IN THE SPOTLIGHT

The year is 2012 and Carlijn Postma is looking for a new focus for her agency from the perspective of a marketeer with a love of journalism and stories. The route to content marketing is almost a no brainer. In those early days it was quite a mission to get clients on board with this ‘new thing’. But a few years later it all came together. While watching a lot of TV series, Carlijn realises how addictive they are. She‘d like to keep watching and start the next episode even though it’s already late and time for bed: a scenario probably a lot of people will recognize. Carlijn thought about how to translate this ‘binge’ strategy to content marketing.

The term ‘binge marketing’ was born and with that the company The Post evolved into a content marketing agency that creates content for their clients as if it were a TV series, with each episode tying into everything that comes before and after. This strategy lets you develop a long-term relationship with your audience, using serial content. The key is to keep the shared interests of your audience and your brand values in mind. This way, it fosters trust and lays the foundation for the realization of your marketing goals.

9 years later The Post has a creative team of about 30 designers, writers, video producers, podcast creators, content producers and marketeers who will create that serial content for clients who want their audience to stick around. Their job is to make them curious to see what ‘episode’ comes next.

Stories in episodes

You may wonder what is exactly the link between marketing and a Netflix series? Here is an example to illustrate what The Post is good at: the case of FBTO, a Dutch insurance company. Bart Prins, creative director at The Post: “This case represents our binge marketing principle the best, because we created a binge-worthy series from stories told by real people.” The series portrays people with their real-life stories and shows the audience how they can live their lives to the fullest. One episode is about Esra (25) who rides horses her entire life, but got in a riding accident that caused her a brain injury. The documentary shows her revalidation process to three months later, when she gets back on her horse. Jan-Willem de Graaf, video director: “It shows you how you can connect certain characters to your brand in a creative way

The company and the clients

The place where these creative ideas are born is the office in Zwolle, in the north-east of the Netherlands. It was a conscious decision to set the agency outside of the big, overpopulated cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Zwolle has a beautiful old city center, a rich history and is set in a growing, very green region that is becoming the next hot spot in the country. However there is also a hub in Amsterdam for employees and clients who want to work or meet in the capital city. All offices have a relaxed and modern feel that allows for the great variety of clients to feel welcome when they come in for meetings. These clients differ from the local hospital Isala, to a nationwide insurance company like FBTO – a business to customer company. But also, business to business companies like PPG Industries, which delivers paints and coatings to professional paint-companies in the Netherlands and Belgium. Alongside these businesses, The Post also works closely together with several municipalities in the country. Because of the diversity in clients, the agency has already built a big reputation on the national market and is still growing and moving its way up to the international market, claiming its spot there.

Photo: THE POST  © | All rights reserved.

TALENTS

Bart Prins – Creative director:

‘Look for a channel that fits your story instead of creating a story that might fit your channel.’

In our business of content marketing, the content revolves around stories. The audience wants to see, read and listen to authentic stories of ‘real’ people. Therefore, the brand itself becomes less important than the people who represent it. At The Post we see an increase in telling authentic stories with real people. When you take a look at new channels like the app Clubhouse, you don’t meet brands, but you meet people. They become the voice of the brands they represent. More than ever, you’ll see that a brand is what people say it is and not what the brand wants to be. At the core of content marketing this is what it comes down to. Telling stories. That’s what we do at The Post: creating audiences by telling stories. Authentic stories.

Jan-Willem de Graaf – Video director:

“I am most proud of the FBTO documentary series that we made. For me, this is what The Post stands for: using stories of real people in a way that attracts a certain audience. I produced and directed the series, we all worked very hard on it and it shows. That case is a good starting point for where I want to take my work at The Post. My personal dream is to create a fictional Netflix-like series for a brand; if there is a concept and a strategy, I can translate that into a video concept and then direct the whole thing. But the process doesn’t have to end there, I think there is so much more possible. For instance, create a whole world outside of the video by putting the characters on Instagram and let the audience communicate with them.”

Chitra – Online Marketeer:

Chitra joined The Post in 2019 and created her role as an online marketeer from the ground up. “We make some incredible content at The Post, so it’s important to look at the results and evaluate our content by looking at the views or the CTR for example. With these results we can optimize our content and learn from it in order to grow as a company. In the future I would love to see that paid advertising is more thought of as part of the whole marketing process. Bigger clients already leave that up to us, but some of the smaller ones aren’t very familiar with it. With our knowledge we can distribute the content to the right audience and expand the reach of our clients.”

THE POST

Aagje Dekenstraat 51
8023 BZ Zwolle

0031 38 422 3008

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