Betty Crocker found a great recipe for content marketing success. (I know, that pun was hard to swallow.)
When food brand giant and cultural icon Betty Crocker, a brand owned by General Mills, wasn’t having success online they developed a digital video series centered around solving common problems for at-home chefs.
Since launching in 2008, their library of around 1,500 videos collectively received more than 70 million views, according to ChiefMarketer.com.
So what did they do right to earn their way into consumers’ kitchens?
The videos are low on selling, high on solving
“We wanted to get out of the interruption business and more firmly into the solution-based ‘let-us-help-you’ business,” said Doug Moore, vice president of branding for General Mills in a ChiefMarketer.com interview.
This requires a philosophical commitment to the idea that customers can be earned through providing content they found useful versus promoting products on price or value positioning alone.
Instead of “hey, look what our products can do for you,” it’s “hey, here’s how to do that thing you’ve always wanted to do. And oh yeah, if you need the ingredients, we’ve got those, too.”
Use of a smart, beyond-the-basics, SEO strategy
Anyone can kick their feet up on a desk, stare off into the distance and say things like “you know, people really like to search for ‘recipes’ online.”
The team got specific and drilled down to see what household cooking projects web audiences were struggling with and created videos that specifically targeted long-tail search terms like “how do I make buttermilk?” and “how do I thaw a turkey quickly?”
They went for long-term value instead of fleeting viral
These videos aren’t meant to go viral or get featured on the Today Show. Instead, they aim to be the best answer to a specific question at the right moment, meeting a clear need that has steady demand, one video at a time.
The goal is not to rack up vanity metrics, it’s to become a resource for people who buy their products – or will be buying them shortly.
[Image: jeffrey.w]