When you think of excellent content marketing, what comes to mind? Gaining consumers’ attention has become increasingly challenging because the markets are saturated — and so are buyers’ minds. Whether you’re a new or seasoned business, your content marketing should drive business results. We’ve compiled nine content marketing examples to inspire your next campaign.
1. Apple’s “Shot on an iPhone” Campaign
Apple has historically capitalized on user-generated content marketing. In 2015, they launched their “Shot on an iPhone” campaign, which featured photos its users shot on their phones. This user-generated campaign plays into their customers’ interests and talents by conveying that they can create art like professionals from their Apple products.
This simple yet powerful campaign allowed users to take something ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary. “Shot on an iPhone” landed on billboards across the country and was hugely popular with influencers on social media. This campaign showcased Apple’s high-quality tech and proved that a lasting campaign can generate sustainable brand loyalty and revenue for your brand.
2. TED Talks
TED is a nonprofit organization that gives authors, celebrities, leaders, and experts a platform to present on different topics globally. Accessibility is key to TED, which is why its content is free to users in multiple languages. Providing free content has helped them grow their following and establish a positive reputation globally. Additionally, providing content in various languages has helped them excel in their global content marketing strategy. TED is committed to “creating ideas that are worth spreading.” They’re focused on creating valuable content that their users will love, which has helped them successfully build a loyal audience.
3. Sprout Social: Content Inspiration Worksheet
Sprout Social sells social media publishing tools to help transform your marketing strategy. A common pain point for social media marketers is creating engaging social media posts. As a result, Sprout Social created a content inspiration worksheet that helps you evaluate your competitors’ content to draw inspiration, identify knowledge gaps in your industry, and incorporate new trends in your social media strategy.
4. Ahrefs How-To Content
Ahrefs is an SEO analysis tool providing an all-in-one toolkit for digital marketers. Ahrefs sets itself apart by heavily investing in educational content. They’ve created many how-to guides covering their target audience’s challenges and pain points. How-to articles are a highly effective form of content that Ahrefs has tapped into successfully. Ahrefs is excellent at positioning its products as a solution to what its audience is searching for.
5. UPS and Harvard Business Review
UPS has elevated its content marketing strategy by licensing content from Harvard Business Review. As a result, they have drawn many young professionals to their blog, which investigates and analyzes the global forces affecting their services on a grander scale. By tailoring content to their audience’s demographic, their engagement and click-through rate significantly increased compared to other content.
6. Spotify Wrapped
Spotify excels at customization. Spotify Wrapped is one of the streaming app’s most successful content marketing campaigns yearly. At the end of the year, Spotify generates a fun roundup of all the music their users have listened to that year. The roundup is broken into genres, years, and artists and displayed with brightly colored graphics. This personalized playlist allows users to share their Spotify Wrapped on social media, building brand awareness and reach online without having to create new content. This has been a critical element in this campaign’s success.
7. Hubspot Academy
Hubspot Academy offers free, high-value online learning in one place. This go-to hub has beginner’s guides and courses to full certifications across a wide range of marketing, social media, sales, and business topics. Hubspot Academy is an extension of its highly successful blog. The value is immediately apparent with a clear and easy-to-navigate landing page. Hubspot is a content powerhouse, and you can be, too. With Hubspot Academy, you can take your content marketing strategy to the next level.
8. Tasty’s Mobile-First Videos
Video content has become increasingly popular and critical in digital marketing. Buzzfeed first created Tasty as a means to test its content strategy. The series started on Facebook as high-quality mobile-first videos that are fun to watch and well produced. What began as 60-second bite-sized videos quickly went viral and turned into longer-form videos once they built their audience. Since then, Tasty has become a well-known name and one of the best examples of how content marketing can help build strong brand awareness. Tasty has constantly been experimenting with its content marketing strategy, achieving sustainable growth and engagement since its start.
9. Canva’s Design School
Canva is one of the most popular platforms for creating visual content for branding and marketing purposes, including logos, infographics, flyers, and more. Canva is an excellent platform, but there’s much to learn. Canva’s Design School speeds up the learning process by providing interactive and easy-to-follow videos and tutorials that walk you through creating visually engaging content. Canva sets users up to learn their platform properly, encouraging them to want to use it more. It’s a simple yet effective high-value content marketing strategy.
The Takeaway
Content creation shouldn’t feel impossible. A great content strategy deeply understands its customers and is informational and timely. Investing time and resources into content marketing will help your business drive sustainable growth. Let these successful brand stories inspire you to create your next best campaign.