Man. I’m constantly surprsied at how much I don’t know.
Today I discovered that Gibson Guitars has an awesome collection of content on their website.
The website focuses on selling the Gibson branded merchandise including the guitars, but it also has a strong focus on community, content, and support. It’s awesome to see how much amazing content they have on the site. The company is obviously focused on providing valuable information for their audience while also selling the products those same people demand.
The first thing that jumped out at me about the company’s content and blogging strategy was the focus on its partners.
It’s difficult for a company to focus on its customers when talking about its products, but Gibson leads by example. Three posts I read focused entirely on how their partners are using the guitars to create great music. It’s a great strategy that is interesting and useful for other customers of the brand and it probably leads to increased sales.
Show How Customers Use a Product
Noel Gallagher is famous as a founding member of the band Oasis. Worldwide, this band is recognized as being influential for guitarists and musicians. Noel is an inspiration for musicians so it makes perfect sense for Gibson to use his partnership with the company to attract his followers. That is what the company does with the post The Guitars of Noel Gallagher.
The entire article is really a story about the guitars the music legend used throughout his career all the way from the early days to present day. It’s really interesting even for someone that doesn’t know much about how to play the guitar.
The article, though, is written specifically for guitar fans and guitar experts. The language of guitar players is used. For someone like me with zero knowledge about guitars this language is confusing, but the story is interesting. The specific language will appeal to the core target audience, though, and that’s what blogging is all about.
Interview Customers to Find Interesting Details
Customer reviews are one thing, but have you ever thought about customer interviews?
Here’s an example of this strategy from Gibson with Emmylou Harris Opens Up About Her New Album. This was the original post I discovered via Google. It’s from 2008. Gibson has obviously been in on the content and blogging game from way back.
Interviews are always interesting. The format gives readers an insight into the mind of someone, in this case the music legend Emmylou Harris. You just can’t formulate details and stories as a brand like the ones you get from interviewing your own customers.
Interviews reveal details about people that other people connect to and it can lead reader down the sales funnel to make their own purchase. If Emmylou can create a great album with a Gibson then maybe it will inspire someone reading the article to do the same.
Consider taking the extra step of interviewing your customers and using the interview as a blog post.
Write How-to Articles Showcasing Customers
Finally, I really like the format Gibson takes for the post How to Get John Fogerty and CCR’s Classic Swamp Rock Sound. I love CCR and so do millions of other folks. They had a distinct sound that was both interesting and entirely different from any other act out there at the time. The music still sounds great today.
With this post Gibson is putting in some extra effort to teach its audience how to play CCR songs like John Fogerty. It’s almost like revealing a secret, but in a more general sense it’s simply educating people on a craft that is special.
If you can figure out a way to educate your audience on something specific you can really win over their attention and loyalty. It can lead to a long-term, profitable customer.