March 1, 2016
Is it true that the sum of all parts is greater than the pieces?
It certainly is with customer experience. And with content marketing.
How a brand creates experiences for audiences is what sets them apart from everyone else in the market. Zappos understood this with how they rethought customer service. American Express got it with OPEN Forum.
Customer experience is about creating value for customers outside of the products and services that you sell through the experiences that a brand creates.
Content marketing is about creating value for customers outside of the products and services that you sell by creating content-driven experiences.
Is it coincidence that they sound eerily alike?
Nope. It means that when companies put customers at the center of what they do, content marketing and customer experience become very close companions.
Let me give you an example…
It’s ski season in Colorado (where I live), which means one thing – my ski pass is close at hand.
The Epic Pass is a fabulous example of how Vail Resorts has moved from the product (a ski pass) into creating a customer experience with content marketing at 10 different resorts.
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- I can get snow updates texted to me based on what matters to me, which comes in handy if I have a blank calendar and want sneak off to the mountains on a weekday
- I can ski against Lindsey Vonn (one of these years I’ll give her a run for her money)
- I can track my vertical feet, earn pins and taunt my flatlander friends with pictures…this makes it a game that makes me want to ski harder
- My kids can charge meals at the lodge with their ski passes
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- If I lose my pass I can get a new one on site (for a small fee) in a few minutes
- I can keep track of everyone else in my group with the Epic mobile app
- And new this year I can check the wait times on lift lines with the EpicMix Time
Vail Resorts understands that content IS the customer experience.
How are you working customer experiences into your content strategy?
Photo credit: EpicMix.com
