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“I think content is becoming the forefront for any ecommerce or digital strategy,” Andy Wang, Digital Brand Marketing Manager, World Kitchen, said.

The struggle, though, can come in creating that content. In 2014, 45% of B2C marketers reported “producing enough content” as a top challenge, according to the B2C Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America report. And that’s just creating it. Moreover, 51% of marketers struggled with “producing the kind of content that engages.”

How can marketers meet the content amount demands while still producing quality content that resonates with customers?

At the MarketingSherpa IRCE Media Center, Andy discussed with Courtney Eckerle, Manager of Editorial Content, MarketingSherpa, how his team worked through these challenges.

“For us at World Kitchen, it was critical for us to bring in valid content that would showcase some of our passions that our consumers have for our products,” Andy said. “Giving them a voice was critical and allowing them to contribute to our website and be a part of our campaigns. That was one of the things we really enjoyed and were hopeful for.”

You can watch his full interview to learn how his team invited customers to share pictures and stories and integrated this user generated content into their digital marketing strategy.

“This year is Pyrex’s 100^th birthday. … We allowed users to post their photos of their favorite dishes. The whole campaign was about ‘raise your glass’ and allowing users to tell their story about how they use their Pyrex,” Andy said.

After using social networks to promote the campaign, users started sending in feedback and pictures of what they bake or make with their Pyrex products.

“Sometimes it was their kid or maybe even the dog eating out of the bowl. So really fun content and it helped us from a social perspective because we were able to bring that content into our site, augment our brand marketing message and also just showcase our wonderful and passionate users,” Andy said.

How do you gather the content?

“I think really using all your channels — whether it’s email marketing, whether it’s on your website messaging — and really bring to the forefront on your sites that you’re showcasing other people who are using your product,” Andy said.

At the center of it all is inspiration; inspiring content is engaging content.

“It’s great that people can … see other people and be inspired. Everyone wants to be inspired. … Once you inspire those people and bring those tools to their disposal, I think that helps you get that content that you like,” Andy concluded.

You can follow Selena Blue, Manager of Editorial Content, MECLABS Institute on Twitter at @SelenaLBlue.

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About Selena Blue

Selena Blue, Partnership Content Manager, MECLABS As Partnership Content Manager, Selena crafts various content to serve MECLABS Partners. From writing books on customer insights to building PowerPoint decks, she creates stories around our Partners’ successes and experiment discoveries to aid their marketing optimization transformation. Prior to her current position, she started at MECLABS as copy editor, then moved into a writing role as reporter. Selena holds a B.S. in communications and an M.S. in integrated marketing and management communications, both from Florida State University.

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Categories: Marketing Tags: content marketing, contest marketing, Inbound Marketing, IRCE, social media marketing, sweepstakes, user generated content