Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition

Proof That Content Works

What follows are two excellent examples of businesses using compelling content. The first one is from a multibillion dollar corporation and the second from a mom living on the range. In both cases, you'll see how these successful businesses have used content focused on other people as the center point of their marketing, while using minimal marketing messages.

Be sure to carefully examine each of these examples, while thinking of ways your business could adopt a similar model.

Man of the House

Procter & Gamble (P&G) makes a wide range of consumer products, some of which appeal to men—and more specifically, dads. Part of P&G's marketing involves finding and working with bloggers. However, its marketers recognized that very few blogs were directed solely at dads.

In 2010, P&G observed that, due to a bad economy, a lot more men were out of work and were seen more often frequenting shopping aisles. The company needed a way to connect with these men. So in June of 2010, it partnered with Barefoot Proximity to produce an online magazine called Man of the House (see ManOfTheHouse.com).

“We saw this need among guys, in particular dads, whose lives had changed, and their role in the family was very different than [the one] their dads typically played,” explained Jeannie Tharrington, a P&G spokeswoman.¹

Now, you might be thinking that a big company like P&G would craft content designed to sell its products, like Gillette razors, Head & Shoulders shampoo, Bounty paper ...