There’s nothing like the suspense of settling into a seat in a dark, air conditioned movie theater, armed with your popcorn and soda. This summer’s blockbusters have it all—action, humor, and love. What you might not realize as you’re watching wide-eyed is that within those killer summer movies are some equally awesome lessons in content marketing.

Jurassic World                                                                         

As a lover of all the original Jurassic Park movies, I was dying to see the latest addition. It was the perfect mash of action, suspense, and a bit of humor. The movie was sprinkled with flashy cars. Didn’t notice? Look again. All the cars in the movie were Mercedes.

As it turns out, every model of Mercedes cars were used in the film, and they employed it to unveil their latest model, the GLE Coupe. In fact, the new vehicle was released the day that Jurassic World hit theaters.

There’s a great content marketing lessons you can glean from this. If you don’t have the time or talent to create great content for your brand, partner with someone who does. You don’t have to do all the work yourself. Surely, Mercedes couldn’t afford a feature length movie on their own; they don’t have the skillset for that. Instead, they partnered with someone that was already reaching their target market and had the skills and resources to do the promoting.

If you don’t have the resources for a full time marketing department, consider outsourcing to companies skilled in content creation that can promote your brand.

Inside Out

This adorable Pixar movie takes a unique look at our inner emotions. The movie follows Riley and the emotions in her head—Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness. Known for their adorable and hilarious films, Pixar offers another lesson in content marketing—play up emotions. They’ve got this strategy down well enough that they can appeal to children and adults alike, and you can use it in your content marketing too.

Content marketers have a tendency to be very product centric, boasting specs like they’re spouting off a manual. What’s most effective, though, is a story that toys with the emotions of the readers. Great content explains the ‘why’ of a product—why it’s important to the consumer, the one who’s reading your message. Shoot to create a connection with them on a human-to-human, emotional level.

Ant-Man

Marvel’s latest movie will feature Ant-Man, an unsuspecting hero with a super-suit that allows him to shrink in size but grow in strength. Admittedly, I’m not sure that this movie will meet the success of Iron Man or Avengers, but there’s still a very important content marketing takeaway. Fans are already speculating about how this film will connect into the greater, Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Marvel has mastered the art of lead nurturing. The writers have created a massive interwoven story-line with enough content to last until 2028. What’s critical is that they tease this content in a very systematic way. It began with a scene at the end of Iron Man’s credits. Nick Fury introduced Tony Stark to SHIELD and the Avengers initiative, starting a buzz for the upcoming Avengers movies. This technique has been used again and again in Marvel’s movies.

This pattern of offering a bit of teaser content for the upcoming movies gets fans interested and speculating. You can use the same strategy in your content marketing by nurturing your leads with more and more relevant content. Start with a blog post that leads to an eBook that leads to a case study and so on. Draw your customers in.

So as you grab your popcorn and sit back to watch a movie on the big screen, think about how it makes use of content marketing strategies. It might just inspire your best content yet.