Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a Content material Marketer’s Dream: 7 Classes

Up to date Nov. 22, 2022

Tens of millions collect to view your content material advertising and marketing on their screens.

Crowds line up over two miles simply to get a glimpse of your content material in actual life.

That’s the stuff of content material entrepreneurs’ desires. And it’s the truth for entrepreneurs at Macy’s, the U.S. division retailer chain that has placed on a parade in New York Metropolis each Thanksgiving since 1924.

I’m an enormous fan of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I traveled to see it twice, and I by no means miss watching it on tv. And that’s earlier than I spotted it’s all content material advertising and marketing. Listed here are some classes that struck me.

1. Steal concepts – simply make them higher

Macy’s wasn’t the primary division retailer to host a parade as a content material advertising and marketing software for the Christmas shopping for season. In 1920, the Gimbel Brothers division retailer in Philadelphia created the primary one. 4 years later – the identical 12 months Macy’s launched its parade – the J.L. Hudson Co. division retailer began one in Detroit. Although these parades proceed at this time, Gimbels and Hudson’s haven’t been concerned for many years. Hudson’s ceased its parade connection when it closed its Detroit flagship within the late Seventies. (The chain was later purchased by Macy’s). And the Philadelphia division retailer was liquidated within the mid-Eighties.

Unique concepts are laborious to return by (some say there aren’t any). Don’t spend all of your time making an attempt to create one thing nobody’s carried out. Search for current inspiration. You might discover content material that isn’t residing as much as its potential – after which you’ll be able to take the chance to do it higher.

You don’t want authentic concepts. Simply do current ones higher. That’s what @Macys did in creating its New York Thanksgiving Day parade, says @AnnGynn by way of @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing Click on To Tweet

2. Keep on with what works, modify what doesn’t

The primary Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade stretched over six miles and featured nursery rhyme characters, retailer workers dressed as clowns and cowboys, and animals from the Central Park Zoo. A float carrying Santa and a reindeer-pulled sleigh closed the parade.

Within the twenty first century, the parade traverses solely 2.5 miles to make sure a tighter present. It options multi-story-tall balloons that way back changed the zoo animals. It welcomes manufacturers apart from Macy’s into the act (assume Pillsbury Dough Boy and Ronald McDonald). Marching bands from across the nation, floats that includes lip-syncing celebrities, and dwell characters just like the gang from Sesame Road develop the attraction.

Santa’s sleigh and reindeer are way more elaborate now, however the jolly fella retains his nearly 100-year-old place within the parade – the ultimate act anticipated by younger and outdated.

When you’ve a permanent content material star, go forward and tweak it. Don’t use the identical outdated, standard content material on a regular basis. Every year, Macy’s creates a curiosity hole: What new balloons will debut? Which will likely be retired?

@Macys creates a curiosity hole yearly as audiences marvel what new balloons will debut and which will likely be retired, says @AnnGynn by way of @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

What annual content material are you able to create that entices your viewers to return many times? At CMI, for instance, we create content material advertising and marketing analysis stories yearly. Among the questions within the analysis questionnaire stay the identical annually, however we add new ones based mostly on our viewers’s wants, trade developments, and international adjustments.

Take into consideration easy methods to clean up your content material by including new concepts or making an attempt totally different codecs.

Take into consideration easy methods to clean up your #content material by including new concepts or making an attempt totally different codecs, says @AnnGynn by way of @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

For instance, a B2B model may add a brand new division centered on distant work to its quarterly journal. A B2C model may shoot brief, tip-focused movies based mostly on info from weblog articles.

The alternatives to regulate your content material combine – subject, format, and many others. – are countless.

3. Take a look at issues from a distinct perspective

Let’s get to the reality. Regardless of the title (and the turkey float), the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has little to do with Thanksgiving. It’s actually in regards to the procuring season main as much as the most important gift-giving events of the 12 months. The floats, balloons, and songs all revolve across the red-and-green vacation. Actually, the occasion’s preliminary title was Macy’s Christmas Parade. Macy’s, as a enterprise, isn’t centered on the Thanksgiving vacation. Macy’s cares in regards to the timing of Thanksgiving – a month or so earlier than the reward exchanges start.

Take into consideration conventional occasions or actions in your trade. How are you going to create content material that turns them on their head? Let’s say your organization has a sales space on the similar commerce present each September. As a substitute of crafting one other evergreen white paper to showcase your thought management, use the occasion because the unique launch website for a must have report on trade predictions for the approaching 12 months. Make that report the middle of your content material hub for the quarter, giving it life far past the two-day occasion.

4. Don’t go solo

Macy’s isn’t the one model concerned within the parade. McDonald’s sends up a Ronald McDonald balloon accompanied by his large shoe automotive on the bottom. Kraft’s Kool-Help Man crashed the social gathering for a few years. Jennie-O’s Large Turkey Spectacular, Dreamworks’ Boss Child, and Sinclair Oil’s child dinos take part this 12 months. And types like Olay, Entenmann’s, Marvel Bread, and Lego host floats. Every branded parade entry is an instance of sponsored content material.

Picture supply

Every branded float within the @Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade is an instance of #SponsoredContent, says @AnnGynn by way of @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

If a sponsored content material mannequin doesn’t suit your group’s content material technique, you’ll be able to nonetheless discover methods to attach with different firms. For instance, settle for visitor blogs in your website or craft visitor content material for non-competing manufacturers which have related goal audiences.

5. Work together together with your viewers

In 2020, Macy’s used its Twitter account to interact with its viewers earlier than and in the course of the parade. Along with previewing that 12 months’s points of interest, Macy’s performed a sequence of promoted tweets (that’s how they discovered me, although I didn’t keep in mind to save lots of one to share right here). The tweet stated Macy’s would ship me a reminder in regards to the parade if I picked my favourite parade exercise and tweeted about it.

So I did:

Hello, @macys! I can’t wait to see the #MacysParade #balloons. What about you?

— Ann Gynn (@anngynn) November 23, 2020

Two hours earlier than the parade began, I received this customized reminder tweet:

@anngynn,
Comfortable Thanksgiving! 🦃
Don’t neglect to activate NBC at 9am to catch this 12 months’s #MacysParade. pic.twitter.com/OCJV02rMQ3

— Macy’s (@Macys) November 26, 2020

Whenever you attempt to interact your viewers members on Twitter, take into consideration inviting them into your account or model. That requires greater than clicking a coronary heart or retweeting. Make it private. Give them one thing enjoyable or invaluable to share. Observe up with extra customized content material.

6. Scrutinize your language

Whereas I preferred Macy’s strategy to personalizing Twitter that 12 months, I wasn’t a fan of its use of the phrase “various” in a 2020 tweet meant to rejoice Zeta Phi Beta, a Black sorority celebrating 100 years and making its first look within the parade:

TheJasmineBRAND grabbed the tweet earlier than Macy’s eliminated it a few hours after it induced an outcry:

#ZetaPhiBeta known as a “various dance group” on the #macysthanksgivingdayparade 👀 pic.twitter.com/0ay1HQPAVy

— theJasmineBRAND (@thejasminebrand) November 26, 2020

Poor, mistaken, or ignorant phrase decisions remove any worth your content material may need had and may harm the model. Proofread your content material not just for spelling and grammar but in addition for intent, interpretation, inclusivity, and so forth. Macy’s misstep additionally teaches one other writing lesson – creating inclusive and various content material often doesn’t require you to level out that it’s various and inclusive.

Creating inclusive and various #content material often doesn’t require you to level out that it’s various and inclusive, says @AnnGynn by way of @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

7. Begin small

Macy’s didn’t arrange a grandiose occasion in 1924. The parade entries lined solely two blocks and included about 50 folks. However that was sufficient to enthrall tens, if not a whole bunch of hundreds, to indicate up alongside the six-mile route. Although the media barely lined the occasion, the viewers response prompted Macy’s to announce just a few weeks later that the parade would return the following 12 months. (It wasn’t till the parade made its tv debut nearly 30 years later that Macy’s received nationwide consideration and drew in hundreds of thousands extra followers.)

What are your content material advertising and marketing desires (i.e., huge targets)? They might appear overly bold, however is there a minimal viable content material product you might actually create that may result in making these desires come true? Begin planning at this time.

Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute