How a modern content strategy can ensure completely new brand successes, especially for companies in the outdoor industry

You are a marketer in the outdoor industry and are just about to plan your budgets for next year? Surely you want to invest a part for magazine and classic print ads and advertise your products directly via Search Engine Advertising (SEA). But if you’re looking for new, more effective marketing strategies, we’ve put together a few brand-new examples that you can include in your portfolio.

 

von Bernhard Liebl
Communication Manager / Lifestyle & Digitalization 

 

The desire for new adventures drives more and more people to spend their leisure time in unspoilt nature. With this growing trend, more and more outdoor outfitters are faced with the great challenge of meeting the needs of users and making them aware of their products and services.

 

For more and more people, values such as sustainability, adventurousness, freedom, etc. are considered one of the most important brand differentiators in the outdoor industry. This challenges marketers even more to highlight their marketing messages with highly qualified content that addresses exactly these topics.

 

It is good that there are specialists in this field who have many years of experience and know exactly which measures are particularly important in a content marketing strategy. Industry-specific digital magazines, such as InspiredBySports, with an integrated specialist editorial team, offer the ideal opportunity to create highly relevant content and, within an optimally coordinated communication strategy, to deliver it to the right target group.

Setzen Sie auf neutrale Online-Magazine wie InspiredBySports und platzieren Sie dort Ihre Inhalte. Quelle: Evernine.

Native advertising is the key to successful content marketing

With a steadily increasing number of new communication channels and the variety of content on the WWW, users are now bombarded with advertising. As a result, readers pay less and less attention to the messages, which is often reflected in the low retention times and click-through rates (CTRs), if companies use a blog at all to market their products.

 

Good content marketing should counteract exactly this problem. Especially companies in the outdoor industry often lack appealing stories. There is a lot to tell in the outdoor sector, many exciting stories and adventures that consumers like to take up and share with friends or family. This creates an ideal basis for promising content marketing campaigns that deliver added value to readers. The central idea of content marketing is that a brand must give something valuable in order to receive something valuable in return. In this form of marketing, valuable in the sense of good content is unique, original or exclusive content or information that readers cannot get anywhere else.

 

Placement in major magazines is worth gold. Source: Evernine.

And this is exactly where Native Advertising comes into play. Most companies in the sports industry are not yet familiar with this approach – so here is a brief explanation: In Native Advertising, articles are played out as reading recommendations via the large publisher networks such as Outbrain, plista, Taboola & Co. in online magazines such as FAZ, Süddeutsche, Focus Online, Fit for Fun or MensHealth, for example. They are not perceived as direct advertising via displays, but rather as recommendations for the reader.

 

So-called algorithms ensure that the reader is shown content that matches his or her user behavior. If a user reads more articles on the topic of hiking, content recommendations from this industry are also displayed. This native placement and the corresponding target group setting guarantees that the readers already have an existing interest in the product and that the campaign contribution offers the reader added value.

 

 

 

A look behind the scenes

But how can you imagine that exactly? You place your content in a brand-neutral magazine environment. This content is then booked into the publisher networks and played out to the target group as a reading recommendation.

Ihre Inhalte auf namhaften Online Magazinen als Lese-Empfehlung. Quelle: Evernine.

With the goal of creating innovative marketing opportunities in the publishing, PR & especially content marketing environment, Evernine offers the ideal support for companies of all kinds, from the creation of targeted content to the right marketing. Especially the digital magazine world of IBS Publishing opens the door for brands in the outdoor industry to carry out successful content marketing in an optimal advertising environment.

Take advantage of the Halo effect

Unfortunately, the right content alone is often not enough today to ensure successful content marketing in the long term. The quality and nature of the advertising environment in which the content is played out also have a significant influence on how readers perceive the advertising message.

 

The neutral platform InspiredBySports can put your content in the best possible light. Source: Evernine.

Placing brand messages on third-party platforms therefore offers an ideal opportunity to publish content within a brand-neutral environment. This not only enables the integration of SEO-relevant backlinks to the own website, but also provides the respective brand messages in an absolutely authentic landscape.

 

As a marketer in the outdoor industry, you can rely on industry-specific digital magazines that reflect the content in a brand-neutral environment. The magazine world of IBS Publishing in particular, with its strong network of influencers / experts and a readership of sports enthusiasts, offers the ideal environment for promising content placements within the right target group.

Rely on the right partner

However, anyone who wants to achieve long-term success with content marketing must be aware that this marketing strategy, unlike classic outbound marketing, often requires much more effort, time and diligence. Especially companies that are active in the outdoor industry often lack personnel, a suitable platform or the necessary know-how to be able to conduct successful content marketing within their own company structure. That sounds interesting for you? Then please contact our marketing experts at InspiredBySports.

Image source: iStock / DisobeyArt