Drive Sales By Offering Valuable Content – Lessons From Hollywood

One of the biggest challenges a marketer faces is to produce content that will ultimately help drive sales. Content can take many forms, from blog posts to videos, infographics to podcasts, and beyond. However the key is always to provide great content. Content that your prospects and customers alike will find valuable. Content that will encourage prospects to buy, and customers to buy again.

Marketers often look to other brands for inspiration on how to achieve this goal, taking ideas from both B2B and B2C brands alike … if it works for one brand, it could work for you! Although in all my reading, I’ve rarely come across such a great and innovative idea from Hollywood, on providing great content which is also guaranteed to drive sales, as the below …

Hollywood Director Drives Sales With Special Podcast

Director Rian Johnson has recently announced a special podcast to accompany his latest film Looper. The podcast is a director’s commentary which can be downloaded from soundcloud.com, and which is designed to be played while watching the film on the big screen. In it Johnson explains some of the twists of the plot’s timeline and provides some technical explanations of the special effects.

Johnson advised that the podcast commentary will be completely different to the commentary available when the film is released on DVD (the podcast is more technical) and he tells fans flat out not to listen to the podcast the first time they are watching the film. Johnson has therefore pretty much guaranteed that die-hard fans will purchase 2 cinema tickets and buy the DVD once it is released – to get the second director’s commentary!

Extra Content For Die Hard Fans

When videotapes / DVDs first came out, it was a great way to drive sales for a film, by encouraging fans to buy the film to take home so they could watch it whenever they wanted. Then we had ‘Special Edition’ DVDs that had interviews, behind the scenes footage and an audio commentary – again, more valuable content being provided for fans.

Next we had special ‘Director’s Cut’ versions of the film included as a bonus DVD along with the original film. And now it seems, some directors aren’t even waiting for the DVD release to start offering fans extra content.

Think Creatively

Marketers should take a leaf out of Rian Johnson’s book and think about how they could also provide great additional content for customers and fans. Something that will make people, who have handed over their hard earned money, feel appreciated and that they are getting a valuable ‘extra’.

Bonus content will not always drive sales directly, as the above example no doubt does, but it will always drive sales indirectly, by promoting your brand as one that not only cares about its customers, but as one which will always provide valuable content.

So get those thinking caps on and see what you can come up with for your own brand!

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Images:  ”HOLLYWOOD – SEPTEMBER 6/ Shutterstock.com“