Valuable Content Award

Every month in our Valuable Content newsletter we award an outstanding company with a Valuable Content Award.

To win a Valuable Content award your business website needs to be packed with helpful, authentic content, written with passion, presented with the user in mind. We only verify sites that we believe are genuinely useful to web users. Winners get the coveted Valuable Content Award badge to display on their site.

The winner of the Valuable Content Award for April 2013 is…

… HSBC Expat. Feeding the content creation monster at scale is a huge challenge. This month’s winner is a fantastic content achievement. Read the fascinating story behind the site and grab some top tips for content marketing success here. (And do take a look round their content and blog too – we bet it’s not what you would expect a bank to produce!)

Recent award winners

March 2013 – Indium Corporation. Indium is a great example of an organization locking blogging into the core of its operations.

Take a look at their approach – From One Engineer to Another – for a view of what it looks like when everyone in the business blogs.  It’s living breathing helpful expertise in action. We love it!

February 2013 – Information risk management consultancy Ascentor! Marketing the valuable way is a big change for a traditional firm. Winning the content marketing game takes top team commitment; persistence and a firm hand on the tiller. We are delighted to give this award to MD Dave James for his commitment and strong leadership: it’s delivering sales results for Ascentor. Well done Dave and team! Keep sharing that valuable knowledge.

January 2013 – Our first winner for 2013 is the Sands Beach Resort on Lanzarote. If there’s one golden rule when it comes to social media, it has to be: know your audience. Theirs is a masterclass in mastering social media. Read the case study and learn how the company built a whole new brand and customer base with brilliant content at the heart of its social strategy.

December 2012 - Martha, age 9! This month we are delighted to present the award to our youngest ever winner. Martha runs cake-making business Perfect Puddings and she is only nine. Intuitively Martha has created a blog that demonstrates the Valuable Content principles perfectly – share really useful content, show your enthusiasm, make it visually appealing, and above all, think of your customers and be helpful. We love it, and think you will too.

November 2012 - This month’s award goes to the website of new novel Remember to Breathe. Written by Simon Pont and published by Urbane Publications the novel tells the story of unhinged but strangely loveable ad-man Samuel Grant – think Mad Men, 1990s style. A beautifully designed website packed with highly creative content extends the reader’s experience over many different platforms.

October 2012 - Our Valuable Content Award this month goes to a very human Twitter feed – funny, engaging and packed with personality.

Congratulations Novatech!

September 2012 – We are delighted to present September’s award to the team at SunGard for their immensely valuable client resource site, SunGard TEN. SunGard is a Fortune 500 company and the world’s largest privately owned software and technology firm. Their marketing department and subject matter experts have collaborated to create a superb library of articles, papers, case studies, videos, and webinars that provide genuine value to their audience. We love the way the site visually matches relevant content to the visitor’s requirements – through an interactive representation of the client’s world. Take a peek: SunGard TEN – Your Business.

  • Full interview with SunGard’s CMO Paul Wilson here

July 2012 – Base Structures for their dynamic, content-rich website that is far more than just a beautiful brochure for the firm.

Content marketing specialist Lucinda Brook was instrumental in crafting the website and marketing strategy for Base Structures. She explains: “The primary aim of the new website and content marketing programme is to give value to the type of people Base wants to do business with, and in turn to showcase the expertise that the company provides. It’s a strategy that has helped the company to beat the recession. Visitors quickly doubled and the company has seen the value of orders triple as a result.”

June 2012 – Digital creative agency 3Sixty scoops this month’s first award. Unlike many creative agencies their website is way more than a beautifully designed online portfolio. 3Sixty leads with valuable content. Their mix of first class thinking and writing with gorgeous design is truly inspirational.  Director Chris Thurling says: “Everyone at 3Sixty is a real expert at what they do. But it’s no good just saying it. We need to follow our own advice. In the digital age it’s more important what you do than what you say.”

  • Their expertise certainly shines through: www.3sixty.co.uk.
    • June 2012 - Create Fit, one of Bristol’s best swimming and personal training companies wins too. Founder Mark Durnford posts helpful articles and video tips to help swimmers perfect and practice the techniques he teaches in the pool. He has 1000+ subscribers and over 800,000 views. It works. Mark and the team couldn’t be busier.
    May 2012 – YourBusinessChannel scoops this month’s valuable content award.  It’s an inspiring, detailed and thoughtful site that demonstrates the power of using video content to tell your business story. We spoke to director Mark Sinclair while we were writing the book, and this was his advice for businesses looking to succeed with their marketing: “Focus on doing three key things well: 1) Create engaging content 2) Share it with the right people 3) Stimulate conversation and collaborate as a result.”

  • We’d agree with that! Check out www.yourbusinesschannel.com to see how they do it.

    • April 2012 – This month’s valuable content award goes to Tony Restell and the team at Top Consultant. We heard some great stories during the course of our research but Top Consultant’s tale was one of the most compelling. Find out how a valuable approach to marketing has helped Top Consultant to achieve sustainable business success.

    March 2012 – Balsamiq – we absolutely love this company, their wireframing tool and their website. Approachable, helpful with real personality, take a peek here

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    March 2012 – Intel – a big corporate showing its human side with valuable blogs, tips, even processor art. See Intel Inside Scoop here
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    March 2012 – Conscious Solutions - for their valuable website and e-books that they use for sales success. Take a look here
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    March 2012 – Dan Roberts, Personal Trainer – 64 training tip videos on his YouTube channel have really helped him to get his name known - find them here
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    February 2012: The team at EnduranceLife for their valuable Facebook feed. They attracted 15,000 Facebook fans in just 12 months by sharing information that the endurance sports community couldn’t do without. It’s filling their endurance events and helping them achieve their ambition to grow Endurancelife into a global lifestyle brand.
    The second award for February 2012 went to Inksters – a very forward thinking Scottish law firm. Blogs, Twitter, video and podcasts and a stack of valuable content – this firm has it all.
    A very worthy winner of a Valuable Content Award.
    January 2012 - The McKay Flooring Ltd blog – an absolutely brilliant example of how content marketing should be done. They’ve got it just right – sales site, blog, newsletter and resources. A really helpful site showcasing everything you need to know about flooring. Who knew flooring could be exciting?
    What’s not to love!
    Our Gold Award winner for 2011 was Mel Lester for his website, blog articles, seriously valuable newsletter and veritable library of free resources (check out his ‘Consultant’s Toolbox‘) Well done Mel! You’ve won this year’s Gold Valuable Content Award for the content we feel to be most valuable to its target audience.
    November 2011: Hinge Marketing for their valuable LinkedIn group - The Professional Services Executive Forum. This is by far the most engaged and useful group we’ve come across to date with real business owners debating thorny business issues. The latest thread ‘What’s the toughest part of launching a new website?’ motivated over 30 comments and a fascinating debate – valuable content indeed and a fantastic showcase for Hinge’s expertise. This is the 2nd award for Hinge this year (their website was a winner in the Spring). Congratulations Hinge – you are raising the bar.
    November 2011: Copywriter Jim O’Connor for his new blog Stories That Sell. Jim is a very talented copywriter. For years he’s had a website to promote his services: it was always superbly crafted but it was really just an online portfolio and didn’t generate consistent leads. Now he’s started sharing valuable content by adding a blog to the site and as he says: “it’s gone mad!” The leads are coming in thick and fast. Content and copy go hand in hand: valuable content pulls people in and clever copywriting converts them – every website needs a bit of both. Witty and insightful we recommend Jim’s articles whole heartedly. We love this blog!

    October 2011: Financial planners BPH Wealth Management for their valuable articles. This firm believes in creating a balance between life and money. Their website has just the right mix of insight, opinion and company news to get their message and personality across. Congratulations BPH!

    September 2011: Brand new web design agency Yoke Design for their beautifully designed, content rich website that’s piling in the leads. Yoke is a design company making a difference. They are crystal clear on who they want to work for and their articles hit the mark. Congratulations Jay and Al!

    Web design company Newfangled for their superb website – both content and design – and the very best of targeted propositions, all for the love of agencies. We love the newsletter they produce to educate and empower the agency world on all things web. In fact we love everything about their content!

    Previous Award Winners

    Risk management consultancy Relevant Risk, author and blogger David Meerman Scott, consultant Ian Brodie, consultant David Baker and Recourses, holiday company Swimtrek, business coach Lee Duncan, presentations expert Sims Wyeth, technology consultant Eric Brown, outsourced payroll firm The Payroll Services Centre, marketing consultant Bryony Thomas, coach Heather Townsend, Trusted Advisor Charles H. Green, management consultancy Formicio, professional services branding and marketing consultants Hinge Marketing, IT strategy expert Vaughan Merlyn, local expert Nick Hall, creative consultant Eli Barbary, IFA Helm Godfrey, management consultant Mel Lester.

    Click here for full details of previous Valuable Content Award winners.

    Future winners

    Sign up to the newsletter to find out the next Valuable Content Award winner – http://eepurl.com/bgTr5 If you’d like us to check out your site do send us a link. Email sonja@valuablecontent.co.uk and we’ll assess your site for valuable content.

    Award Buzz

    Special mention and awards also go to the sites of those who make up the Valuable Content team:

    – all worthy ambassadors for the Valuable Content approach.