Nestle Toll House Cookies: Old School Content Marketing In Action

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just wanted to tell you a quick story that should inspire you to use content marketing to sell your product…

Do you know how Chocolate-Chip cookies were invented?

According to Nestle, Mrs. Wakefield (owner of the Toll House Inn) was making chocolate cookies one day, but ran out of regular baker’s chocolate.

She didn’t know what to do until she came up with the idea to substitute it with broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate.

She thought it would melt and mix into the batter, but it didn’t, and that’s how the chocolate chip cookie was born.

What does that have to do with content marketing?  Nothing at least at this part of the story.

But what happened next matters to us as content marketers…

Wakefield sold the recipe to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips (instead of patenting it and making billions!)  And what genius thing did Nestle choose to do with that recipe?

Simple.  On every bag of Nestle chocolate chips sold in North America ever since, they included a variation of her original recipe printed on the back.

They didn’t sell the recipe.  They didn’t lock it away in a safe for only a few to see it.  They gave it away…  on the back of  every bag of chocolate chips they sold.

  • And what did those people with the chocolate chip cookie recipe need?  Chocolate chips.
  • What happened when friends ate these cookies and asked where the recipe come from?  They were told to go buy a bag of Nestle’s chocolate chips.  (That made their chocolate chips unique and more desirable than other chocolate chips that would later be sold.)

Content marketing lesson:  What information (content) do your prospects or customers need to use your product most effectively  or in new and exciting ways?

Now that you know that, go create that content (or get someone else to create it) and give it away!  


This will do two important things:

1. Help your customers.

2. Make your product/service more valuable and desirable.

Scott Aughtmon
I’m author of the book 51 Content Marketing Hacks. I am also a regular contributor to ContentMarketingInstitute.com and I am the person behind the popular infographic 21 Types of Content We Crave.

I’m a business strategist, consultant, content creation specialist, and speaker. I’ve been studying effective marketing and business methods (both online and offline) since 1999.

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