you’ve done that, all you have to do is summarize everything into a whole. Writing should be simple, understandable and interesting while not forgetting to use the facts along the way. It’s important to create a remarkable content, the one that will gladly be shared on social media. The amount of words is secondary. The message you successfully transfer with those words is the most important. The writing, by itself, is not easy. That’s why it’s a good piece of advice to write the first version and allow yourself some mistakes. Go through your text a couple of times and correct the obvious mistakes. After a few readings and changes, you’ll reach the final version of your text. If you’re not sure, share it with your colleagues and friends. They might see some things you probably haven’t. CONTENT MARKETING 12.

4. Content distribution When you’re finally satisfied with the things you’ve written, it’s important that the targeted audience see it. Share it on social media, through the newsletter and other promotional channels. Don’t forget to answer all the inquiries about your content. Always be open to all questions and comments, even the negative ones CONTENT MARKETING 13.

2 FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING

2. FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING After we’ve explained what does content marketing mean and what are the advantages it could bring to your business, we’re going to talk about the forms of content marketing used today. Content marketing comes in many forms, and some of them are: video white paper (educational and informative content) infographics ebook case study newsletter how-to-guide articles in the form of Q&A pictures blogs and such FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 15.

2.1. BLOG Blogs are the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about content marketing. In this day and age, it is extremely important to inform your customers and clients about your products and services. Every customer that visits your blog will have the opportunity to inform himself about your expertise and thus you will really be able to convince them that you’re really a ‘master craftsman.’ Companies that write a blog: get 55% more visitors on their websites opposed to the companies that don’t are converting 70% more visitors into buyers 57% of companies got at least one client thanks to the blog During the writing of a blog, it would be good to follow some rules which will help your potential customer to see your knowledge and enable the web search engines to index your website better and to make it more visible during the searches. These are some rules: Always bear in mind who you are writing the blog for. Before writing the article itself, ask yourself a simple question: Who is going to read my articles? That answer should be your main leading thought during the blog writing, from a tone and vocabulary towards the targeted readers. FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 16.

Your focus should entirely be on one topic in each blog post. If you cover different topics and keywords while writing your blog post, you may have picked the wrong approach to write or you can maybe split up that blog post in two or more pieces. On the other hand, you should write different blogs on as many topics as possible because that way you appear versatile in the area of your business. You picked out an interesting topic, created a great title and attracted visitors to your blog post, but they haven’t read the text until the end? The most common cause for that is too much text. Think about how much time you take to read other blog posts and you will notice how online readers, unlike those reading a book, look through text faster. They usually scan subtitles, bold text and bullets and don’t stop at every part of the text. Big blocks of text can discourage the user from further reading. Because of that, you need to format your text with the following: appealing title attractive and quality photos links to other sources subtitles and numbers bullets bold text moderate lenght of text (around 600 words) adjust your text to be SEO optimized The last thing can be achieved in several different ways, but some of the most important ones are adding keywords in your title and alt tags on images. Incorporate other articles through hyperlinks in your text. Add links to yours but also to some other articles inside your text. This way, the people reading your blogs will see that you understand the area you are talking/writing about and also that you are educating yourself from other sources online. If you didn’t read the article, you wouldn’t have recommended it or put it in the context of your text. That’s why it’s important to educate yourself constantly. By creating content that educates your users, you will not only build trust with your community but also become a leader in your industry. Show your targeted audience that you are the expert that they can reach out to when they want to learn more about the industry you’re a part of or when they want to purchase your product or service. FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 17.

Be sure to incorporate a call to action button as well. Call to action should also be quite vivid and clearly visible on all of your blog posts. It should invite users to take certain wanted action (visiting the contact us page, content download, commenting...) Of course, the textual content is just a small part of content marketing. The content attractive to users can also be shaped with the help of multimedia. An image is worth a thousand words, and the content based on image materials is a lot easier for consuming and sharing. After the blog is written, you should promote it to reach as many people as possible. All of your effort and writing is obsolete if nobody sees what you created. FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 18.

2.2 INFOGRAPHICS Although an image is a great type of content, it isn’t as valuable as it could be if it’s just visual. If, on the other hand, an image is not only visual but educational or informative as well, then its value, in this case, is much higher. One of the best examples of visual content is infographics. Just as its name says, infographics are graphic pieces of content containing the different information shown with the help of pictograms, graphics, and other similar auxiliary graphic materials. The advantage of an infographic is that it is much more interesting and easier to read as opposed to plain text. Also, the users like to share this kind of content. Infographics also have a set of rules advisable to follow Less is more. Try to minimize the text on your infographic. Each entry on it should have no more than two short, concise sentences Set the subject. Put the images in frames, color the text and maintain the theme importance throughout the whole infographic Set the form and rhythm. How will users read your infographic? Will the data be randomly arranged or will there be a certain flow of reading? Put the accent on some entries with their size. Arrange everything in a ‘grid.’ The visuals beautiful to the eye are arranged in a grid which can easily be done by using the already existent grid in image editing applications. Incorporate the appearance of an infographic in the design which already exists on your website - remain consistent with the same style, colors, and tones. The creation of a good infographic is shown in the image on the next page: FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 19.

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2.3. EBOOK Ebook ( electronic book) is a shape of content marketing which is an excellent choice if you need to transfer a more complex message or content but still in readable and simple form. During the writing of an ebook, it is desirable to follow some directions in order to make it desirable and accepted from readers: Come up with a short but interesting title which draws attention. Educate your potential clients about the topic you find relevant. Include links in your ebook leading to related sources: blogs, videos, articles from your or some other website Create a good landing page which enables the users to download your ebook Promote the ebook through a newsletter, paid online advertising and on social media FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 21.

2.4. CASE STUDY A case study is a useful form of content marketing which gives you an opportunity to show your knowledge and the value of your service or product. Through a case study, you’re showing a specific problem you or your company handled for a certain client. That way, you’re building the image of an expert in a certain area in the eyes of everyone who are reading your case study. FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 22.

2.5. VIDEO ‘If an image is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth 1,8 millions of them,’ said James McQuivey in 2009. The video is a great way to offer your users an in-depth view of the new product, service, offer or to simply represent yourself, your team or the things you do. When you’re creating a video, it doesn’t mean you have to make a 120 minute-long movie. YouTube is the most popular online video platform. Creating your own video clips became easier than ever. Online video is a very influential and useful tool which can inform your potential customers in a simple and unmolested way. With the setting up of educational video clips online, you can easily find out what are the topics that interest your targeted audience the most and also how much needed are the services you provide. Potential clients will share your video content with their friends and colleagues on social media if they find it interesting, they will also like it and talk about it while through this you’ve actually achieved that they talk about your brand (at least indirectly). According to a research that Axonn Research conducted, 7 out of 10 people have a more positive perception about a brand after they’ve viewed a video about it. After all, videos are all we ever saw when we watched TV commercials. Today, you have the possibility of distributing your video content (educational or commercial) for a lot less money than you had to pay when you asked a TV station to play it for you (especially in prime time). Now, you can choose your own time for playing it, and you can choose to show it just to a certain group of people. YouTube is the most famous video broadcasting platform but there are other sites for videos like Vimeo, plus, videos and GIFs (which are a sort of transition between an image and a video) are becoming more and more popular and important throughout social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on. FORMS OF CONTENT MARKETING 23.

3 TOP EXAMPLES OF A SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING

3. TOP EXAMPLES OF A SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING Content marketing comes in all sorts of forms and it’s not a type of marketing that’s done easy. But why do it then? Well, smart businesses know that marketing is not an expense, but rather an investment. What is a better investment than a type of marketing that brings good and, above all, measurable results? That’s right. One of the best advantages of content marketing is that almost all of its aspects can be measured. You can either measure the popularity of your content in terms of engagement. How many comments, reactions, post clicks and shares your content got but you can also see what interests your targeted audience the most, what is achieving more important results. These are some of the examples of good content marketing which really show how it’s meant to be done. 3.1. HUBSPOT - BLOG Through this ebook, we’ve already linked to Hubspot, when we talked a bit about inbound marketing (in chapter 1.2. What is content marketing?). It comes as no surprise that we chose Hubspot as a great example of content marketing for writing a blog. Just as OptinMonster says, when you talk about content marketing done right, Hubspot is always on the list. Not only did they create a free tool like growth hacking strategy, but they’ve also used content marketing by: Writing in-depth blog posts about the issues their visitors care about Adding upgrades to their blog content such as ebooks Creating videos for Facebook and using LinkedIn to send traffic to those videos But their best feat (in our opinion) is definitely the creation of one of the most known educational content hubs in the world. Their hub consists of an array of educational videos where they talk about different parts of digital marketing. Their digital classes offer their visitors the opportunity to attend digital lectures whenever they have time and for the award. They get a certificate that’s actually valuable in the digital marketing business. When you achieved that status, that the certificate you’re issuing means TOP EXAMPLES OF A SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING 25.

something, then you’ve really achieved what content (and inbound) marketing is all about. They are real rock stars of digital marketing. 3.2. TED - VIDEOCONFERENCES Do you remember the part of this ebook where we explained what can be implied as ‘content’ and that part where we said that a lecture can be content only when filmed so that it could be distributed? Well, this is the exact idea TED is based on. Even their slogan: ‘Ideas worth spreading’ reflects exactly that. Be it spreading, sharing or distributing, the idea is the same. Ted is a set of global conferences where authors, experts, and other leaders hold lectures about the topics they are experts in. What is so special about TED Talks then? That’s nothing more than what any college professor is doing, you will say? Well, the main attribute of a TED Talk is that it has to be thought-provoking. We don’t recommend watching several of these in a row because you it will boggle your mind. But why is it so successful? Well, people like the feeling that they’ve come to a conclusion on their own and just like that, the sharing of that thought, of that conclusion becomes more appealing to everyone. And although TED is not exactly what you would call a marketing company, their significant growth is achieved through content marketing. If you don’t believe us, take a look at their YouTube channel yourself. Their 10 million subscribers speak for themselves. TED isn’t making SEO or market research their main priority - they’re just trying to create world-class content people will love. The whole thing is even more interesting and intriguing if we consult a piece of data that Hubspot published not so while ago. According to them, videos on social media should last no longer than 2 minutes on YouTube, but in that same article, it’s given that a video on Instagram should last no longer than 30 seconds. Bearing that in mind, it’s pretty surprising to see that average duration of TED talk video is about 15 minutes. In our opinion, that’s the evidence that a quality piece of content can indeed hold someone’s attention for longer period of time, but it’s not nearly as easy to produce such content. The lesson we can all extract from this case is that if you want to hold your audience for a longer period of time, you should offer equivalent value in return. TOP EXAMPLES OF A SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING 26.

3.3. ZOMATO - POSTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA Zomato is a searching device for restaurants across India with about 90 million monthly visits to their mobile app. Nothing too special, you would say. There certainly are a lot of apps with a function like this or similar but that’s not the special thing about Zomato. On the other hand, their posts on social media are. Having their targeted audience in mind, their (bad pun coming) ‘recipe for success’ was clear. They’ve had to engage and stir up interest in their younger generations, and they’ve done it by using pop culture and trends. Making phrases and puns used by the younger generations, they exploited the connection between young people and things they spend most of their time on. TV shows. Their posters were colorful and minimalistic but also pure entertainment at the same time. The important thing about content marketing, which wasn’t mentioned yet is that you don’t need to create an elaborate philosophy around the things that don’t require for it to be elaborated. Restaurant finding app is one of those things. If you have the slightest idea what are these references referring to, you will surely be at least a bit amused. There are also two other things worthy of note taking when we talk about Zomato’s posts. They are all, or almost all made very simple, not making everything buried with glitter and similar tacky details. In addition to their posts being quite simple, they are all made in similar visual style. This one is important because of branding. These are some good advice on how to make good content for posts on social media, but if you’re still struggling with this one, you can read about it even further in our blog. TOP EXAMPLES OF A SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING 27.

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3.4. THE FURROW - CONTENT MARKETING IN REALITY Yeah, that’s right. This one also exists. While we’ve said that content itself must be able to be distributed, we never said it has to be online. Of course that the majority of it is online today, but it doesn’t have to be. The example of The Furrow is included in this ebook to clarify the philosophy of content marketing even further, to paint the clearer picture that it doesn’t necessarily have to be online. So, what do you get when you combine agriculture and brand publishing? Back in 1895 when its first issue was published, The Furrow wasn’t even close to the idea of content marketing in terms of the time period it was first published in, but the idea for starting that magazine (that still exists today) basically has the same root idea as does content marketing. But why is The Furrow so special, there was a ton of magazines and other print materials published before that one and all across the world. Well, as you probably know, The Furrow was first published by John Deere, one of the world’s most famous companies that manufactures agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery, as well as diesel engines, drivetrains, etc. Instead of just placing their ad, poster, logo or something else in a popular magazine (where they have some form of targeting enabled - if the magazines know its readers well), they’ve created their own magazine made specifically for agrarian workers where they talked about what and how their products can be grown but never forgetting to mention that that’s their respective product they’re talking (and writing) about and not anyone else’s. You can only imagine how popular it became very soon. The circulation of The Furrow magazine skyrocketed in 1912, reaching more than 4 million consumers. Today, of course, agriculture is not nearly as popular, but The Furrow still counts 570,000 consumers in the U.S. and Canada + 2 million readers across the globe. Today, the Furrow is available online, of course, and probably read that way the most, but at the beginning, the magazine represented a truly revolutionary idea of marketing. Content marketing which wasn’t called that. TOP EXAMPLES OF A SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING 29.

3.5. LUSH - THE COMBINATION Just as they’re combining all sorts of different natural ingredients, fragrances, and processes of handmade cosmetics production, they’re also combining all sorts of different content marketing methods and techniques to reach their audience and promote their brand. Luckily for them, finding their targeted audience is not so hard because they resonate with them by promoting their well-known values and quirky product names, shapes, and textures. With Instagram as one of their key platforms, their strategy is to encourage the users of their products to share the photos of their products in use or before it with some of their official hashtags. Bam, there’s some user-generated content for you, right there! Their main Instagram account gathered around 4,1 million followers, and that number’s still growing. TOP EXAMPLES OF A SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING 30.

4 HOW TO MEASURE THE EFFICIENCY OF CONTENT MARKETING

4. HOW TO MEASURE THE EFFICIENCY OF CONTENT MARKETING After you’ve created the content and promoted it towards your target audience, you will surely want to know if your content is generating designated goals. The goals depend on the type of work you do, and the image below represents the research conducted among the marketing experts about the criteria used to measure the efficiency of content marketing. In the first place, there’s traffic growth on websites. That data is also the easiest one to get. Everything you need for it is Google Analytics or any other tool for website visitors measuring. In the second place, for B2B companies, there’s a number that tells us the quality of the leads which had been collected by the company thanks to content marketing. B2C companies are, on the other hand, citing an increase in sales as their very important measuring factor. Besides those, there are several other factors used for measuring the efficiency of content marketing. All these factors (or at least most of them) are possible to measure quite simply and to see if those numbers are growing over time. What is pretty important to remember is that content marketing takes time and you will need to wait sometime before first results from content marketing become visible. But, long-term, which is also showed in every example we stated before, the results of content marketing will come, and it will appear in that moment, how good of an investment content marketing really is. HOW TO MEASURE THE EFFICIENCY OF CONTENT MARKETING 32.

5 CASE STUDY - HOW TO PROMOTE A CITY WITH THE HELP OF CONTENT MARKETING AND BLOG

5. CASE STUDY - HOW TO PROMOTE A CITY WITH THE HELP OF CONTENT MARKETING AND BLOG WRITING? - Love Zagreb We’ve probably already said enough about the importance of writing a blog just in this ebook. That importance was also realized by one of our long-term clients, Zagreb Tourist Board. Since they have a ton of responsibilities and they suffer from a general lack of time for writing a blog, they placed their trust in our agency to write a blog for them that is not only informative for everyone but also interesting to read. 5.1. CHALLENGE: How to create a story? Since Croatia is most popular among tourists because of the Adriatic coast, especially during summer months, we had to highlight all the aspects and benefits of Zagreb’s tourist offer and why it’s a good idea to spend time here, what to see and visit, when CASE STUDY: HOW TO PROMOTE A CITY WITH THE HELP OF CONTENT MARKETING AND BLOG WRITING? 34.

to visit and find a way to attract people of all demographics because there’s really something for everyone in Zagreb. 5.2. GOALS Our goals were clear, but that didn’t make them any easier to achieve. We came up with a deliberate marketing strategy and wanted to: Familiarize the people with the things Zagreb has to offer. As we already stated, Zagreb was, in its past year somewhat in the shadow of the cities in Dalmatia who bring one of the most amazing looking seas into the fight, but what Zagreb has to give is a good offer throughout the year. Showcase Zagreb as a wanted destination for backpackers and travelers, a destination full of great hotels, apartments, and hostels among many other things interesting to curious souls from around the world. Create content that is valuable. Not only from its informative and educational side, but we also wanted to set a standard for all text written on our client’s website. We wanted to make them interesting, intriguing and visually attractive for reading. Show that there’s more to Zagreb than it meets the eye in terms of the fact that there’s always something new happening in our city. This last part was certainly not the least important one, as it was the main message for returning a customer. 5.3. HOW DID WE ACHIEVE WHAT WE WANTED? Preparation - we always plan what it is that we’re going to write about. One of the most important things when writing this kind of blog is to keep up with the ever- changing trends and events. Research - after we’ve published our written blogs, our work isn’t finished. We want to make sure what topics were the most interesting ones so that we could keep delivering the most relatable content possible. Authentic Photographs - we invest in good photographic equipment so that we can fully evoke the stuff we are writing about with the high-quality photos. CASE STUDY: HOW TO PROMOTE A CITY WITH THE HELP OF CONTENT MARKETING AND BLOG WRITING? 35.

Work on the field - this last part demands more than just leaving the comfortably air-conditioned space of our office. It also implies the conducting of interviews or talks with locals and tourists so that our stories could gain even more life. 5.4. THE RESULTS Not only did we increased the number of unique readers of our client’s blog, but that number’s still growing A lot of tourists said that they found out about the craziest places they wouldn’t otherwise in any tourist brochure and that we’ve helped them see the side of Zagreb they’ve never imagined it even existed Since previous is possible due to the exponential growth of social media usage, we’ve also increased the use of the official hashtag #LoveZagreb on social media profiles of our readers and Zagreb visitors. If you liked this story, you can read the full case study on our website. CASE STUDY: HOW TO PROMOTE A CITY WITH THE HELP OF CONTENT MARKETING AND BLOG WRITING? 36.

6. SOURCES https://optinmonster.com/content-marketing-examples/ https://www.singlegrain.com/content-marketing-strategy-2/16-companies- dominating-the-world-with-content-marketing/ http://blogpanda.io/best-content-marketing-examples/ https://madovermarketing.com/2015/06/09/20-times-zomato-rocked-social- media-with-their-super-creative-posts/ https://contently.com/strategist/2013/10/03/the-story-behind-the-furrow-2/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Deere SOURCES 37.

By with love, October, 2018 https://kontra.agency/