Content Marketing Today

George Bowers Grocery Makes a  Fun 1 to 1 Connection That's Impossible for the Big Chain to Match

The right niche and the right approach enable a two-person company to outshine a retailing giant on Facebook. That's true of George Bowers Grocery in Staunton Virginia where owners Katie McCaskey and Brian Weidman have created a delightful grocery store that focuses on high-quality foods and other specialty products.

The couple knew they could not compete head-to-head with the local Kroger supermarket in their community. Instead they have captured the spirit of the original 19th-century owner as a provider of "staple goods & fancy groceries."

They offer wonderful local meats, cheeses, wines, and craft beers as well as a variety of specialty items. They target the diverse mix of neighborhood residents, local food enthusiasts, and culinary tourists each with their own distinctive interests and needs. The atmosphere of the store itself is an eclectic blend of the old-fashioned and the modern.

And, they have a lot of fun with their marketing, in person and online.

Learn What Not to Do from One Very Boring News Release

Press releases still pack a punch for marketers.

With content rich releases, smart marketers engage not only the press, but thousands of customers as well. But, ineffective press releases benefit neither a company nor its customers.

As with so many things, it's probably easier to explain what's important in a press release than it is to execute effectively. Fortunately, it's much more common sense than it is rocket science.

Effective press releases incorporate core content marketing concepts:

• Understand your customers' information needs
• Create content that responds precisely to those information needs
• Explain how you can solve their problems whether personal or professional
• Make that content immediately engaging with a strong, benefit-laden
  • headline
  • subhead
  • first paragraph
• Be certain that the lead-off content is all about the customer and not all about your company.
• When it's time to talk about your company, make sure your unique benefits shine through.

Much of this may seem obvious. But it's surprising how many marketing professionals seem to get it wrong. This makes for an awful lot of ineffective press releases that sit around mostly unread, cluttering the Internet.

Lessons to Learn from a Snooze-Inducing Press Release

The good news is that we can learn from both great press releases--those that are not quite so great. In the latter category, see if you can figure out what you might take away from the following, real-life news release headline:

BDD Corporation Plans to Utilize Twitter Research 

Unfortunately, this headline gives us almost no reason to continue reading further. And, it doesn't get much better as the press release proceeds.

Our Aussie Mates Deliver 3 Minutes Worth of Slow-Mo Creative Genius

You can talk all you want about Budweiser Super Bowl ads—and I love those Clydesdales as much as anybody.  But, I hope you'll agree that this colorfully compelling commercial from Australia might be the best ever.

The entire commercial is shot in slow motion, which offers wonderful shots of Carlton Draught beer interspersed with  goofy goings-on in an Aussie pub.

Throughout the commercial, a tenor sings a play-by-play narration of the ad itself,  to the music of the opera classic, Nessun  Dorma, from Puccini's Turandot. The tune is famous enough so that even non-opera fans might hum along.

Beautiful music. Beautiful beer. It doesn't get any better.