Now that the Fast and Furious franchise is on its eighth installment, it’s generating plenty of buzz. UK company InsureTheGap capitalized on Dom and the rest of the crew by tallying up the amount of financial damage caused by the first seven films.
Hint: It’s a lot.
The information InsureTheGap presented was interesting and fun, but it’s also a fantastic example of content marketing. Let’s look at what the company did right. Then we’ll explore ways in which you can apply these strategies to your own content marketing campaign.
Answer Real Questions
If you’ve ever seen a Fast and Furious movie, you likely spent at least a few minutes in awe of the damage wrought on regular cars, “specialty cars,” and other personal property. We’re hard-wired to think in terms of loss and damage.
InsureTheGap recognized this trend and answered the question that thousands have asked: How much damage was caused?
Content marketing only works when you can attract an audience. That means answering a question that people are already asking.
If you can weave that question and answer into a topic that people are already talking about, you get extra points. People can find the InsureTheGap article if they’re searching for keywords related to car damage, car accidents, property damage, and more.
However, they’ll also find it when searching for keywords related to the Fast and Furious franchise. Kind of like double-dipping.
How to Apply the Strategy
- Think about the questions your clients or customers ask most often.
- Conduct market research using Google, Quora, Yahoo! Answers, and other resources.
- Tie those questions to keywords and phrases or news events that have engaged the public’s curiosity.
Embrace Shock Value
All the pretty cars…most not long for this world.
InsureTheGap doesn’t waste its readers’ precious time. The author of the piece gets right to the point: The first seven Fast and Furious films caused £419,446,914 (or $523,859,834.30 in U.S. currency).
That’s a huge number. It makes an impression and urges the viewer to continue reading.
While you don’t want to go off-brand and post an article that flies in the face of your values, beliefs, or culture, you likewise don’t want to miss an opportunity to give your audience a little jolt.
In the apparel industry, for instance, you could use a similar strategy to calculate the cost of the cast members’ wardrobes in a beloved television show. In real estate, you could list the most expensive celebrity houses and their values.
Get creative. Most importantly, don’t be boring.
How to Apply This Strategy
- Lead with your most compelling piece of information.
- Use a headline that makes readers want to know the answers you’re promising.
- Keep readers interested by dribbling in other tasty tidbits of data.
Don’t Stray Off Topic
The InsureTheGap piece on Fast and Furious never deviates from the title’s promise. It’s a compelling piece of content marketing because it shows that you don’t have to go off on wild tangents to keep readers’ eyes on the screen.
More importantly, it reflects the fact that consumers’ attention spans have waned. If you go off-topic, expect your readers to go off-page.
This is especially important when it comes to plugging your company. Don’t drop hints throughout the article about your latest and greatest products or your super-fast service.
Including a brief, enticing call-to-action at the end of your piece is an excellent move. But wait until the right time to include promotion.
How to Apply This Strategy
- Reread each paragraph of your text. Does anything not belong?
- Use only as many words as necessary to deliver the information you want your readers to get.
- Make sure each sentence is responsive to the title.
Use Visual Aids
People love imagery. It’s enticing, evocative, and full of sensory input.
Do words still matter? Absolutely. However, great content marketing deserves images as well as text.
In InsureTheGap’s article, the author divided up short paragraphs with images, graphs, charts, and other images. This is especially effective in the Fast and Furious piece because the writer needs to convey lots of statistical data.
Would you rather look at a quick chart or read a list of numbers? That’s what we thought.
Research shows that people respond to images differently than they do to text. You also can’t deny that your eye is drawn to color and other visual elements when you’re perusing a web page. In fact, you might spend more time looking at the pictures than reading the copy.
You can try stock images, embedded videos, custom graphics, infographics, and even illustrations. Great images elevate content marketing to a new level.
How to Apply This Strategy
- Choose relevant images for every piece of content you publish.
- Use graphs and charts to convey data.
- Mix up your media to find out what type works best for your audience.
The Fast and Furious franchise gave InsureTheGap an ideal springboard for a compelling piece of content. However, lightning can always strike twice.
Studying great examples of content marketing will help you up your own game and stretch your imagination. Don’t be afraid to think outside the copywriting box.
We love it when companies use content marketing in unique, innovative ways, and that’s how we help our customers at Media Shower. Not only do we produce compelling content, but we’re also fantastic ideators. Get three free content ideas to find out for yourself.