Latest / Content Marketing with Fexingo: Blogs, Videos, and Long-Form Content That Converts / How a 150-Year-Old Ink Company Built a Content Revival
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- Lucas: So I want to start with a confession. I have spent more money on fountain pens in the last six months than I have on any single marketing tool. And it is not even close. Luna: You are not alone there. That rabbit hole is deep and expensive. So I assume this is going somewhere? Lucas: It goes directly to today's subject. I got pulled in not by an ad, not by a social post, but by a blog. A long, obsessive, beautifully written blog post about how the nib of a Sailor pen is ground by hand by a single craftsman in Hiroshima. Luna: So you bought a three-hundred-dollar pen because of a blog post. That is the dream conversion for any content marketer. Lucas: Exactly. And Sailor — the pen company — is a hundred and fifty years old. They are not a startup. They are not a DTC brand. They are an old-school Japanese manufacturer that quietly built one of the most effective content marketing engines I have seen in a while. All focused on depth, not reach. Luna: I want to hear the numbers. What kind of results are we talking about? Lucas: According to their US distributor, the company's blog — called 'Sailor Stories' — now drives about 40 percent of their online sales. Not the product page. The blog. They do not run paid ads. They do not have an influencer program. Luna: Forty percent. That is huge. And we are talking about a product category that is pretty niche. Fountain pens are not exactly mass market. Lucas: Right, and that is exactly the point. They leaned into the niche. Instead of trying to make fountain pens mainstream, they went deeper for the people who already care. They publish three to four long-form articles a month — think two thousand to four thousand words each. Luna: That is a lot of words for a hobby audience. What are they writing about? Lucas: Ink chemistry. The difference between dye-based and pigment-based inks. How different nib grinds affect cursive. A history of Japanese stationary culture. One of their most-read posts is titled 'The Alchemy of Ink: Why pH Balance Matters in Your Converter.' Luna: That sounds like something only a hardcore enthusiast would read. And yet it converts. So the audience is small but extremely focused. Lucas: Exactly. Sailor's entire content strategy is built on the idea that if you write something so authoritative that the top one percent of enthusiasts bookmark it, those enthusiasts become your evangelists. They share it in forums. They link to it from Reddit. Luna: There is actually a subreddit called r/fountainpens — almost seventy thousand members. Very active. I have seen Sailor articles posted there multiple times. Lucas: And that organic community sharing is what replaced their ad spend. They do not need Google Ads because every time someone searches 'best ink for shimmer,' the first result is often a Sailor blog post. Google loves that depth. Luna: So it is an SEO play disguised as editorial passion. Lucas: Exactly. But the crucial detail is that they do not stuff keywords. The posts are genuinely written by enthusiasts — sometimes by actual pen experts they hire as freelancers. The tone is not 'buy this pen.' It is 'here is something fascinating about how this thing is made.' Luna: That builds authority. But does it build trust in a different way than a typical product review? Lucas: Completely. A product review says 'this is good.' A deep-dive says 'this is how it works, and by the way, we happen to make a version of it.' The purchase feel like a byproduct of curiosity, not a transaction. Luna: I think that is especially powerful in a category where the product has a learning curve. Fountain pens are not intuitive. You need guidance. The content becomes customer education. Lucas: Yes. And education that is not pushy creates a longer relationship. Sailor measures something they call 'time to purchase' for blog readers versus social media visitors. Blog readers take about two weeks longer to convert, but their average order value is 60 percent higher. Luna: So patience pays off. They are willing to wait for the right customer rather than chase the quick sale. Lucas: Exactly. And that patience is built into their content cadence. They do not publish daily. They do not chase trends. They took six months to produce a single article on how urushi lacquer is applied to their pens. It had videos, diagrams, interviews with artisans. Luna: Six months for one post. That is almost the opposite of the 'publish or perish' mentality. Lucas: It is. But the post has been their second most visited page for three years straight, and it still drives daily sales. So the return on that investment is enormous over time. Luna: Let me ask about the community angle. You mentioned they share in forums. How do they actively engage with those communities without being spammy? Lucas: They do something smart. They do not post their own links. Instead, they have a team member who is a known contributor in fountain pen forums — just a regular member, not a branded account. That person answers questions genuinely, and when it is useful, they reference a Sailor article as a resource. Luna: So it is earned, not promoted. Lucas: Exactly. And the forums respect that. They have actually banned other brands for being too promotional, but Sailor gets a pass because they contribute value. One forum moderator told me that Sailor's rep is one of the most trusted voices there. Luna: That is a hard thing to buy. And it protects the brand from the kind of backlash that comes with aggressive marketing. Lucas: And it feeds back into their content. Some of their best article ideas come from questions they see repeatedly in forums. They literally ask 'what confusion keeps coming up?' and then write the definitive answer. Luna: That is such a simple, powerful editorial strategy. Instead of guessing what the audience wants, you listen to what they are already asking. Lucas: It also means every piece of content has built-in demand. They are not creating content for a hypothetical reader — they are answering a real, repeated query. That is why their time-on-page averages over seven minutes. Luna: Seven minutes is insane for a blog. That is longer than most video views. Lucas: It is. And because the content is so thorough, people return. Sailor tracks returning visitors from their blog as a separate metric — over 30 percent of blog readers come back within a month. That is a relationship. Luna: So they are building a loyal audience, not just a conversion funnel. That is the kind of thing that sustains a brand through economic cycles. Lucas: And it is worth noting that this is not a massive team. The entire content operation for Sailor's US market is three people. Two writers and a part-time editor. They outsource the translation from Japanese for some technical pieces. Luna: Three people producing content that drives 40 percent of online sales. That is a better ROI than most marketing departments I have seen. Lucas: The takeaway for me is that depth beats volume. Most brands are afraid to go too niche, too technical. But Sailor shows that if you own a small topic completely, you can punch way above your weight in conversions. Luna: And if these conversations have sparked something you have actually used in your own work, or if you just like learning about smart marketing moves, it is worth mentioning that listener support is what keeps this show ad-free and independent. Lucas: Yeah, a couple of dollars a month genuinely makes a difference. It lets us spend time on deep-dives like this instead of chasing sponsors. You can find that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: And we really appreciate it. Now back to Sailor — one more angle I want to touch on is how they handle product launches. Do they use content to build anticipation? Lucas: They do, but not with teasers. They publish the full backstory of a new pen sometimes a month before it goes on sale. The history of the design, the material sourcing, the craftspeople involved. By launch day, the audience already feels invested. Luna: So they pre-sell the story. And by the time the product is available, the only question is price and availability. Lucas: Exactly. And they often sell out within hours. They limit production intentionally, which creates urgency, but the content ensures that the people who really want it are ready. Luna: That is a luxury model. Not every brand can do that, but the principle of storytelling before selling applies broadly. Lucas: Absolutely. For any brand in a niche space — whether it is specialty coffee, cycling gear, or accounting software — the lesson is the same. Write for the person who already cares more than the average person. They will reward you with loyalty and referrals. Luna: And maybe even a three-hundred-dollar pen purchase from a blog post. Lucas: Guilty. But I do not regret it. The pen writes beautifully, and the content that sold me on it was genuinely good.