Hub’s top takeaways on producing 'help content'

“Help content is content that helps your customers during their times of need,” said Hunstone. “It ensures your consumers get the most from your expertise, products and services. It’s not only helpful for current and prospective buyers but also for you.”

Here are the top five takeaways from the event so that you can build and improve your brand’s communication strategy using help content.

Evergreen

Hunstone believes that help content is evergreen; it doesn’t fade with the change of season and it will always be invaluable to you and your customers. This type of content anticipates and answers the questions that people are bound to have. Make it relatable and relevant, so that people can engage with your brand over time.

Reding and Cordy agree, revealing that some of their most-watched videos fall under the evergreen help content category. Red Bull’s “How to Cut Touring Skins” got over 10,000 views in just one day.

Additionally, evergreen content can also boost your site’s traffic, improve your SEO offering and increase your keyword rankings as well as your shares on social media.

Covers all parts of the journey

“Helpful content covers all parts of the customer’s journey,” said Hunstone. This type of content ties you and the consumer together and allows you to go through critical moments that matter. Help content is available for customers during the entire process and offers them support until they make their final purchase.

New customers

Cordy revealed how the Whittard of Chelsea team had realized that there was an information gap between tea bag and loose-leaf tea drinkers, which led them to create an instructional loose-leaf tea video. It gained over 5,000 views in just four days. And they were able to establish themselves as a trusted authoritative voice in this space while also promoting their products. Viewers likely to use and find this help content valuable - as they are more inclined to purchase loose leaf tea supplies from Whittard of Chelsea, as an overwhelming majority of people (81%) will recall a product if it has been mentioned in a demonstration.

Builds trust

Making people feel comfortable to interact with your brand in a meaningful way is key to building trust.

According to Simon Longfellow, help content encouraged customers to trust big financial organisations again post-global financial crisis. He shared steptoinvesting.com's Learning to Invest in 5 Easy Steps guide, which looks at tips to establishing trust. Longfellow explained that the campaign was pitched as “an educational resource and tool” with the purpose of helping people learn more about investing and why they should be doing it.

Help content makes your brand more personable. It shows that you’re empathetic and that you can understand your customer’s problems and pain points.

Maintains engagement

It is important for your brand to maintain its level of engagement with your followers and consumers. This can be done easily by using help content as part of your communication strategy.

“You have to be consistent,” said Tom Reding at Red Bull. “There’s no point in popping into people’s lives for a big moment once a year and then disappearing. You’ve got to remain relevant, and this is a fantastic model for doing that.”

Red Bull create a string of ‘how-to’ bike films to satisfy their bike fans. This content helps them learn more about bikes and biking, and it’s been a great way to keep consumers engaged with the brand.

Want to learn more about Hub, Hero, Help Content?

Through this series, various panelists will explore all components of the Triple H strategy – Help, Hero and Hub.

If you found this article useful and want to learn more, sign up to Hub’s next event “Building a Video Strategy Part 02: Hero Content”or register here to watch the “Help Content” event video.