Applying The Hero Hub Hygiene Framework to Your Business

This article is dedicated to the three H’s of video marketing: Hero Hub Hygiene. It might sound strange to those who are unfamiliar, but, in recent years, these three words have become the strategic framework for creating video content that gets results.

In it, you will learn everything you need to know about:

Each of the Hero Hub Hygiene content types.

How they work (with real-life examples).

And, crucially…

How you can apply them to your video marketing strategy so that it grows into a sustainable and coherent campaign that attracts and converts leads!

So, let’s get started…

What is Hero Hub Hygiene?

The Hero Hub Hygiene model (also known as Hero Hub Help) is a content marketing framework originally developed by Google as a guide for growing an audience on YouTube. But it has since proven so effective that now businesses are applying it across all areas of their marketing strategies. It ensures marketers leave no gaps when planning current and future content.

With the rise of video marketing, having 1 strong brand advertisement unfortunately just doesn’t cut it anymore. It might lead to a quick spike in sales, but you can almost guarantee that it soon will fizzle out, be forgotten, and, in the long run, result in a disappointing return on investment.

Nowadays, you must give your audience a reason to keep coming back. You have to create a strong connection with them by continuously publishing fresh and coherent video content that covers all areas of your sales funnel.

“Nowadays, you must give your audience a reason to keep coming back. You have to create a strong connection with them by continuously publishing fresh and coherent video content that covers all areas of your sales funnel.”

And that is exactly what the Hero Hub Hygiene framework does. And, as you will see, the results speak for themselves.

What is Hero Content?

Hero content is brand-focused promotional content driven by emotion and high-quality production. Depending on the size of your company and budget, Hero content is usually created between 1 to 3 times per year. However, very small companies might publish it less often than this, and huge companies more often.

What is Hub Content?

This is content that keeps people coming back to your site. It achieves this by improving the user-experience of your website, making it a resource ‘Hub’ that keeps visitors engaged with your business.

What is Hygiene Content?

Sometimes known as ‘Help’, this content targets specific search keywords that people are using to find content online. You should publish as much Hygiene content as you need to cover all of your key industry search terms.

Here is a detailed breakdown of each type:

Hero

Hero videos are high-quality brand advertisements designed to raise brand awareness, familiarity, and create a stronger brand connection with the public. They are often built around an important event or product launch and, given that they generally require a larger budget, they come with the greatest risk of any marketing video type.

Here is one of the best examples I have come across, created by on-demand transport company Lyft:

Lyft ensured their hero video achieved its aim by hiring Academy Award-winner John Kahrs to develop this stunning animated short movie. Given Lyft’s highly competitive market, it was very important for them to go big with their Hero content. And it really paid off, attracting them 8 million viewers on YouTube as it currently stands!

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here when I say that it’s unlikely you can afford to hire an Oscar winner to create a short movie for your business. However, there are many clever ways of making great Hero content on a smaller budget. Take this ad made by used car retailer CarMax, for example:

This simple clip is such a great piece of Hero content because it is a direct response to another viral used car video – this one, a beautifully shot spoof made because the filmmaker wanted to help his girlfriend sell her 1996 Honda Accord.

CarMax’s response? Make her a one week only offer of $20,000 for her car, her cat, her coffee machine, her Mexico mug, and her fiancé’s sweatshirt (all featured in the video). In just one year, it gained almost half a million views on YouTube!

So, if you don’t have the budget for that Super Bowl ad, make sure you are on the lookout for any big opportunities that pop up. When done correctly, and in good taste, connecting yourself to someone else’s viral success will mean an enormous boost in profile.

Here are some measures you can take to dramatically reduce your chances of investing in a Hero flop:

• Focus on your hook – what is it that makes you stand out?
• If you can’t afford stunning visuals, focus on compelling and creative storytelling that is hilarious or shocking in some way.
• Know what your current customer base wants to see and simply do that. It will ensure that you are targeting an audience that will translate into conversions.
• Invest time in making sure your videos are as visible as possible, covering all of your bases. Take advantage of high-profile events both online and offline as well as the many video and social media platforms available to you. A good promotional strategy should always be a top priority.

If you would like to read my top tips for creating an attention-grabbing animated Hero video, you can do so here.

Hub

Hub videos are produced far more regularly than Hero videos.

The goal of Hub content is to increase brand awareness, trust and engagement with your website and social media channels. It should encourage your visitors on to the next stage of your sales funnel and keep them coming back for more.

Think:

1. Customer testimonial videos telling interesting stories about how your product or service has improved their lives. A good example is this video made by hair loss clinic The Belgravia Centre:

Here they have created a simple testimonial video to a template that can be reproduced regularly and that very effectively builds trust with viewers. The Belgravia Centre are more than aware that trust is the most important thing to push conversions in their industry. Therefore, they have developed Hub content that directly addresses this requirement.

If you would like to learn more about creating great testimonial videos, take a look at my recent blog post on the subject here.

2. Daily or weekly vlog episodes exploring specific themes that engage your target audience, such as the latest technology news. A good example is Whiteboard Friday created by marketing software service company Moz:

Whiteboard Friday is the name of Moz’s weekly vlog that informs their target audience about the latest industry news and SEO insights. The videos are always insightful, charismatic, and genuinely actionable to ensure maximum impact.

In this popular clip, they outline the process for creating a content-to-keyword map that helps businesses find the best keywords to focus on, what type of content will work best for those keywords, and how to intelligently target them (All very useful skills when it comes to your hygiene content).

One thing that is worth noting is the scale and consistency of their videos. They all follow the same simple formula: a charismatic narrator using a whiteboard background to reinforce the topic of discussion. By applying this tactic in the long run, it will dramatically reduce your production costs and you can scale it to suit your particular budget needs.

3. Interviews with industry experts are perfect for cementing your business as a thought leader in your industry, particularly for B2B companies. Just like content planning and workflow tool company DivvyHQ have done here with Tim Washer, the senior marketing manager at Cisco:

As a highly respected marketing expert who has written for media organisations like The New York Times and NPR, Tim is the perfect interviewee to build trust and credibility around DivvyHQ’s product.

4. Influencer videos, like interviews, use a third party to build trust and awareness for your business. These should be people that your target audience looks up to, whether because of their online popularity with them or because of their authority within your industry. Common methods include custom discount codes, brand ambassadors, and product placement.

Influencer videos are not to be confused with celebrity endorsement videos. In fact, studies have shown that as much as 70% if teenagers trust online influencer videos more than traditional celebrity ones. Plus, you don’t have to break the bank to make them!

Want to learn more about influencer video marketing? You can check out my article on the subject here.

This clip is a perfect example of a B2C influencer video made by Women’s Health magazine with the help of online fitness trainer Kayla Itsines:

By choosing Kayla Itsines for their hub video, they are instantly presenting their relevant content to her 8 million followers on social media in a way that is both subtle and useful to them.

Note that while Hub content is often published on website landing pages or blogs for greatest impact, this is not always the most effective approach. For instance, your audience might seek out most of their related content on a specific social media or video platform like YouTube. So, don’t neglect to create your own Hub content channel in those locations.

5. Product demo videos are not only a big help to your present customers, they also reassure your website visitors by showing them how your product is beneficial and easy to use in real terms.

One of my favourite examples is blender company Blendtec’s YouTube channel ‘Will it Blend?’, entirely dedicated to demonstrating their products in entertaining ways:

In this clip, Blendtec see if their blender can blend an iPhone X. As well as being a brilliant piece of advertising that genuinely demonstrates the quality of their product, it also has great viral appeal, being equal parts hilarious parody, visually fascinating, and informative.

Here are some further guidelines that, if followed, will help ensure your Hub videos engage people with your product or service and keep them coming back:

• Address what your audience needs to see in order to fully trust your business, just like The Belgravia Centre have done.
• Tell inspiring stories that will stay with viewers.
• Be interesting and informative. Discuss the latest trends or technologies, tell them how they can improve their experience in your related field.
• Publish them at predictable intervals and make them cohesive and in the tone of your brand. Don’t forget the importance of building a strong brand identity.

Hygiene (or Help)

The most overlooked and arguably the most important content type nowadays is Hygiene.

“The most overlooked and arguably the most important content type nowadays is Hygiene.”

The goal of Hygiene content is to rank high for all the popular keywords in your industry niche in order to drive traffic to your business.

The current value of Google and Youtube search engine optimisation (SEO) cannot be overstated. They control the flow of traffic to your website and video content respectively and, as a result, you should invest a lot of time and effort in trying to leverage their ranking system in your favour.

You should take a rational approach to the subjects of your Hygiene videos. Find out the most commonly searched questions and phrases in your specific niche and answer them thoroughly within the videos.

You can easily find these using free keyword search engine tools like Ubersuggest.

Over time, watch yourself move up the rankings and see how many new visitors this generates.

There is no definitive best style or platform for Hygiene content, the videos should be adapted to suit your particular audience’s search topics and habits. But they often tend to be videos like How-to guides.

For instance, if you sell landscape gardening products and one of the top Google searches is ‘How do I lay a garden patio?’, make a brand video titled ‘How to lay a garden patio’ that answers the question in detail, with character, and without being salesy. The people who land on it are already in the market for your products, so pure convenience will lead many of them to buy them from you.

A highly successful example of this is the New York Museum of Modern Art’s online series ‘In the Studio’:

Each episode consists of art educator and conservator Corey D’Augustine revealing techniques of famous painters on display at MOMA by attempting to reproduce their styles himself. This video, titled ‘How to Paint Like Willem de Kooning’, has received hundreds of thousands of views over the past year.

This is the perfect example because it simultaneously offers valuable and compelling content to the target audience while reminding them they can come and see these artists’ work in person at MOMA.

Or, for something more suited to a smaller budget, here is an example of a Hygiene video created for restaurant chain Pagliacci Pizza:

Who won’t attempt to make their own pizza at some point? The obvious first step is to Google ‘how to make pizza dough?’ And when you do, this small pizza chain has it covered.

This clip has earned them close to 300,000 views. How many of those people, upon watching, realised how difficult it is to make great pizza dough and decided to just give Pagliacci Pizza a call instead? At the very least, it has widened their brand awareness and solidified them as an authority on the subject.

Hygiene content is a more insightful and steady means of pulling attention your way than Hero. But remember that both are necessary for creating a sustainable video marketing strategy.

Here are some top tips to further improve your chances of ranking on the first page of Google:

• Focus on the most searched for phrases.
• Match your video titles with the key search phrases. For example, a video ranking for Hero Hub Hygiene might simply be titled ‘What’s Hero Hub Hygiene?
• Make your content actionable, for example, reveal tactics that solve specific issues people are having within your niche.
• Encourage comments and a discussion under the video and interact with them by replying and answering questions.
• A/B test all aspects of your Hygiene videos, their titles, thumbnails, content, design, layout, etc., and over time you will find the formula that works best for you.

If you would like to learn more about A/B split testing, you can read about it in detail by following this link.

Hero Hub Hygiene Case Study: Tide

Tide is a laundry detergent and fabric care company owned by Procter and Gamble. With an estimated 14.3% share of the global market, they are the highest selling detergent in the world.

They maintain their number 1 spot despite many consumer tests concluding that there are better and cheaper detergents on the market. How do they do it? The quality of their Hero Hub Hygiene marketing strategy, of course!

Let’s take a closer look at their Hero Hub Hygiene content strategy, which Tide have executed expertly.

Hero: ‘Every Ad is A Tide Ad’

One of the highlight adverts during the 2018 Super Bowl halftime was Tide’s ambitious and humorous ‘Every Ad is a Tide Ad’.

In the 1-minute clip, they manage to squeeze in actor David Harbour parodying no less than 11 advertisement clichés, from pretentious car commercials to cheesy car insurance ones. Their bold ambition was to make the most of the audience and steal the show by asking viewers to question the nonsense that other ads want them to buy in to.

Tide tick all the boxes for a great Hero advert:

• It is made for a specific event with an enormous audience for maximum impact.
• Its hilarious, self-aware parodies give it memorable and viral appeal.
• It reminds the viewer that Tide is a dependable product that doesn’t try to be fancy and pretend that it does more than clean clothes, yet at the same time that it is an American icon. And all without being over salesy.
• It cleverly targets a general audience because, well, we all need clean clothes.

Hub: ‘The House that Mom Built’

Now that Tide’s Hero video has gained viewer’s interest people are far more likely to look into their products. When they do, subconsciously they want to be given a real reason to trust them before deciding to make a purchase.

And that is exactly what they have set out to achieve in this Hub video. It is a tribute to ‘Hockey moms’ who ‘do great things every day that we don’t see’ and follows the personal story of Linda Cato. Linda dedicates much of her spare time to her children’s hockey teams, including washing the dirty jerseys with Tide, without ever asking for anything in return.

This narrative story acts as an engrossing testimonial video by showing the viewer the good, honest people who trust Tide for even their dirtiest washes. There are no direct references to the detergent itself besides some clever product placement, which really adds to the credibility of the clip.

And it was so successful that it had its very own viral appeal, racking up over 350,000 views on YouTube!

(Literally) Hygiene: ‘Laundry Tips: How to Remove Ink Stains with Tide PODS’

Tide have covered all the of the top relevant phrases people search for on Google. And they have found that these videos are so important for their marketing strategy that they have included links to two of them on their website landing page. Some examples of their other popular Hygiene videos are:

How to Remove Blood Stains

How to Remove Sweat Stains

How to Remove Rust Stains

How to Remove Coffee Stains

How to Remove Wine Stains

I think you can see the pattern – they are simply answering the most asked questions on Google.

In the short, 23-second example above, ‘How to Remove Ink Stains’, Tide make it as easy for the viewer as possible by walking them through 5 simple steps with visuals and accompanying text.

By constantly creating content like this, Tide are guaranteeing a steady, long-term flow of web traffic continues to come their way.

Budgeting for Your Hero Hub Hygiene Campaign

No matter the size of your business or the industry you’re in, having a solid business and marketing plan is vital. It is the difference between trying to reach your destination with or without a road map.

“No matter the size of your business or the industry you’re in, having a solid business and marketing plan is vital. It is the difference between trying to reach your destination with or without a road map.”

And a realistic budget is central to the success of any business and marketing plan. But, where even start? Well, with the help of the CMO survey 2018, hopefully, these insights will be of use:

1. What percentage of revenue should I spend on the overall marketing budget?

Despite what you will read online, 10% is no longer the magic number! Surprisingly enough, the current trend is down, with the average percentage now sitting at 7.3%.

But, beware, it is still a mistake to assume that the average budget will be right for you. So here is a further breakdown of the average percentages across the four major business types:

B2B Product: 5.4%

B2B Service: 7.1%

B2C Product: 10.1%

B2C Services: 8.9%

Which are you?

This is a useful way of gaining a ballpark figure for your budget, and offers key business insights. For example, if you sell clothes to the public, you will need to spend above average on marketing; whereas, if you sell tires to the car manufacturing industry, it’ll be below average.

2. What percentage of the marketing budget should be dedicated to my Hero Hub Hygiene campaign?

A tough question! I suggest implementing Hero Hub Hygiene holistically across all areas of your marketing strategy, including social media, for maximum impact. So, my answer would be all of it.

But, knowing how to allocate your money will depend on these factors:

• The scope of your Hero Hub Hygiene campaign
• What strategies get you results
• The interests and habits of your customers

A lot of it comes down to trial and error. However, knowing your customers is always a great help:

• Where do they consume content? – Social media, television, YouTube, etc.?
• What content do they relate to?
• What interests them and holds their attention?

The answers will inform your Hero Hub Hygiene campaign investments, giving you valuable insights into things like digital versus non-digital content or whether there are specific areas of the HHH framework that you are currently lacking on.

It is also important to be aware of market trends. For example, between 2018 and 2023 digital marketing is forecast to increase from 44.3% of the average marketing budget to 54.1%. By adapting to big changes early, you are ensuring you won’t get left behind.

3. Should I spend most on Hero, Hub or Hygiene?

Given an individual piece of content, Hero will almost always be the most expensive and generally Hygiene will be the cheapest. But, of course, Hygiene is the most common and Hero the least.

So, again, it depends on what gets you results. Experimentation is key. If Hub content has a noticeably greater impact on your sales than Hygiene, next year assign additional funds to cultivate Hub.

Hero Hub Hygiene and the Traditional Sales Funnel

When planning your Hero Hub Hygiene strategy, it is important that you consider the different stages of the sales funnel and know how it applies to your business.

Awareness: People won’t purchase your product if they’ve never heard of you, so the top of the funnel is about making your business known to prospects. Your Hero content is usually the most valuable here, but Hygiene can also act as an effective awareness builder when it is used to leverage SEO rankings.

Capture: It is important to present yourself as an industry thought leader and build trust with those prospects drawn in by your awareness content. Here, you must answer any important questions and objections they might have and engage them with your business. For that reason, Hub content is ideal.

Nurture: Once your prospects have gotten to the nurture stage, they have shown strong intent and are ready to make a decision. You want to quell any possible doubts here with your quality Hygiene content, such as product demos.

Convert: Now you have a new customer who will add a whole new channel to your sales funnel: word of mouth.

Of course, this is all on very general terms and each business’s funnel (and therefore their content) will be somewhat unique. But, what it shows is that the Hero Hub Hygiene model is designed not only with the sales funnel in mind, but also to be scalable to any business size and adaptable to each sales funnel.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about how to apply the hero, hub, hygiene video marketing framework to your business, then feel free to get in touch with us here at Spiel for your free consultation.