Today is Star Wars day and to celebrate this occasion a few of the Star Wars guys got together to discuss marketing at the TRG office. All kidding aside, there is much to learn from the Star Wars franchise when it comes to marketing.
Looking at the most recent movie and marketing efforts, we have identified six lessons that can be learned. While we can’t all be Disney, which is enormous and owns a multitude of television and radio networks, these lessons are still useful.
- Storytelling is engaging. A good story that has great characters, danger and emotion engages larger audiences. Use content marketing strategies that work within an engaging story and gain that emotional appeal.
- Use different types of content. Use a variety of content such as text, images, audio, video, etc. Reach out to new audiences by testing new types of content instead of staying with the same old thing.
- Reuse content. The latest Star Wars movie is remarkably similar to the original movie and fans love it nonetheless. Audiences don’t mind reused content, as long as it’s entertaining and engaging. You can reuse content in a different format to increase that engagement.
- Answer questions. Disney answered many questions from fans about the movie and its characters before its release. Consider creating how-to content that helps your audience accomplish a task or give them a sneak peak of your process. This is especially true if you are a service company that doesn’t have a tangible product.
- Simplicity wins the day. The Force Awakens is, simply put, a story of good guys versus bad guys. If you customer can easily understand the content they are more likely to engage and possibly purchase.
- Always be consistent. Stars Wars movies maintain a set of rules for technology, physics and history which is unique to Star Wars. That is why you don’t confuse Star Wars with Star Trek or Guardians of the Galaxy. Consistency is especially important in your branding. You want your logo and style to be consistent across all marketing channels.
May the 4th be with you!
