Does American Express Business Class Get a Good Content Marketing Grade?
Almost 20 years ago, American Express launched OPEN Forum, a content hub for small business owners that quickly earned praise as a go-to content marketing example.
OPEN Forum was an educational resource, not a direct promotion or advertising site for American Express. It was also designed as a community hub for small business owners to connect with one another.
In recent years, American Express Business Class replaced OPEN Forum. Let’s look at what works with the modern version, what could be better, and which American Express property could take a lesson from its colleagues.
1. What’s in a name?
American Express dropped the OPEN Forum brand and replaced it with American Express Business Class. The content hub includes features and trending topics to help business owners.
What works?
The simple name — American Express Business Class — fits the brand’s updated approach to content for business owners. “Business class” presents a couple of interpretations. The use of “class” easily connects to the educational resource mission. It also connotes an upgrade, as it’s the same name as the better seat class on airplanes.
The straightforward name also works nicely in a clean-looking logo as seen in the upper right corner of the home page in the above screenshot. Each letter is separated by a vertical line, with “business” on the first line and “class” on the second.
What could work better?
OPEN Forum was a good name given its community mission, but Business Class works well for the current mission. So, nothing to change here.
2. What’s at the top?
Two broad categories — topics and videos — sit just left of the logo on the home page. The topics subcategories include:
- Managing money
- Getting customers
- Building your team
- Planning for growth
The videos subcategories include:
- Explainer videos
- Educational shorts
- Small business stories
What works?
Easily found topic listings help visitors discover more quickly how to get to what they want. It’s a smart navigational design technique to put a table-of-contents-like header before the more detailed content. The topics succinctly address what a business owner might want to know — money, marketing and sales, employees, and growth.
Making videos prominent is smart, too, given 56% of B2B marketers say the format produces the best results of their content marketing tactics. Telling your customers’ stories visually allows the audience to see and listen to people in similar situations. American Express also helpfully lists the owner’s location in the header — geographical proximity can be an important “click” factor. It’s also easy to see that the video content follows a theme (15 Stories) and identifies the viewing format (text or video).
What could work better?
“Videos” as the header seems odd. Business owners likely want to know the what (subject of the content) before the how (video).
Also, labels like “explainer videos” and “educational shorts” are not helpful. What is being explained? What is being taught?
3. What’s in a celebrity appearance?
American Express created a series of videos featuring celebrities Patti LaBelle, who has a food business, and Nick Offerman, who has a woodworking business. Each business owner takes viewers through aspects of running a business, from digital transformation and scaling to supply chains and financing.
What works?
Unexpected storytellers always delight. Both these stars run businesses unrelated to what they’re known for (singing for Patti and acting for Nick). In these videos, they wear their entrepreneur hats and share helpful information for their fellow business owners. Could a lesser-known person deliver the same information? Sure, but it would miss the unexpected element and the “hey-that-celebrity-has-the-same-experiences-I-do” relatability.
American Express does well by breaking down the videos into short segments, tackling one topic in the time a viewer would be willing to give it.
What could work better?
American Express buried these videos in the “explainer” label on the home page. It uses small print on the video page to explain the real power of the series: “Celebrity business owners break down business topics.”
If you invest in unique storytelling, tell your visitors. I believe more people would have clicked from the American Express Business Class home page if they knew Patti LaBelle and Nick Offerman were the ones explaining.
4. What’s in an article?
American Express covers a range of topics in articles written by freelance contributors. Each one, such as a Guide to Calculating the Break-Even Point (above), includes a one- or two-sentence summary at the beginning and a takeaway section at the end.
What works?
The summaries are prominently labeled for visitors looking for a quick answer.
In the break-even point article, for example, the visitor knows within seconds the meaning of a break-even point. The body of the article is divided into easy-to-see sections — what, how to calculate, examples based on units and revenue, and the benefits of doing it — followed by a takeaway. That format works well for skimming readers.
Including the freelancer byline indicates a level of credibility and commitment (American Express is paying for the content).
American Express also links to relevant articles and offers related content in the blog articles. It doesn’t promote American Express products, leaving that to the advertisement on the left side of the page.
What could work better?
It’s practically perfect. The required legal disclaimers bog down the content, but the team does its best with the must-include text by putting it in italics.
5. What’s on the page?
American Express’s “Educational Shorts” are brief, animated explainer videos discussing the features and benefits of its products. It hosts three videos on the page — employee cards, flexible payments, and no preset spending limits. Each video runs between 60 and 70 seconds.
What works?
The videos are nicely done, with clear American Express Business Class branding and easy-to-understand explanations.
What could work better?
More content delivered regularly would fulfill the page’s mission. If that’s not possible, a different design should be used that doesn’t have headers like “Catch up on this series” because a single video does not make a series.
Not publishing at a regular cadence also makes the visible publication dates problematic. It gets wacky when the featured video is published on May 30 and the catch-up video is published on August 8.
A similar publishing date problem exists with the explainer videos. All those videos were published on the same date. If the American Express team had to post publishing dates because the CMS required it, it should use different dates for each video, even if that means backdating some videos. Then, the videos appear as a series, not a one-and-done content dump.
Share the lessons
The American Express Business Class team has done an excellent job with its revitalized content hub for business owners. It understands what it takes to make content their target audience wants in the formats they prefer. With a few tweaks to the presentation, particularly the headers, the team and the audience will reap even more benefits from the resource.
Other American Express divisions would benefit by taking lessons from the Business Class team. First up should be American Express Ventures, given its Insight page:
It shows visitors that it clearly doesn’t care about helpful content, and I’m not just talking about using American Express in every headline. Look at the header just above them. Each one still says, “Category Tag.” That doesn’t work on so many levels.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
