As How I Met Your Mother's Barney Stinson says: “To succeed you have to stop being ordinary and be legen… wait for it… dary!” Your customers can tell when you don’t care or aren’t putting in much effort. Be enthusiastic about them and enthusiastic about helping them and they will reward you with their loyalty. And don’t just do what all your competitors are doing – do something legendary.

1. This is going to be legen…
wait for it… dary!

3. 1. BE AWESOME
Your customers can tell when you’re not
putting in the effort. If you’re too busy or
not motivated enough to produce
content, consider changing your schedule
or delegating some of the workload.
Content production is one of the most
important aspects of your digital
presence and the more enthusiastic you
are about what you’re producing, the
more enthusiastic your customers will
be about engaging with you.
The reward for consistent effort with
content marketing is consumer loyalty,
but don’t just do what the others are
doing. Be even more awesome –
research your competitors and find
gaps in their content strategies.

5. 2. BE CHALLENGING
Barney is nothing if not creative. If you
know anything about the convoluted
plan he came up with to propose to
Robin, you’ll know that everything he
does is challenging, creative, different
and extremely well executed.
Your approach to content production
should be the same. If it isn’t
challenging, it’s boring. If it isn’t creative,
it’s probably already been done. And if it
isn’t well executed, you’ll never know
the true results of your efforts.
You also need to think outside the
box in order to set yourself apart
from all the other companies that are
producing ‘same same’ content and
find a way to get through to your
audience.

6. The Dumb Ways to Die video by Melbourne
Metro Trains highlighted different ways a
person could die using public transport. It
certainly pushed the boundaries of
‘appropriate’ subject matter but made a
huge impact on the audience and worked
extremely well for Melbourne Metro
Trains’ rail safety efforts.
FOR EXAMPLE…

8. 3. SUIT UP!
Barney has an incredible talent for
engaging his audience (i.e. potential
conquests) by assuming an identity
that they’ll best respond to; whether
that’s an astronaut, a doctor, a pilot
or a Nobel Prize winner.
As a business, you also need to be
able to wear many hats to engage
with your audience and provide them
with exactly what they’re looking for.
Knowing what hat to wear and when
is the tricky part and, like Barney,
you must research your target first
in order to develop the right
approach.

9. Intrepid Travel knew that they couldn’t just
produce any old travel content. To be truly
intrepid and inspire their target audience
of audacious travellers, they had to push
the boundaries themselves. They teamed
up with documentary makers The
Perennial Plate to film documentary-style
travel content from across the globe.
Gritty, real and exactly what their audience
was looking for.
FOR EXAMPLE…

11. 4. RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
Engaging with your customers is about
knowing where they are and what they
need. This can change and evolve as
your content marketing efforts develop
and you must always be researching
their needs and rediscovering what it is
they want the most.
Like Barney, who places himself in the
right situations – such as the Empire
State Building, looking for girls who
might have been stood up – you need
to know when, where and how to
approach your audience.
Content marketing is about being
where your customers are, with
what they need at right time.

12. ASOS tapped into the excitement their
customers feel when ‘unboxing’ their
deliveries. They prompted customers to
create Vine videos of themselves opening
their products along with the hashtag
#ASOSUnbox. By doing so, they were
capturing their consumers at the most
exciting part of the customer journey –
the reveal! #AWESOME
FOR EXAMPLE…

14. 5. IF AT FIRST YOU STRIKE OUT…
Successful content marketing takes
time, patience and the guts to try a
few different tactics. If you don’t get it
right the first time or your audience
isn’t responding how you’d like them
to, try again. Do some more research
and change your approach. Like
Barney, try something different and
don’t give up.
Your audience is always evolving,
which means you need to as well.
Customer research is not a one-off
project – you need to keep asking
questions and learning about your
audience. When you produce
content, don’t just let it sit there –
monitor how people are responding
to it and keep track of what is and
isn’t working.

15. If you want to be as awesome at
content marketing as Barney is at
picking up women, it’s time to suit up
and contact Cirrus Media!
02 8484 0950
contentmarketing@cirrusmedia.com.au