When you think of telecom, what comes to mind? Probably “when’s my next bill due again?” or “I use HOW much data?” (Or if you’re Glenn Rogers, “Seriously, I am one outage away from deleting my Twitter account”).

It’s not the sexiest industry, which makes it hard to find interesting content around it. Even harder is finding information that covers what people really want to know in a straightforward way. Yak, a Toronto-based long distance, digital home phone, high speed internet and mobile services provider, wants to change this – and they’re using Uberflip to help them with their mission.

We chatted with Anthony Cozzi, the Vice President at Globalive (Yak’s parent company) who is spearheading their new content initiative. Anthony sheds light on how they’re using the Yak Media Hub to connect with and educate Canadians about their company and the often-confusing world of telecommunications.

What made Yak decide to create a Hub?

Being new to the content marketing game, Yak wanted a simple way to bring their freshly-minted content into a central place that’s easily navigable for visitors. They were also won over by the aspect of keeping visitors on their site as opposed to bumping them off to YouTube or Twitter, something they were able to further achieve by integrating their Hub into their main site (just head to “Media”).

“People are likely looking for a specific thing when they land on the Media Hub,” Anthony says. “But there’s a lot of information that’s applicable to them as a telecom consumer. We wanted to be able to show them other things – maybe things they didn’t even know they were interested in – to facilitate learning about the industry.”

Anthony describes the Hub as a “sticking point” where current and prospective customers can read Yak’s content, interact with them on Twitter and Facebook, and watch their videos, all in one place - a term we might end up stealing for ourselves. ;)

What is the main purpose of the Yak Media Hub?

“The main goal behind the Yak Media Hub is to educate telecom customers and give a behind-the-scenes look at what Yak is working on,” Anthony explained. “Everyone is essentially selling the same thing when it comes to telecom. We want to not only be a great service provider, but a credible source of information for things that truly affect people.”

Things like “Bill Creep”, something the Uberflip team hadn’t technically heard of—but had a pretty good idea of as soon as the term came up. If you’re not familiar, bill creep is when your bill gradually increases over time with added fees that are just small enough not to warrant going through the hassle of changing providers (something Yak is fighting with their “ungouging” campaign—woot!).

“We want to humanize telecom,” says Anthony. “It’s a confusing industry that a lot of people have had negative experiences with. We want to change that, and actively sharing information, promoting transparency and engaging with customers through our Hub is a fresh and cost-effective way to do that.”

How does Uberflip integrate with your current processes?

“We already use MailChimp to manage our email campaigns, so the MailChimp integration was a big plus,” he continues. “We use form CTAs to prompt visitors to sign up for our media hub news feed and to receive contest updates. Since the CTAs are synced with MailChimp, their information goes right into our existing lists, which makes things really easy.”

This is in addition to the link CTAs Yak has peppered throughout their Hub which lead to a contact form elsewhere on their site, where visitors can request a call for more information (either right now or later), or phone the company themselves. Besides being integrated into their website, the Hub has been styled to match perfectly with Yak’s branding – so jumping between the Hub and other sections of the site has a natural flow.

What’s next for the Yak media Hub?

“More video!” was Anthony’s immediate answer. “We’ve got a few good ones in the works and are planning on incorporating more video into our strategy.”

There’s a lot that can be done, Anthony admits, as the company is just starting out in content marketing and are excited to test the waters. Besides upping their overall blog production, they plan on veering further into niche topics like travel as well as covering industry news. They also plan on publishing white papers and eBooks on topics like how to get out of your current contract and other common issues.

That said, their first steps into the world of content marketing are looking pretty promising.