Intel builds an audience with iQ

Build your audience and your market will come to you. If ever there was a rationale for content marketing, this is it.

One of those to grasp this relatively early on was Intel. In 2012, the company launched iQ, a standalone tech magazine. The publication looks well-designed and consists of features that are tech-related but stretch across B2B and B2C.

Intel’s marketing is possibly best-known for the annoying two-second flashes shoved into TV ads with an animated logo. The firm’s challenge has always been to highlight a product that is hidden away – and most consumers use but don’t know exists.

With iQ, Intel has made this a strength. The ubiquity of its processors and what they are likely to be working on allow iQ to talk about any number of subjects. This can include the use of ‘Big Data’ in sports, wearables and health and fitness. The flexibility of content marketing has allowed Intel to make a strength of its own limitations.

Here are some of our favourites:

• High-tech football transfers: How big clubs use Big Data to sign the best players
• How Grace Hopper’s Career Cracked the Code for Women in Science
• The Future of Wearables
• Out of this world record: Tim Peake ran the London Marathon in space!
• How diabetes technology can be a real life-saver

Part of the original idea for the site was to pull together content that was produced and shared by its own employees. It seems to have moved beyond this and the articles appear to have been largely produced by journalists.

Judging by the 28,000 followers it has on Twitter, the site has been a success. It also further emphasises how well the tech sector has embraced both content marketing and the need to tell its own story. And a refreshing change from the annoying TV ident.

Intel builds an audience with iQ is part of Content24, the blog for London content marketing agency FirstWord.