Content marketing is a sales pitch. There is no denying it.
But just because the goal of content marketing is to sell a product, services, or an idea, that doesn’t mean that it has to sound like a sales pitch.
In fact, as movies prove, the best sales pitch is often one that isn’t trying to sell anything at all.
Consider, for example, the Star Wars franchise. The popularity of the movies have helped spur $12 billion worth of toys sales.
This is the perfect example of content marketing that doesn’t sound like a sales pitch. The Star Wars movies are action movies.
In fact, conceptually, emulating movie genres is a creative and subtle way of marketing content. If you can master the trick of it, emulating the following genres is a powerful technique to add to your content creation tools.
Comedy
In movie genres, comedy is often used to deliver a serious message in an entertaining way. For example, in Hook, Peter learns to embrace his inner child.
The importance of the message isn’t diminished by the fact that he learns it in a food fight, though. Just the opposite. It is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie and truly drives in the message.
The same is true for comedy in content marketing. By injecting humor into your content, the audience is more likely to remember the message.
Romance
This genre seems like an unlikely addition to our content creation tools. But, it actually makes a lot of sense. We remember great movie romances. Harry and Sally fell in love, while Rick Blaine and Ilsa were not to be.
The trick to romance, that you can emulate in content marketing, is to create a connection between two topics. Then slowly build that connection until you end by tying it together “happily ever after.”
If you build it right, your audience will be breathlessly waiting for the final connection.
Mystery
Emulating this genre requires true subtlety. Mystery works in movies because the audience is caught up in the suspense. Mystery in content marketing requires that you hint at the final message, but never quite spell it out until the last moment.
If you’ve got the trick to it right, you might even misdirect and almost pull a fast one at the end or even never quite spell it out.
The message still needs to be understood by the audience, even if you don’t spill it out, but the right level of suspense will keep the audience reading to the very end.
