Does content marketing work for event suppliers?
Will Content Marketing Work for Your Brand?
The simple answer is yes, but content marketing is no silver bullet.
Content marketing may seem like the latest and greatest thing but it's certainly not new. In the early 1900's company's regularly published magazines that offered information, helpful suggestions and advice as a way to create engagement with new customers while offering advice and support for existing ones.
One great example, is John Deere, who in the late 1800s published a magazine called The Furrow that was full of valuable information designed to help farmers be more successful. Today, John Deere is one of the world's most recognized brands and the magazine has gone on to become a staple for farmers around the world with circulation numbers in excess of 1.5 million and available in over 40 countries.
Content marketing does work but it's a long game and takes patience. This is one of the reasons why it's such an important strategy for marketing to people who plan events. There are no shortcuts to effectively marketing yourself to event planners. They are driven to purchase by the needs of the event they are producing and that event may be tomorrow or six months to a year down the road. This is why a promotional, discount or time sensitive strategy is often ineffective.
A better approach would be to create a series of articles that offer your potential customer a reason to pay attention and remember you. For example, "The Wine Sisters" is a company looking to expand their offerings to events planners. They will kick off a three month article series featuring great tips on hidden gems, holiday food pairings, buying tips and much more. These two page feature articles will begin appearing in our latest magazine out next week. The benefits of this approach include;
- Three months of consistent exposure to their target audience.
- Opportunities for engagement with clients that interruptive marketing solutions will never be able to match.
- Exponential sharing; I don't know anyone that's shared an E-blast or website banner but a great article offers exponential sharing possibilities well beyond our own opt-in community.
- Positions and supports the writer as an expert in their given field.
Circling back to the original question; Yes content marketing does work but it will take time, patience, commitment and to be fair the right content, to create that relationship with your target market. The benefits though are well worth the effort, especially If you remember how people who plan events buy.