Got No Beef With This: Beyond Meat Does Content Marketing Right

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Guy Who No Longer Eats Cows…

Want an example of smart content marketing? Check out this free cookbook from Beyond Meat…

(And, no, I don’t have any business relationship with them.)

This isn’t some fleeting and readily forgotten video series with a custom hashtag on TikTok or Instagram. It’s not some expensive app that wins awards but that few consumers bother to download. It’s not some “purpose-driven” campaign that scores publicity but buries the brand and product in a pile of performative platitudes.

And, the marketing gods forbid, it’s not some “destination” in the metaverse.

It’s a basic PDF that’s heavily branded and product-focused, as it should be. And it contains useful information that a customer might refer to again and again.

I received this cookbook as a perk of being a Beyond Meat newsletter subscriber, so I already know the brand. Although this isn’t an awareness generating tool, it positions Beyond Meat higher in my cluttered brain, along with a mouthwatering wealth of ideas that could increase my consumption of their products. (While attracting new customers is always important, so is encouraging more sales from current customers.) Thanks to this gift, I also like the brand more, and here I am promoting it on my website.

Too many marketers too readily fall in love with shiny new toys: the latest technologies, platforms, and media. (Remember NFT’s?). They invest tens of thousands of dollars into developing cutting-edge content that only a small percentage of the market will ever see.

Here’s a welcome departure: a very basic concept (a cookbook — a nearly 400-year-old medium), promoted through email (a 50-year-old channel), easily created by an agency or in-house team (no programmers needed).

The takeaway: Big ideas don’t always require big budgets.