About three years ago, we tried to convince a North American media group to pitch a content marketing proposal to Target , one of the two largest supermarket chains in the US. The idea: a site for middle class women, the main target audience of the brand. A women’s magazine designed for Target’s customers.
A bullseye view , launched by Target in September 2011, is not quite this concept, but it is a spectacular content marketing initiative. In the same vein asCoca Cola’s Journey , it targets influencers, not home makers. The result is a website, a sort of digital magazine, supported by a dedicated twitter account and promoted on all of Target’s social media channels. The mascot of the brand, a bull terrier with a red target on the left eye, is the inspiration for the website’s name.
The initiative, according to Eric Hausman , manager of the communications group, was conceived as an additional step in Target’s social media strategy.“We wondered, now what?” He said during his presentation (video below and slideshow at bottom of the article) at the event SocialMedia.org , held on March 27th in San Francisco. He added, “We had the feeling that we had interesting stories to tell that are not necessarily known and/or covered by traditional media. We wanted to go further and connect with the media, bloggers and consumers. “
Here are 15 key points from Target’s content marketing initiative, “a bullseye view”:
1. “Work in progress”. Phase 1 of the digital magazine was launched in six weeks. Phase 2: six months later. The project is constantly evolving.
2. The target: bloggers, the media, influencers. However consumers are becoming more and more present.
3. The launch was purposefully timed during an important event: New York Fashion Week in September 2011. Target was presenting its new collection in partnership with Missioni . Target, at several times throughout the year, designs collections at very affordable prices with renowned designers. Stark was one of them.
4. A twitter account accompanies the site.
5. Target’s partners/suppliers have been involved in the development of the initiative.
6. Editorial strategy covers:
- Target News (i.e. latest news, partnerships with designers, the underlying mechanisms of some of the brand’s initiatives etc)
- Reputation management and current issues (i.e. initiatives on sustainable development, philanthropic initiatives, prospective legislation affecting Target, and proposed retail in Washington).
- Brand affinity (i.e. buzz and conversation around what consumers love the most about Target).
- Stories and information about partners and the brand’s suppliers.
7. The editorial calendar is planned four weeks in advance, but important information can be published on the site in less than an hour.
8. A process has been established to enable employees to contribute content ideas to the site in any format: article, tweet, image, video, simple idea etc.
9. An important lesson from this initiative: the difficulty of producing quality content. The content is developed by an outside agency, by specialized and well known bloggers, and by some partners of Target.
10. The stories are linked on the brand’s different content marketing channels (Facebook account, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn etc), and on occasion, the director of marketing as well as communication tweet articles on their accounts.
11. The content is also published on the content marketing channels of the partners linked to any information.
12. Stories that have the most success are those offering multimedia content (videos, images, graphics).
13. Stories written and cross posted by specialized bloggers are also among the most popular.
14. The articles are often quite short.
15. The content is often promoted on the company’s intranet.
This trend of brands developing content websites is just the beginning. Content marketing is slowly but surely starting to play an important role in marketing strategies. Social media is just a part of this tactic and not enough on its own.Without content there is no engagement. Content, not just focused on the brand, but also practical and useful content for consumers. That is, in our humble opinion, is where Target’s strategy might be weak. What do you think?
It would be unfortunate if media companies don’t jump on board this trend.Examples of companies capitalizing on this marketing trend include Canadian media group TC Media , who we are helping with content marketing initiatives such as their project href=”http://productivite.lesaffaires.com/”>productivité 202020 for Les Affaires in partnership with IBM.
Source: Revsquare (http://goo.gl/t89W3)
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