Have you heard the analogy that the United States is a melting pot? Sure you have. It’s overused, and also untrue. How about the one that we’re more like a bowl of burgoo: a collection of unique ingredients all with their own flavor grouped together, but each with a distinct flavor?
That’s the country we experience.
Each region of the country is unique, but when we get the chance to mix together, we shine independently while complementing one another just like a delicious bowl of burgoo. We lift each other by being the best versions of ourselves. It’s through these distinct stories that we can use content marketing to advance local business growth as well.
General Marketing in Lexington, Kentucky
The Bluegrass State is a prime example of the burgoo analogy. It’s a state of pure unique flavors like the thoroughbred horses raised at Mill Ridge Farms in Lexington, and the fine bourbon spirits distilled up the road at Buffalo Trace in Frankfort. In the same state, you can visit the birthplace of the modern baseball bat, or get literally (and intentionally) lost in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
So what are the unique advantages and challenges to marketing Kentucky-based businesses?
The first challenge is also the Bluegrass State’s greatest opportunity: at 40,411 square miles with a population of 4.46 million, the entire state has the same population as, say, the Detroit Metro Area. The bourbon industry has wisely used this as a marketing technique boasting that there are more barrels of bourbon aging in the state at any given time–at 10 million–than there are people.
Another challenge is that the majority of the population of the state resides in its cities, and most of Kentucky’s population lives in the metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) that border other states. In fact, the only major MSA that is not touching another state is the Lexington-Fayette MSA, which only accounts for roughly 18% of the state’s population. This means that Kentucky isn’t a throughway when it comes to commercial travel. Very often, people travel from city to city, and with limited interior population centers, Kentucky sees less traffic and commerce from people from other regions. If you’re a Kentuckian in business, you can see both the benefits and drawbacks to this.
Many companies and industries have found a way around these challenges through effective marketing. The bourbon industry branded itself as a destination, a trail to be traversed. The thoroughbred horse industry has done the same through Visit Horse Country. Some local brands pushed further from the local bubble by live streaming Kentucky experiences during COVID. This brought digital marketing strategies to the front line of growing Bluegrass businesses.
Additionally many startups are focusing on services and products that are not geographically contained. Lexington has evolved into a growing technology startup hub over the last few years. Local traditional marketing agencies in Lexington like Cornett are also grabbing prestigious awards through their work in the region.
Content Marketing in Lexington Kentucky
The team at Content Workshop knows that Kentucky is a destination–more than a waypoint. That story needs to be shared, and content marketing can help both share the story of the region and grow Kentucky businesses in the process.
The thoroughbred and bourbon industries have done a great job branding themselves collectively, but Kentucky histories are too rich and your memories too vibrant to be muddled into a sole collective narrative. You’re not just a delicious bowl of burgoo, you’re also a beautiful crisp slice of pork belly.
Content marketing has a singular driving benefit: engaging an audience in civilization’s oldest indulgence–storytelling. When done well, storytelling can take an audience on a journey where they learn as much about themselves as they do about the characters.
We believe that content marketing can be an artform. It has to be in order to be effective. We define art as anything that fabricates a shared emotion experience–one that can be recalled at a future date while being relieved physically or in your mind. Your favorite book likely made you feel something special, and when you recall that story, you also recall that feeling. That’s the power of art.
Our founding Creative Director, Tony Garcia, once said that a brand isn’t a typeface, a color scheme, or logo. It’s a feeling. He says that a brand lives in the hearts and minds of the audience, and that each company has thousands of brands that are all slightly different because each person engages with them in a slightly different way.
Content marketing is the gateway for a company to build an image of themselves in the hearts and minds of their audience. For companies in the Bluegrass State, that can be done through a very powerful and unique story told consistently to a curated audience.
Lexington Content Marketing Agencies
The elevated form of content marketing–content that qualifies as an artform–can authentically leverage a shared emotional experience to reach a company’s goals. If the goal is to rank on the first page of Google for a specific term through search engine optimization (SEO), that can be done through storytelling. If the goal is to generate foot traffic to a location, that can be done through storytelling. If the goal is to generate demand and leads for your services, that can be done through storytelling. All of your goals can be met through the story–and that story is delivered via content marketing.
A question we often hear is, “Why should we use content to reach our goals?” It’s a fair question, but a better one is, “If we can reach our goals in a cost effective manner through content marketing, why would we ever do it another way?”
If you can help someone solve a problem or realize an aspirational goal using art, why would you do it another way?
There’s a reason why you don’t mind binge-watching a show for hours on Netflix, yet a 30-second ad seems impossible to weather. Stories that retain an audience must be three things: entertaining, educational, and engaging. Content marketing agencies that focus on the craft of storytelling are poised to offer all three of these characteristics through the content they create.
Another unique challenge to marketing Kentucky-based businesses to prospective clients is that there are no dedicated content marketing agencies in Central Kentucky. Ok, so there are plenty of great traditional marketing agencies in Kentucky that offer content services, and a handful of digital agencies that do the same. Yet we believe so strongly in specialized content marketing, development, and strategy, that we built Content Workshop to focus on just that.
Here’s the good news. We’re bringing our specialty to you. In addition to our Clearwater, Florida home office, we’ve opened a branch of Content Workshop at 110 West Vine Street in Lexington on October 1, 2021.
We want to take your passion for your business and write the story that brings new clients to you. Content Workshop can bring you new business through our tried and true content strategy. If you want to start telling your company’s story while growing your business in the process, click here to schedule a time to chat with our Director of Sales, Susan Ishmael. She’s a Kentucky native herself, and is excited to share your stories with potential clients.
Let’s get started.
