Content Marketing: 9 Openness Lessons

I usually do not read press releases.
Honestly, most of them are just spam, which I am constantly trying to get rid of. However, the release written by Amanda Presley from “MSR Communication” caught my eye.

“February 12th is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. What is not a great reason to pay tribute to “Honest Abe,” using all the marketing opportunities to be more sincere and open with customers? ”

Next, Armand cites an opinion on content marketing of his client from Kentico. “Openness in content marketing is when just selling is no longer enough. You must inform. For example, the Corner Bakery cafe helps to count calories when ordering online. ” Let's look in the spirit of "Honest Abe," for examples of openness and transparency in marketing, picked up by Amanda.
These examples are accompanied by conclusions that will help you use them in practice.

Lesson number 1 . Customer complaints through social networks = a forward-looking business approach

Conclusions: Sympathize with Verizon Wireless and other IT companies. We expect modern technology to work quickly and flawlessly. True, I also like many are impatient, and immediately begin to look for extreme ones, sometimes without noticing my mistakes.
Complaints of users, even unrealistic in terms of technological capabilities, is a godsend for smart business. Do not hide client complaints. Use Twitter, as Verizon Wireless does. The company openly works with complaints and shows how to improve the service through feedback.
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We all make mistakes. And most customers become more lenient if they know that they have been heard and dealt with problems.

Lesson number 2 . Help customers to help themselves.

Customers want to eat more healthy food



And take care of the environment.





Conclusions: Under the conditions of a free market there is no ideal option for selection. Life - a series of similar options. Simplify your selection. Show the pros and cons of different products or services.

Just as Corner Bakery helps with its power calculator. Nike applies the Materials Sustainability Index, and Patagonia uses the Chronicle of Tracks. “Opening up, we invite you to talk,” said Rick Ridgway, vice president of environmental initiatives for Patagonia.
“Excessive openness is a necessity. We should not be afraid of her. On the contrary, we welcome openness, ”said Jim Hannah, director of environmental impact at Starbucks.

You will gain extra points in front of customers if you show them that they can buy products from your competitors if it is really better.

Lesson number 3 . Your employees are your customers too.

Mark Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com, invited all employees to participate in the annual management meeting via chat. “Unexpectedly, instead of the meeting of the elect, all employees of the company took part in the meeting,” Mark said.
Zappos.com encourages employees to tweet openly on tweets, even broadcasting messages on the official page. “We realized that it’s profitable to be open in everything online,” said Tony Xie, CEO, Zappos.com. "We will continue to strive for maximum openness."

Conclusions: Wikipedia describes the Client as the recipient of products, services, or ideas. If you want your marketing to be effective, share your ideas generously with your employees.

It is through openness and transparency that marketing goes beyond the traditional framework, spreading across all types of business communications, both within and outside the company.

Lesson number 4 . Expose your industry

Advertising in the field of beauty and health, as well as in many other industries, has long been built on human needs for security.
Dove took the opposite step. Rejecting the veil of advertising peel, showed how women look in real life.
Result: 61,912,975 views on YouTube and 20 million likes on Facebook.

Conclusions: If someone takes a step forward, take a step to the side. Most internet marketers want to break through the veil of advertising noise and achieve a viral effect in the social. networks.

One way to do this is to become more open, while others in your industry use shamanism.

Lesson number 5 . Make events even more interesting by opening your company.

The Domino's Pizza Company conducted a national advertising campaign to tell about the pizza that was not tasty (naturally, before improvement).

All the customers needed was honesty and openness. Because that's exactly what they lacked, ”said Russell Weiner, director of marketing, Domino Pizza.

Result: After two and a half years, sales declined, the volume increased by 14.3% after the start of the campaign, compared to the 1st quarter of the previous year.

Last year, the company applied the principle of openness in another direction. With the help of Pizza Tracker, showing customers the whole process of cooking and delivering pizza.


Chipotle company (sauces manufacturer) not only reports on high quality ingredients. The company recognizes that some ingredients are harmful to health, and tells how they improve the situation.


Conclusions: Many companies use a marketing approach taken from the fairy tale "The Wizard of Oz": "Do not pay attention to the person behind the curtain."

However, you can open the curtain in two ways:

• Show the real picture not only about the benefits, but also about the weak points of your products
• Show your work and processes.

So you will gain the trust and loyalty of the client.

With the development of soc. networks there is the ability to quickly post and disseminate information. And if in these conditions you are not open, you will gradually find yourself in a weaker position.

“Thanks to the Internet and social media, customers quickly share with each other information about the products they want to buy or have already purchased,” said Tom Robbins, Kentico's main evangelist. “They can compare prices, find reviews about the company and publicize service problems. That's why openness and transparency are so important in marketing today. ”

It is quite natural to accidentally make mistakes. People are ready to forgive such mistakes if they conduct an honest and open dialogue with them. The only thing that they will not forgive is lies and attempts to hide something from them.

At the end I will quote the words of Bruno Peters, designer, from the company Honest By, who warns:

“If a brand is proud of something, let them make sure that we know and believe in it. If they do something that we do not accept, they will sow doubt in us. In general, their silence is in itself the answer for making a decision. This is where the danger lies for companies that are closed. Clients have ceased blindly to rely on brand strength. ”