I’ve come into the office today to the news that MoneySavingExpert has been sold for £87,000,000! Wow… that’s not bad for a “poorly implemented vBulletin installation”!

Thats annoying. a poorly implemented vBulletin installation sells for £87,000,000 moneysavingexpert.com/news/site/2012…

— Martin Macdonald (@searchmartin) June 1, 2012

So if it’s not the site itself that’s earned Martin Lewis the big bucks, what is it? Content Marketing of course!

Martin Lewis identified his audience – consumers looking for unbiased financial advice.

He identified their informational requirement – Honest, unbiased expert opinion on which financial services products are best.

He generated loads of relevant content – Through social channels, such as the popular forums on MSE, he automated the generation of huge amounts of content on a daily basis

By hitting on a HUGE, mass informational requirement – unbiased financial advice, he attracted the multitudes of people unsatisfied with being duped by comparison sites into buying the deal that would provide the best return for the site, rather than the consumer, and through the expert promotion of his personal brand as a consumer champion he got on the news agenda. He was able to comment on all relevant breaking news stories and became a trusted source for journalists and the media.

As well as building his stature in social and traditional media, this got him a ton of inbound links from premium sites like the BBC and national and regional press. These links, coupled with the fact that the site is well-optimised for SEO, and uses titles that follow a clear keyword strategy, means that he generated a hell of a lot of organic search traffic.

His whole online marketing strategy was actually remarkably effective. He was very good at integrating his online strategy with his PR activity. An example of this was when he would be discussing and promoting particular financial products, say a credit card or mortgage, he would use paid search and affiliate marketing to take advantage of the increased search traffic that he had the power to generate.

MSE is a great example of building value through the integration of PR, SEO and social channels, with content as the fulcrum. And even though he’s sold the site, he’s still building his personal brand Branson-style through gifting £10m to charity.

Martin Lewis’ website MoneySavingExpert is sold for £87m- wouldn’t mind being him this morning & he’s given £10m to charity #topbloke

— Nicola Jones (@Nicola_A_Jones) June 1, 2012