You may have heard: we’re into content marketing. For our money, it’s the best way for brands to tell compelling stories and get the results they need on the bottom line. Finding examples of brands that are doing content marketing really, really well makes us happy, and we want to share a recent find with you. Have you heard of the company called Wealthsimple? I noticed that it was popping up in my Facebook feed as sponsored content, and perhaps more surprisingly, as content I would choose to click on even knowing that it was sponsored—which is the holy grail for a content marketer. I dove further into this automated investing company’s content marketing through the magazine on their website and was impressed with the articles they are publishing.
Here are three examples of what Wealthsimple is doing really, really well.
Profile business leaders to demonstrate unexpected personality—and align yourself with them.
The article is called “Why Wouldn’t a Woman Want to Win?” and it’s a story about finances as told by Jen Agg (via a staff writer named Sasha Chapin), who is heralded as one of the most successful bar and restaurant owners in Toronto. The story she tells includes candid details about the ups and downs of her career as a bar and restaurant owner in Toronto. She talks about the way her relationship with her money has changed over time, with those changes being largely informed by mistakes she made along the way. The story is personal and compelling in its own right, but what the story most accomplishes for Wealthsimple is to draw a firm line between that brand and this kind of business person. The article includes swear words, and even calls them out in highlighted pull quotes.
This is (it has to be) a deliberate choice. The simple act of highlighting the word “fuck” on an investing website positions Wealthsimple as being a renegade in the investing world. In choosing to tell this story through this particular business person, Wealthsimple wants to draw a parallel. You, the potential investor, break the rules all the time in the business you are running, and so does Wealthsimple. Very crafty.
Write with utter candor about your business (especially the boring stuff).
“It’s boring! It’s moderately expensive! It’s morbid!” This line actually appears in an article about why you should get life insurance. In immediately admitting what the audience is already thinking as they tune in to a compellingly titled “A Totally-Not-Boring Guide to Life Insurance,” the article immediately earns my trust. Those are all things I think about life insurance.
And while Wealthsimple doesn’t sell insurance, they know that I think of investing companies as being cut from the same cloth as insurance companies. I have a perception of them as a staid industry, one that doesn’t understand my specific financial situation, and one that wouldn’t tell me the actual truth about anything. They know that. This article is proof that they know it, and they are working hard to help me get past that. Being that honest in the opening lines of this article is perhaps the only way they could have convinced me to keep reading. Well played, Wealthsimple. Well played.
Create headlines and graphics that get people in the door.
I found these articles because of an interesting headline and eye-catching graphic. A look at the subsections of the magazine portion of Wealthsimple’s website reveals that this wasn’t a fluke. Look at this selection of headlines and graphics from the section of their website called “Data”:
Could a section title sound less interesting than DATA? For my money, absolutely not. And yet. Of the six articles listed here I would definitely click through on four of them—maybe even five on a particularly slow afternoon at work. Headlines and images matter enormously for content that lives online. You have seconds to convince someone that your brand is worth their time, and Wealthsimple easily convinced me to give them a shot. Praise hands.
The Secret to Success?
Why did I stumble onto this website? The headline and visual accompanying a Sponsored Facebook Post grabbed my attention—perhaps because they knew who they were trying to reach (me)—and convinced me to click through. When I arrived at the article, I immediately appreciated the value of the article I was reading, shared it with my co-workers, and then dove further into the content. This is the dream for anyone who has a website. Four simple steps to success:
- Get the right people to your front door.
- Convince them to step inside.
- Quickly reassure them that they’ve come to the right place. (Very quickly.)
- Get them to tell a friend about you.
That’s it. That’s what great content marketing should do for your business. That’s what Wealthsimple’s magazine did to me. I doff my cap.
Interested in other Content Marketing Success Stories?
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