Lifestyle Content Marketing

Lifestyle content. What is it and why does it matter? Make sure you don’t overlook this important marketing strategy. Here’s what you need to know…

What is lifestyle content marketing?

We’re going to use an analogy to demonstrate what lifestyle content marketing is all about. Let’s say you’re on a first date. Do you start the conversation by selling all of your positive qualities? Do you sit there trying to convince your date how you will benefit his or her life? Probably not. At least, not if you want a second date.

Instead, you put the focus on your date. You ask questions—what the person does for work, what the person does for fun, where the person likes to vacation, and so forth. You take the time to learn about your date’s life and interests. During the course of the date—and over subsequent dates—you bring up topics he or she would be interested in, and you probably make plans that complement the person’s lifestyle. For example…

• If your date loves art, perhaps you bring him or her to the Friday night jazz show at the museum in town.
• If your date is a fan of Johnny Depp, maybe you share a link to the just-released trailer for Johnny’s new movie.
• If your date loves sunflowers, perhaps you buy a bouquet as a surprise. And so on.

Notice that it’s a subtle sell. By showing genuine interest in your date’s interests, you woo this person so that eventually he or she only has eyes for you.

The same is true for lifestyle content marketing, which focuses on your customers’ interests and day-to-day life. You present them with content that will interest them—content that’s related to your brand, but not necessarily a direct sell of your products and services.

Hmm. I’m still not sure I get it. Can you give a real-life example of lifestyle content?

Red Bull is one of the most famous examples of a brand that successfully uses lifestyle content marketing.

The brand’s core customer base is all about adventure, fun, and risk-taking. Instead of creating content that focuses only on how Red Bull tastes or the number of calories or the amount of caffeine, Red Bull creates and sponsors content around the lifestyle its customers embrace and desire. And in the process, it reaches even more people—people who fall into its target demographic and who, over time, might take the plunge and end up buying Red Bull.

Think of all the people who watched the Red Bull sponsored Felix Baumgartner free fall from outer space (see the video below). Some of the viewers never heard of—or paid attention to—Red Bull before, but suddenly, the product is now on their radar. That’s lifestyle content marketing at work.

What are some other examples of lifestyle content?

In addition to Red Bull, other brands that have done a good job with lifestyle content include:

Dove: Knowing its customer base is made up of real women, not super models, Dove has famously released content in the form of videos, experiments, and images that turn the definition of “real” beauty on its head.

Wholefoods: Wholefoods caters to consumers who value health, wellness, “clean” food supplies, conservation, and green living. The company knows its audience well and deploys effective content that helps its customers live a healthier, greener lifestyle through recipes, healthy living tips, articles on topics that interest this demographic (think sustainability issues), and the like.

Check out the screen shot from its blog, which shows a recipe about nine different ways to cook with coconut oil. Coconut oil is considered a healthy alternative to other oils, so it’s a lifestyle content piece that’s perfect for Whole Foods’ target audience.

Again, it’s not about a hard sell. When Whole Foods shares a recipe or Dove publishes a video with one of its beauty experiments, you don’t usually even see an explicit call to action about buying products. It’s implied.

Why is lifestyle content marketing important?

It actually helps make marketing easier in many ways. Going back to Red Bull, think of all the energy drinks on the market today. In terms of ingredients, packaging, and price, they’re not that different. But Red Bull has made itself different by focusing on the lifestyle of its audience and developing content that caters to this audience—content that gets them excited, intrigued, and pumped up.

Lifestyle content gives marketers, writers, and social media managers much freedom and flexibility in what they can write about, share, and promote.

How do I add lifestyle content to my marketing mix?

Focus less on features and benefits. This will likely seem counter-intuitive to everything you’ve learned about marketing in the past, since most marketers always talk about focusing on how a product or service will benefit the customers.

Yes, there’s still a place for benefits, but with lifestyle content, you need to dig deeper and think about the experience and lifestyle that matters most to your customers. Do they live a luxurious lifestyle? A lifestyle filled with reality television and tons of social media interactions? A “green” lifestyle that involves conservation, clean foods, and recycling? An adventurous lifestyle? A family-oriented one?

So, how do you get this information? You can collect this info through the buyer persona process by asking lifestyle related questions (e.g. What do you do for fun? What television shows do you watch? Where do you like to go on vacation?), through customer surveys, and by paying attention to what your customers are talking about on social media.

Once you get a sense of your customers’ lifestyle, you can create a lifestyle content strategy. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Knowing what you do about their lifestyle, what content do you encounter on a daily basis that would make sense to share with them?

For example, if your customer base is made up of moms with school-aged kids, you’d want to acknowledge the challenges, stresses, and fun of school vacation weeks and summer vacations. Perhaps you share an article on Facebook about 10 fun craft ideas to do with the kids or eight easy, healthy snacks that even kids will love. You get the idea. By doing this, you’re showing your customers that you “get” them and the lives they lead—and that your goal isn’t to constantly sell, sell, sell.

Should lifestyle content marketing replace “regular” content marketing?

Nope. It should enhance it. You’ll still want to do traditional content marketing that includes product/service features and benefits, the latest sales, new offers, and the like, but you should weave in lifestyle content as well.

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