What you can learn from one of the best content marketers in the game

Across all categories, wearable brand Whoop stands out as being one of the best content marketers around. In health and wellness, it’s fair to say they are a league above the rest. A wearable tracker that delivers personalized coaching recommendations based on your data they’ve carved out a space in the market, and positioned the brand as the wearable for athletes.

Whoop’s content strategy is so good because they operate as a publisher, creating insightful interesting content of value. Brand-as-publisher is not a new phenomenon – many brands big or small have successfully taken the approach over the past two decades. Patagonia, for example, has led the way in editorial storytelling, creating features around their audience’s interests. What makes Whoop unique is how they underpin brand storytelling with their own data and research, successfully connecting it to timely events and conversations.

This data-led approach to storytelling means the brand is always ready to create content around the major (or minor) sporting or cultural events that matter to their audience. This content is then disseminated across their content channels, from their podcast or editorial hub The Locker to their social channels, or emails to members.

All those channels are used drive acquisition, engagement and retention by delivering a constant stream of useful, insightful content. Whilst data-led editorial articles give them a way to engage audiences around major sporting moments and cultural events, their merchandising and product content consistently connects the value of the product to you the user. They also use their content to break down complex and potentially off-putting concepts like Heart Rate Variability in a way that helps users get the most from the product.

One area that is worth noting is their onboarding post-purchase. As soon as you sign up for the membership, even before the product arrives, Whoop asks you what you are looking to achieve with the product , and what your goals and activities are. Over a period of days after the product arrives a set of emails explain everything you need to know about how the product works, so you learn over time and aren’t overwhelmed with info.

Many brands will leverage influencers but often this can be for distribution. What makes Whoop stand out is how by acting like a publisher, they fully integrate influencers into their storytelling. Whether it’s through insightful podcast interviews, or leveraging their influencers data to create interesting takes on events, Whoop brings the influencer into the story in an organic way. Their elite sponsored athletes and what their Whoop data tells them about their performance IS the story as demonstrated by this post from Whoop CEO Will Ahmed.

Whilst they discussed a number of other aspects of his achievement, a large part of the conversation with Whoop athlete Lachlan Morton focused on what his Whoop data showed during his ‘Alt Tour’ rides. It’s this aspect that gives them a natural place in the story. Whoop places itself in the conversation around major events by telling stories with data linked to athletes at the top of their game. It enables them to create engaging articles for aspiring athletes that connect their product directly to performance and generate free PR. Obviously, delivering on this takes a good sized team, but there are still some great learnings for small business owners to implement in their own content strategies.

THE TAKEAWAY:

• Your members may hold the key to engaging natural storytelling, why are they using your product how has it changed their lives?

• Use all your channels to distribute your content. Where viable, create communications that demystify aspects of your product or experience.

• Look for ways your product can have a natural storytelling role in cultural events.