Ricoh’s content marketing approach has met with great success according to Sandra Zoratti, VP of marketing for the company. (Image credit: Wikipedia) She says
content marketing, to us, is an approach to help us better understand and engage with customers and prospects.
The content marketing approach is very much focused around industry verticals and the company’s planning commences with listening. This allows for proper research on what a business offers versus what the consumer wants. Conversations can then be started around key business challenges.
Sandra says they were able to overcome internal resistance as they –
already had several proof points to justify the practice internally because we started our content marketing journey by proving the value of relevancy to customers in a variety of industries.
In any organization – perhaps especially in large organizations like ours – we face the challenge of silos, as well as resistance to change the way “We’ve always done it.” To combat that, we have been careful to build content marketing as an approach, instead of a tactic.
Content marketing at Ricoh uses multichannel, integrated marketing and is not centered around tactics. Instead –
We say, “It’s the message, not the medium.” So our first order of business is to get the right content and from there, offer it broadly via channels so our readers can digest the content through the channel of their choice.
in terms of results from their content marketing approach, Ricoh was awarded the BMA Gold Key Award for their content marketing campaign targeting the utilities industry, it has also influenced $14 million of incremental revenue for the business.
Our utility industry approach was a great example of content marketing at its most interesting, its most relevant, and its most impactful.
Ricoh’s marketing past is being used to inform their future. sandra says that as far as their content marketing approach goes –
You can bet that before even one piece of content is generated, we’ll be listening, learning, and partnering with a third party to keep the content objective.
Another great example of a company that gets content marketing is Target. Target’s strategy is that of pushing content beyond the screen or page and into real-world events that engage customers even further. The “Falling For You” web series is a great example of this.
Target’s CMO Jeff Jones gets it — he’s proclaimed that Target’s future is in content and understands that engagement isn’t fueled by broadcasting a highly-structured campaign, but instead by responding to customers as they speak to the company, and then empowering those customers to become brand ambassadors who speak on Target’s behalf.
What examples of companies who get content marketing do you know of? Let us know in the comments below.
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