Content marketing – mostly B2B – is usually considered to be a very serious affair but it doesn’t have to be that way. There have been many instances of content marketing where businesses try to make their prospective and present customers and clients laugh.
Everybody loves humour. Back in the late 90s I was writing course material for computer training centers that were sprouting everywhere in India. The For Dummies books were my inspiration. I applied their style while preparing lessons on DOS, dBase, COBOL and FoxPro (many of you haven’t heard of these, right?) and some of the training center owners loved the way I wrote (and so did their students). I was also known to use humour in my journalistic writing for quite some time. Sadly, I lost this touch but I’m trying to regain it and hopefully within a few days you will be able to see it on my blog and elsewhere.
Humor has a relaxing effect. No matter how tense a situation it is, when people are exposed to funny anecdotes, jokes and situations, they forget about their troubles and shift their focus to the funny thing that is taking place in front of them. According to this Forbes article,
Dozens of surveys suggest that humor can be at least one of the keys to success. A Robert Half International survey, for instance, found that 91% of executives believe a sense of humor is important for career advancement; while 84% feel that people with a good sense of humor do a better job. Another study by Bell Leadership Institute found that the two most desirable traits in leaders were a strong work ethic and a good sense of humor.
You may think what amusing you can write for a, let us say, plumping website, or a refrigeration spare parts website, or even a church website. Well, here is what I came across while reading “writing bloopers” in The Sense of Style (the writing guide I’m reading these days):
The sermon this morning: “Jesus walks on the water.”
The sermon tonight will be: “Searching for Jesus.”
This was written on a church noticeboard somewhere.
Here is another one
The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 2008.
This was written by a psychiatrist probably in a case study.
These are just examples of how humorous material can appear even at least expected places.
Various industries are mistakenly categorised as “boring” and “exciting”. For example, according to popular perception, you may categorise fashion, cookery, modelling and music as “exciting” industries (just to name a few to give you an idea). On the other hand, you may consider healthcare, automobiles, accounting, legal and real estate as, according to the convention, “boring” industries. Of course, something that makes you money, something that is your livelihood, cannot be termed as boring but here I’m not writing this from your perspective – the business owner who runs an accounting firm – I’m writing from the perspective of your clients. How do you keep them interested in your content without boring them with numbers and concepts that they may come across only on an annual basis while trying to file their returns?
Here is an exceptional example of using humor to educate people even when it’s a matter of life and death:
Dumb Ways to Die is an Australian public service announcement campaign by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to promote rail safety. When my 10-year-old daughter mentioned the video I was sort of pissed at what sort of videos she was watching on YouTube. Then I saw it, did some research and to my pleasant surprise, found out that it is an awareness campaign.
As you can see by the number of people who have watched the video and a slew of video games and proceeding videos that have been uploaded onto the Internet what a hit the campaign has been. Safety is a life-and-death matter but it doesn’t have to be very serious.