If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve probably included content marketing as part of your overall strategy. Content is still a proven way to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and build a relationship with customers. But content strategies are always evolving. Here are some effective content marketing examples to inspire your marketing plan and drive new business to your website.
Why Content Marketing is Important
Effective content marketing helps you enhance your credibility and connect with your customers, and it might just help you make more sales. Of the top B2B marketers, 60% have a documented content marketing strategy.
There are many ways to develop a content strategy. You can publish informative and engaging blog posts that help establish you as a credible expert, or you can provide information to your customers about products and services. If you post frequently to social media, you may be creating a community around your brand.
You might think of content as blogs and social media posts, but there are many other different types of content you can use to boost your brand and find potential clients online. These examples of content marketing showcase companies doing content the right way across platforms. Use them as inspiration for some of your upcoming content marketing campaigns.
10 Best Content Marketing Examples That Work
Whether you’re planning out your content marketing strategy for the next year or you just want to refine what you’re already doing, here are some content marketing examples you can use to jump-start your plan.
1. River Pools
This blog post from River Pools expands on common questions related to fiberglass pools and offers readers suggestions on how to fix problems with their inground pool—or at least diagnose the problem to have a professional fix it.
The post is effective because it offers more detail than a standard FAQ page. If a customer is having problems with their fiberglass pool, a simple search can bring up this blog post. The blog also offers a video with similar content for people who don’t want to read the whole article.
Blog posts are still one of the most common forms of content. They are a great way to reach your prospective customers to build a relationship, answer questions, and more. Since you can add keywords and phrases to blog content, it’s also a good way to improve your SEO.
For best results with your blog, write to a target audience. Keep the same tone and voice throughout the blog, and post consistently to keep your audience coming back for more. You don’t have to have the same target audience for each blog post, but each article should fit in with your overall brand.
You can have different people in the company contribute to your blog, but be sure to review every piece of content before you publish.
2. Laura Mercier
Cosmetics brand Laura Mercier often hosts TikTok challenges in which real customers share how they use various products. One of the most recent is promoted with the hashtag #MyMercier, which currently has 5.5 million views.
TikTok challenges are great for products like makeup which lend themselves well to tutorials. People like sharing videos of themselves getting ready or posting makeover challenges because they’re fun and easy.
Laura Mercier offers a wide variety of high-quality makeup products that are fun to play with, so TikTok challenges align well with the brand. If your business isn’t the most entertaining, you can still make user-generated content. Think of hashtags that fit in with your industry and promote them on various social media channels.
Word of mouth is still one of the most effective forms of marketing. Over half of adults aged 18-34 trust influencers and others to help them make decisions about what to buy. User-generated content brings word of mouth into the digital age.
This type of content could refer to user reviews, social media shares, video reviews about your company, tagged posts from your customers, or any other content created by your customers.
3. Flyp Instagram Reels
Flyp, a real estate company specializing in home renovations, often posts short, informative Instagram Reels with tips on how to fix up your home before selling. These reels are quick and easy to follow. They are a great source of information for people looking to fix up their home in order to sell quickly.
Video is an appealing way to tell your story and connect to your audience. The average person spends an estimated 100 minutes a day watching videos online. Learning how to create compelling video content can help you better reach these prospective customers.
Video content isn’t limited to YouTube, Vimeo, and other platforms. With the rise of TikTok, many social media platforms now offer the ability to create short, entertaining videos and share them with your followers.
For best results, be creative. Keep your videos short and entertaining, but make sure the content is valuable to your viewers. Like written blogs, you can use video to round out frequently asked questions or go into greater detail about aspects of your company.
4. Brown Ambition
Finance professionals Mandi Woodruff and Tiffany Aliche spent years honing their business expertise. Woodruff is a journalist, and Aliche is an author and financial editor. They started their podcast Brown Ambition to share their expertise with women, and women of color in particular.
This podcast offers a wealth of information to entrepreneurs and everyday women alike. Many of the shows feature in-depth, topical interviews with small business owners and other professionals. This format is perfect for business owners who want to share their expertise, helping them build their credibility.
If you have abundant experience to share with your customers, you could start a branded podcast or approach an established show like Brown Ambition. You can share your knowledge with potential customers on a popular medium that people are inspired to share.
5. Blume
Blume is a small skin and body care company specializing in self-care. Its products are marketed to customers experiencing skin issues, including acne and other imperfections. Its blog serves as an instructional guide with plenty of tips and tricks for those dealing with their personal skin care troubles.
In this post, the company tested its acne oil on real customers and discussed the results. Other posts discuss the ins and outs of hyaluronic acid and other information Blume customers want to read about.
If you have a company blog, know your audience. Choose topics that resonate with them. That way, they will keep reading, and they might just be tempted to share. When your blog posts have valuable information, other writers might cite them. This ends up helping you with backlinks and improving your SEO.
6. Ken Bromley Art Supplies
It’s not surprising that this creative infographic was posted by an art supplies store. Ken Bromley Art Supplies, a shop based in the United Kingdom, typically posts informative blogs with tips on getting the most from your supplies.
In March 2021, the company had some fun with its readers, creating an infographics showcasing the most searched artists in every country. This infographic is engaging, and it’s a great way to present information to an audience.
Infographics are a great way to present complicated information to your audience. You can use them to keep your audience interested in topics that might otherwise lose them. Use them to add context to different parts of your website.
Another plus to infographics is that you can post them to your social media feeds and encourage your followers to share.
7. SparkNotes
SparkNotes is known for making study guides that help students interpret the classics, so it’s not surprising that the company is brilliant on Twitter. Each day, SparkNotes turns literature on its head, quipping about common tropes and plot points in various books.
This Twitter account is entertaining, particularly for people who like books and understand the references. The company also shares memes with enjoyable literary captions that make great light reading while taking a break from doomscrolling the popular platform.
8. Buffer
When it comes to blogs, Buffer, a social media management platform, has it down. The company offers not one, but three different blogs, labeled as publications on the company’s resources page. There is a blog dedicated to marketing, with helpful articles about how to do social media marketing right.
There’s a culture blog covering aspects of corporate culture and an engineering blog that handles all of the tech support materials.
This content marketing strategy allows Buffer to split its blog by target audience. Customers and employees alike can follow the blogs that appeal to them, and they won’t have to see content they don’t find interesting.
If your business lends itself to a variety of content, consider splitting your blog into different landing pages to let people decide what they want to read. Then segment your email list, and send out newsletters linking back to each blog.
9. Robinhood Bites
You don’t have to write long blogs and articles to inform and engage your audience. Small investing firm Robinhood sends out daily “Robinhood Bites,” short news briefs about various issues related to companies and trading.
On March 9, the bite included a broad overview of how bans on Russian imports are impacting the commodities market. These snippets of financial news are easy to digest. Since Robinhood markets itself to new investors, these tips offer a great deal of pertinent information without being overwhelming.
When you work in a complex field, you might want to consider breaking your newsletters into small bits that people can read quickly. Then you can offer a daily email subscription that creates value for your readers.
10. Spikeball
Spikeball is a newer sport that’s a combination of volleyball and four square. While building brand awareness, the company needed to educate potential customers on how to play its sport. Enter TikTok. By hopping on challenge hashtags and posting videos packed with action, Spikeball’s TikTok has grown to over a million followers.
The company has also caught on with users who use the branded hashtags #spikeballchallenge, #spikeballparty, and #spikeball to post videos of themselves enjoying a game with their friends.
One reason Spikeball is so successful on TikTok is that the game is so energetic and engaging. It’s fun to play and challenging enough that users love filming themselves playing the game.
You might be intimidated by TikTok, but there is plenty of engagement potential available with this platform. Before you just start shooting videos, play around on the app. Look at trending hashtags and topics to see if there are any that fit your brand.
Popular TikTok videos might be based on sounds or songs, or they could feature short tutorials. If you’re already creating video content, look through your analytics to see which topics get the most views. Look for related hashtags on TikTok, and figure out where you can join in.
How You Can Learn From These Examples
These days, content marketing isn’t limited to one medium. With blogs, podcasts, video, social media, augmented reality, and plenty of content marketing tools, your options are wide open. If you’re working on your content marketing plan for the next year, consider these examples, and use them to think of new platforms to try.
You should always nurture your most popular content streams. If people love your blog, keep at it. However, try supplementing it with other channels. Start by posting short videos on Instagram Reels and seeing how many people are sharing them.
When you create multiple forms of content, you are potentially improving how people can find your brand online.
The best way to approach content is to know your audience. When you have a good idea of where they hang out online, you can strategize the best ways to reach them. Get an idea of your target audience’s online habits, and start thinking about different platforms you can use to get their attention.
Finally, personalize your content. The Buffer example shows how you can tailor different pieces of content to appeal to your various audiences. Use this and other examples on this list to improve your content marketing practices and to make your content marketing more successful.