How Attraction Marketing Can Supercharge Your Content Marketing Game

What is attraction marketing? It isn’t exactly breaking news that the purpose of all content marketing efforts is to attract the audience. So, when you first hear of ‘attraction marketing,’ you might think to yourself, “Well, duh. Isn’t that what is good for business?” To succinctly put it, attraction marketing is the coming together of...

What is attraction marketing?

It isn’t exactly breaking news that the purpose of all content marketing efforts is to attract the audience. So, when you first hear of ‘attraction marketing,’ you might think to yourself, “Well, duh. Isn’t that what is good for business?”

To succinctly put it, attraction marketing is the coming together of your content marketing activities to sell them your brand story, rather than a product or service.

Similar to other content marketing strategies, attraction marketing aims to create competitive brand differentiation by delivering standout content experiences. You must formulate a plan, execute it – bearing in mind resource optimization and technology ROI, set metrics to measure performance and get actionable insights to continuously improve.

But in attraction marketing, you bring people to your brand by imbibing trust, confidence, and curiosity rather than offering slashed prices, driving new product launches, and making transparent competitor analysis.

Purpose of attraction content 

The purpose of attraction marketing is to entice the audience to come to the brand, not the other way around. And this is a refreshing approach, especially for modern marketers, because it ensures a more organic way of communicating with existing and prospective customers, without getting into business talk. Since the dawn of automation-led marketing, there has been a simpler and faster route to the hearts and minds of people.

However, there isn’t a one-style-fits attraction marketing formula . The only three certainties are that you need to understand your buyer persona, build a multilevel marketing (MLM) strategy, and ensure constant inbound marketing efforts.

Now, that begets another question.

What’s the difference between inbound marketing and attraction marketing?

If inbound marketing is the journey, attraction marketing is the fuel. While the former also focuses on attracting people to a particular website, a landing page, or a social profile, the latter is where the attraction happens. 

Inbound marketing takes care of business, while attraction marketing keeps it personal.

Attraction marketing is to entice the audience to come to the brand, not the other way around. Which is better for your business? #Inboundmarketing or attraction marketing? Find out now.
via @socialanimal_io

One’s a hook; the other’s the bait.

Some can also argue that inbound marketing is a part of the attraction marketing business; that the more while-value content you offer – the better your chances of attracting people.

Either way, both have their eyes set on outstanding content experiences.

You may be thinking, “That sounds cool, but does attraction marketing really work?”

And we totally understand.

That’s why we collected a few popular instances of how attraction marketing has been a spark that fired up a brand’s overall presence.

10 examples of Attraction marketing

Attraction marketing has been around for a long time. In the 1920s and 30s, Coca Cola ran with the “The Pause That Refreshes” campaign. And this was while the nation was going through a severe economic crisis. It wasn’t a call for people to buy their product or service, but rather a call for them to feel good despite life being hard. It attracted people to their story – not their pricing model, product ingredients, or what made them better than whoever their competitors were during the Great Depression.

Over the years, celebrities like Michael Jordan, Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears, Gordon Ramsay, and Kim Kardashian have taken the online business to a whole new level. Even mythical characters like Santa Claus (sorry, kids) and anthropomorphic characters like Tony the Tiger have played an essential role in accelerating the process of executing a successful attraction marketing campaign..

We’re aware that there’s a very good chance that you aren’t working with A-listers to promote your brand’s products and services. Perhaps, your online marketing budget doesn’t cover the annual running expenses of a sizable Polynesian Island. Don’t worry. We know that your agency probably doesn’t have Gordon Ramsay on your speed dial, and your customer profiles may be different from those of Kellogg’s.

So, let’s look at ten modern and more relatable attraction marketing examples:

LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s Big Rock was a masterclass on attracting the audience with rich, storied, and immersive content. It was like a symphony performed by a tightly-knit orchestra unit. Their content marketers team drove their brand value up to the point that LinkedIn took the top spot for the “LinkedIn marketing” keywords in search engines. 

The audience saw real value in the multilevel content pieces that gave them valuable insights, ideas, and tips on acing their own digital marketing efforts.

Mint 

Mint, a US-based business, provides digital-first personal financial management solutions. Even before they had officially launched the app, they created their attraction marketing formula by engaging the young demographic on social media. Their conversations around strategic financial planning, simple tips to manage daily expenses, and savings-related pain-points faced by young professionals left an indelible mark in the mindsets of their audiences. 

By the time the Mint app was launched, the brand already had 20K+ interested people. As far as advocay is concerned, that’s an impressive list of network marketers!

Invision

These days, Invision is used as firepower to boost the visual quality of attraction marketing campaigns. Besides the fact they’re really good at what they do, the reason why they are a brand to reckon with has a lot to do with the type of content they publish. Invision’s attraction marketing is fuelled by their newsletters, which have become an influential source of design knowledge for newbies and experts alike.

In an age when newsletters have become a dying breed – Invision has kept their newsletter game strong, and this has helped them attract all the right pairs of eyes.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is his name, Quick Sprout is his company, and content marketing’s his expertise. And guess what? Attraction marketing had a pivotal role to play in making him a popular name among network marketers. Neil’s reputation as a credible and engaging blogger took roots, as he published extensive guides, quirky tips, and well-produced video content on a regular basis. 

He could then capitalize on his content efforts and become a network marketing business unto himself!

Zendesk 

Zendesk’s content marketing was cool way before even the SaaS business became cool. A major part of this customer service software giant’s lead generation strategy was to build and promote standout content pieces. What they do was to showcase some personality in a field that was known for mundane, albeit useful, content experiences.

Nowadays, other customer service software companies are killing it when it comes to driving highly successful attraction marketing campaigns. But Zendesk can always say, “Been there, done that.”

Lush

Lush Cosmetics has been flying under the global marketing radar concerning their content pieces, but the content marketers in this industry love them. Since the mid-90s, when it started, they have perfected the art of copywriting, as each of their attraction marketing efforts is generously worded to paint quite the visual picture. Even their products are named in such a quirky way that it elicits an instant smile.

Lush has gone past the “looking good” part of cosmetics marketing to target the more important “feeling good” part.

Getty Images

Getty Images made a name for itself in attraction marketing. They focused on using their in-house marketing teams and resources to create a wow factor while serving up content to the audience. A few years ago, they even published a guide for iStock users “stand out in a sea of sameness” that was useful for the audience to rock their Instagram pages.

Investopedia

Bringing in over 30 million visitors per month, Investopedia simplifies complicated investments-related content. They also follow a brilliant content structure that categorically conveys information to ensure a quick yet thorough understanding.

Hubspot

If you don’t come across the Hubspot blog when searching for content marketing insights, you must be using a broken or just plain weird search engine. Hubspot’s trademark orange hues, along with thought leadership content, is as attractive as it gets.  

TED

Attraction marketing grew TED Talks to become a household name. Well, at least in households with a decent Internet connection. But ask anyone what TED’s business is, or even what TED means (in case you didn’t know, it’s Technology, Entertainment, and Design) – they may draw blanks. But the odds are that they have come across TED’s content.

There are plenty of other examples to reinforce the importance of attraction marketing in relation to business growth. The proof may be in the pudding, but unless you use the best ingredients – nobody is going to want your pudding. But what is attraction marketing regarding the execution?

So, let’s look at:

How to use attraction marketing to skyrocket your content

Pick the target audience

Create an ideal mix of customer personas based on your business, even if you don’t plan on selling to them yet. Define their age, gender, income level, etc. so that you can create content that caters to their specific profiles, as part of your attraction marketing formula.

Understand the emotions of people

Knowing who they are isn’t enough. You must unravel the desires, goals, pain-points, and current mindsets of people. Only then can you tell a compelling story that aligns with their life’s narrative.

Create memorable content

From the headline to the last paragraph, your content must be compelling. Avoid sales talk and a cold, aggressive tone that reaches for the customer’s wallet before it occupies a place in their minds. Instead, make promises that you can deliver and ask them to join you on this transformational non-business-related journey.

“Remember, it’s not the amount of content you produce that matters, but rather the value you provide to your users with each piece off content.”

– Bill Ross, Founder of Linchpin SEO

Plan and prioritize channel engagement

For MLM professionals, superior cross-channel engagement should always be in their minds. But to get to those hallowed grounds, you must pinpoint each channel’s priority and feed repurposed content to enrich the level of engagement. Whether a podcast, a blog, your Twitter handle, or your LinkedIn account, you must ensure that the content fits the context and the format.

Build relationships with the people

Measuring the effectiveness of an attraction marketing formula can be a double-edged sword. In one corner, you could weed out the parts of the content strategy that don’t appeal to customers. But in the other, you might be jumping the gun on a strategy that could have long-term benefits. The best way to approach it would be to focus on building relationships with the target audience. Remember that you’re not closing the deal with people or finding a way to surpass revenue expectations. You’re using attraction marketing to deliver on a brand promise.

To help you get through these steps, here are:

25 great attraction marketing tips

  1. Practice and preach authenticity to make people feel confident – help them identify with the human side of your brand by inspiring the audience to be themselves.
  2. Educate the audience, without focusing on lead generation metrics, so that they come back to the brand when they need you – give them space to learn about why you do what you do.
  3. Lay the foundation to orchestrate a strong emotional bond with the audience – let your messages talk to them at a human level, instead of showboating your product’s advantages.
  4. Identify pain-points of customers and provide suitable solutions, no strings attached, so that you earn their trust – go beyond being a pain-reliever in business; be a gain-giver in life too.
  5. Help the audience members achieve a particular goal or move forward to a specific part of an ongoing journey – elevated pitches may not resonate with people at a ground level.
  6. Serve your audience with a regular dosage of attraction marketing content – don’t slow down your content production engine, or else you may leave room for people to find it somewhere else.
  7. Distribute the content so that you maximize the reach of audience engagement and participation – see LinkedIn’s Big Rock concept and plan attraction marketing content repurposing.
  8. Plan to go big on one channel so that your content investments can be streamlined – it also gives you the ability to increase the quality of storytelling specific to a niche audience.
  9. Be responsive to feedback and be warm in the way your interact with the audience – talk with people, instead talking down to them or responding in a cold bot-like tone.
  10. Remind customers that you aren’t setting them up for a sale (even if technically that’s what you’re doing) – don’t end every attraction marketing content piece with a sales-heavy call to action.
  11. Make sure your social media pages are active and attractive – even if that’s not where your attraction marketing campaign starts, that’s where people will be talking about it.
  12. Offer practical tips, insights, and advice to raise the quality of life (professional and/or personal) of people – it’s not a good time to rattle off about company achievements and industry certifications.
  13. Capitalize on opportunities to become a thought leader and carve a niche for yourself – your audience gets to participate and learn while your brand reputation becomes stronger.
  14. Dazzle them visually in the processing of telling your brand stories – make sure that your graphic design, UX, and video production efforts are on point.
  15. Extend the purchasing journey by following-up with additional content pieces – achieving business goals isn’t the end of the relationship; it’s only a new beginning.
  16. Develop an attraction marketing formula for each part of your sale funnel – while closing the deal isn’t your primary target, it’s the ideal outcome for which you must plan.
  17. Leverage different creative formats and engage the audience with infographics, videos, podcasts, and other innovative content structures – it’s already what people are expecting from you.
  18. Strengthen your attraction marketing content with industry-backed data – even promises can be measured in numbers, and even better when it’s from a reputed source.
  19. Repurpose some of your older content pieces that may not look as attractive to customers but continue to be an insightful and topical source of information – old content can pave the road to new business.
  20. Hold your product development to high standards while investing in attraction marketing content – even the greatest content can’t overshadow poor product experiences.
  21. Be a socially-responsible business and align your Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives to your attraction marketing goals – authentically encourage conversations that create social change.
  22. Host giveaways and interactive contests and cater to audience participation by using attraction marketing – it’s not as much about the gift certificate or cool gadget as it is about giving them a feeling of victory.
  23. Offer free product/service experiences in the middle of your executing your attraction marketing formula – it increases your brand value since you exude confidence in the minds of the customer.
  24. Shine the spotlight on your employees and let them advocate your brand stories – it shows the audience that educating or exciting them lies in your people’s DNA.
  25. Use cutting-edge software like Social Animal to create a strong OODA loop within your brand – attraction starts with first understanding what the audience wants.

Top 10 benefits of attraction marketing

  • Shapes the audience’s understanding of the business in a positive manner
  • Enhances the brand-customer relationship outside the online business model
  • Creates a more robust understanding of the audience by listening to and acting on feedback
  • Gives the power to the customer to become a part of your brand’s narrative
  • Provides real value to existing customer and raises your brand credibility
  • Builds rapport with new customers by delivering excellent brand experiences
  • Grows your social media presence when it inspires audience participation
  • Optimizes content spend, considering that minimum investments can kick things off
  • Develops network marketing opportunities through loyal customers
  • Empowers the brand to become a force of good in the lives of the customers

There are many tools that can help you with increasing the overall effectiveness of the attraction marketing journey. The chances are that you use content marketing strategies and multiple tools to get more business. Ever heard of the expression, “Too many cooks spoil the broth?”

Well, too many tools can spoil a marketer’s chances of maximizing content or network marketing.

If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in marketing, it’s that original thinking can pay off rich dividends. It’s what separates the leaders from the followers. But to do that, time’s perhaps the most valuable commodity of them all.

How does the prospect of using just one tool enable a smooth attraction marketing journey sound?

None too shabby, right?

That’s Social Animal for you.

Unlike any other content marketing software, Social Animal helps you master several steps of the attraction marketing journey. From content discovery and content research to social media content analysis and network marketing, it empowers you to gain the insights needed to be an attraction marketing pro.

Social Animal helps you dig deep. Analyzing countless articles and millions of keywords it gives you:

  • Rewarding insights that make it tremendously easy to cut through the clutter
  • Top content trends to understand which bandwagon you need to jump on
  • Details about influencers who can supercharge your social media engagement
  • Content performance analysis of competitors
  • Increased business and network marketing opportunities

Get started with Social Animal today!

It takes less than a minute to sign up. (No credit card required)

Conclusion

When the curtains fall back, the success of your attraction marketing formula is interwoven to the growth of your brand. One begets the other, but it’s like the ‘chicken and egg’ story. No matter what came first, your responsibility – as a content marketer – is to consistently engage the audience.

Attraction marketing isn’t about going viral. That’s a different business altogether. Matter of fact, there isn’t an attraction marketing template to guarantee success. It’s not a bunch of random marketing techniques that you throw at the wall in hope that something sticks.

But as you’ve read in this blog, there’s a way to go about it. And if you maximize your content marketing efforts, it can attract new customers and show every last existing one that you deliver on your brand promise.

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Christy Bharath is a writer, with 13+ years of content marketing and branding experience. He helps clients tell their stories across industries like Banking, Retail, Healthcare, IT Services, etc. He also trains writers to help them generate authentic and creative content. Christy is a birdwatcher, and he tweets @contentbirder.