How 5 Global Brands Rely on Contently to Power Their Content Marketing

In the six years since Contently was founded, we’ve seen some major transformations. Facebook took over the internet, our CCO changed hairstyles every few months, and—most importantly—our clients reached new levels of content marketing sophistication.

As we’ve grown as a company, so has the ability of our clients to tell meaningful stories. Over the last few years, as brands have gotten comfortable producing high-quality blog posts, infographics, and videos, they’ve set their sights on an ambitious goal: global content marketing programs.

As many companies know, reaching customers in one country is hard enough. Doing it across borders and languages requires a combination of technology, creativity, and communication. To show you how our clients have mastered global content, here are five examples of international brands using our editorial platform, talent network, and strategic services to tell stories around the world.

Aberdeen

One of the most common challenges for brands investing in content is how to stand out. For Aberdeen, an asset management firm based in the UK, marketing leadership tried to establish a relationship with the company’s target audience but needed to figure out how to communicate with them above all the noise on social media channels.

“That was the trigger for us to become more organized,” James Whiteman, Aberdeen’s head of investment communications, explained. “[We] needed a big, monstrous content strategy.”

In 2015, Aberdeen launched its digital publication, Thinking Aloud, which discusses investment strategies and provides commentary on major financial news. Its three major content pillars—macroeconomic trends, investments, and culture and inspiration—are clearly displayed at the top of the blog.

The brand consistently differentiates itself from other financial blogs by taking on unique angles that demonstrate its storytelling capabilities. Topics on the three sub-sections range from the “The Ten Golden Rules of Equity Investing” to a culture piece that uses study data to compare how the effect of classical music on the brain is similar to how the brain analyzes the stock market.

Aberdeen used the Contently platform to manage content production in one place. “Managing the calendar is [normally] hard and quite complex,” Whiteman said. “So there’s no coincidence on why we adopted Contently on that front.”

To learn more about Aberdeen’s journey to make smart and accessible financial content, read the full case story here.

Avocados From Mexico

When Avocados From Mexico revamped its content strategy in 2016, it had a lofty goal: raise avocado awareness. As the largest avocado seller in the U.S. and Mexico, the brand wanted to educate its target audiences on the benefits of avocados and increase demand and sales.

Avocados From Mexico teamed with Contently to create an audience segmentation strategy that would, according to Anna Mertz, the company’s digital marketing manager, “capture the imagination of the market.”

Avocados From Mexico and Contently divided audiences into subgroups that had general avocado awareness and those that were “avo-unaware.” Segmentation made it easier to create content for unique subsets.

Once the audience was set, the brand’s marketing team worked with Contently freelancers, including nutritionists and chefs, to develop entertaining and educational content. In the first 30 days after the site relaunch—designed around the segmentation strategy—traffic shot up 23 percent, the bounce rate dropped 8 percent, and average engagement was 10x that of average online readers.

To see how Avocados From Mexico used audience segmentation, read the full case study here.

Babbel

Babbel, the world’s first language-learning app, quickly identified video as its content sweet spot. By creating sensational content (that could be distributed across the globe) and local content (that addresses cultural nuances), the company could both expand and nurture its audience.

Ramping up production in multiple countries takes a lot of preparation and global communication. To translate these videos into subtitles from the company’s six main languages—English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Portuguese—it needed a better workflow to manage the various stages of production. Babbel turned to Contently’s technology platform to improve workflow efficiency.

“Our production rate has massively improved in the last years,” Edward Wood, head of content marketing at Babbel said, “and one of the important factors is Contently.”

To find out more about how Babbel developed a global video strategy, read the full case story here.

Eni

Eni, a global oil and gas company headquartered in Italy, gave its digital publication a very telling tagline: “Energy is a good story.”

To peel back the curtain on advancements in technology, exploration, sustainability, and energy efficiency, Eni launched Eniday, an online magazine. The challenge for the company was scaling the project across international markets and supporting an editorial operation in both Italian and English.

“We didn’t want to actually create a newsroom inside the company, because it wasn’t feasible, and it wasn’t the right approach,” said Marco Bardazzi, Eni’s executive VP for communications. “We wanted to have people around the world working with us and to have a pool of talent that was much bigger than what we could build in-house.”

Eni turned to Contently to tap its pool of international journalists who could bring a wide range of global topics to life. Through Contently, Eni was able to supplement its team of Italian writers with native English speakers who could cover an array of topics from technology to education.

The success of Eniday led Eni to expand to high-performing and sophisticated videos, like this short documentary on sustainability projects in the developing world.

To take a closer look at Eni’s ambitious content marketing program, read the full case story here.

JLL

A few years ago, real estate advisory firm JLL launched Real Views, its thought leadership platform, to discuss large economic issues and industry developments. But how could the company unite content production across its three key regions: Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and EMEA?

The real estate firm worked with Contently to access a centralized platform to manage global communication and content production. With a streamlined workflow, JLL was able to pursue creative projects that served its different audiences. Stories range from reports, like why hotels are investing in electric car charging stations, to reflective pieces, such as Lee Kuan Yew’s contribution to the housing market in Singapore.

“Contently added real value to the content creation process,” Madeleine Little, former director of global marketing at JLL, explained. “We work virtually with colleagues across the world, so being able to have all communications in one place was a big benefit.”

To learn more about how technology influenced JLL’s content production, read the full case story here.