Pro Training Magazine
Delivering High-Value Content with 100,000 Magazine Advertorials
Showtime: The Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo (or AAPEX) is held every October in Las Vegas. A who's who of automotive companies attend to showcase their newest products, tools, and services. In short, it's the industry's Super Bowl.
If Kia can do it… While thumbing through trade publications one day, I noticed that the vehicle manufacturer Kia was producing a magazine-style advertorial. I liked the idea and wanted to create something similar. I wanted a content-heavy marketing piece that would provide real information that would be valuable to people. Even better, I wanted to time the piece with the 2017 AAPEX show. In addition to increasing brand awareness, I wanted the piece to communicate something specific. This is what I decided on:
- Introduce the company’s upcoming on-demand training calendar
- Reinforce the company’s status as industry leader in training
Putting on my publisher’s hat: If training was our goal, the focal point of the advertorial needed to be the articles. I worked with the company’s Director of Training, a Master Technician with dozens of ASE certifications. He wrote all of the articles and I edited them. I chose topics that aligned with key product categories. The very talented Emily Brady created the magazine’s layout and designed all but one of the full-page advertisements.
Hot off the presses: The end result was Standard Pro Training Magazine, an 8-page advertorial featuring training articles and full-page product ads. When we received the final proofs, we knew the booklet would be a successful piece of content marketing. Here are a few highlights:
Front and back covers: The front cover makes a strong impression. We highlight our branding, a hint at the training calendar inside, our ASE-certified instructors, important product categories, and our AAPEX booth #. The back cover communicates an announcement that one of our product categories was the first in the industry to receive NSF registration.
A look inside: We didn't waste time getting to training. The first spread shows an ad for the 50,000 technicians our team had trained to date as well as a stylized calendar with each month's training topic.
And here's an example of one of the magazine's article spreads. On the left, we have an article about MAF Sensors formatted in an FAQ style. Opposite of it, we developed a product ad to communicate the unique selling point for SMP's MAF Sensors: precision manufacturing that led to more accurate MAF Sensor readings.
Maximizing exposure: We inserted the advertorials into the AAPEX issue of Motor Age, an industry magazine with a print circulation of over 100,000. We also distributed the magazine to our salesforce to share with customers.
We promoted the digital version across our websites, email campaigns, and social media channels. In total, the digital version of Pro Training Magazine received more than 640 total visits and 3,300+ page views.
Takeaway: The key to effective content marketing is providing something of real value. Here are two questions to help you determine what's valuable. First, is the content good enough that someone would pay for it? Second, will the person feel grateful after interacting with the content? If your content answers yes to both questions, it's delivering value.
Get in touch: If you have feedback, questions, or comments about this content marketing project, shoot me an email.