Content marketing is considered one of the most successful digital marketing tactics available to marketers.
84% of marketers and businesses have a strategy in place, and 3 out of 4 B2C marketers consider their efforts a success.
Instead of throwing more stats at you or giving you general advice on the best ways to do content marketing in 2022 and beyond, we’ll give you ten examples of digital campaigns that work. We’ll also make sure to explain what you should be trying to emulate from each example.
In no particular order, here they are:
1. Demonstrate Your Company’s Expertise: January
Content marketing is an excellent tactic for demonstrating your company’s expertise and convincing your visitors and followers that you are a credible, trustworthy brand they won’t regret doing business with.
By choosing articles, videos, and podcast topics that clearly underline your accreditations or experiences, you can quite naturally, without having to rub anyone’s nose in it, build yourself the reputation of a subject matter expert.
Let’s take a look at January and one of their top-of-the-funnel blog posts on prebiotics vs. probiotics.
They’ve taken a complex medical topic and explained it to laymen readers using simple terms they will easily understand. The post is not meant to dazzle with jargon and medical terms. Its purpose is to help everyone understand the difference between the two terms, whether they have a medical degree or not.
The article’s credibility is further boosted by plenty of relevant, informative links to credible sources. Since the brand has already done plenty to underline its own credentials by highlighting its media mentions and its co-founders’ expertise on the homepage, the reader will be ready to trust them.
This is especially important in Your Money Your Life niches. If you are talking about healthcare or finances, you need first to establish the fact that you can be trusted. Trust signals in the form of accreditations, credentials, case studies, and testimonials will all help make these content marketing strategies a success.
2. Educate Buyers With Product-Specific Content: Kuru Footwear
Marketers often abide by the 70-20-10 rule, meaning that only 10% of their content is purely promotional. Most of their content is meant to educate their readers and leads and establish their brand voice (plus provide easy-to-rank-for opportunities).
However, there is a way to combine the two and tick several boxes on a single page.
Our example comes from Kuru Footwear, who’s done a great job with its product category pages. Their orthopedic shoe page is a brilliant blend of educational content, user-generated content, and product-specific details.
The quality of this page comes from its reader-centricity. While its main purpose is actually to sell a product, it never comes off as a promotional page. Instead, it helps shoppers determine which shoe is right for them, how to know they need an orthopedic shoe and how to choose one.
This tactic just proves, yet again, that value is the most important asset of quality content marketing. Had this page been written in a purely promotional style, it would not be as effective.
Key takeaway: always write with your audience in mind. Don’t talk about yourself — talk about them. They care very little about your product. What they care about is how said product can help them solve an issue.
3. Create a Short-but-Effective Informative Post: MarketBeat
Sometimes, the best way to boost your content marketing efforts is to offer nothing but information and just shut up. You don’t always have to write long-form and highly detailed posts. You can also enrich your content strategy with short, effective, well-researched posts that answer one question and nothing more.
MarketBeat has a great example of this type of article. Their page on stock market holidays is nothing but dates. At first glance, this could appear as a sub-par page. Its brilliance, however, is in the FAQ section, which will certainly help them rank very highly for specific questions, as well as the simplicity of their table.
Your target audience will sometimes just want to get a question answered and move on. They won’t be interested in hearing more about your offer or viewing other pages. MarketBeat has nailed that aspect.
The page also has a pop-up, so they have not just thrown a valuable resource out the window. When used correctly, pop-ups can significantly boost your engagement rates and promote signups.
Your aim is to offer just as much value, answer a question, and then capitalize with a CTA or pop-up.
4. People Love Sharing Roundup Content: Spotify
Next on our list of examples of content marketing that works is a brand and a format you are definitely familiar with yourself.
A while ago, Spotify’s marketing team came up with Wrapped, a highly successful form of content marketing that is easy to share on social media, highly personalized, and extremely effective.
Near the end of the year, Spotify’s customers get a roundup of all the music they’ve been listening to that year. The list is broken down into different genres and artists. It can be segmented in various ways, all accompanied by the brand’s traditional colorful design.
There’s also a general roundup available, which shows you who the most popular singers of the year are and what songs were played the most. The roundup serves as a great overview of music and podcast trends.
The reason this works so well is that Spotify understands its ideal customers very well. They know that original content paired with easy sharing works, no matter what, and they have managed to use their algorithms to create a unique experience for everyone.
5. User-Generated Content is Always Attractive: Chobani
A type of content that always manages to be voted among the most effective is user-generated content. It’s a fantastic way to show your potential customers what you are really made of without sounding at all promotional or pushy.
UGC is a form of content marketing that can be turned into everything from testimonials to social media posts and used in your email marketing campaigns too.
And while there are numerous content marketing examples we could have chosen, Chobani is the one we’ll be talking about, as it encapsulates what a good UGC campaign is all about. Plus, it’s a contest.
On their TikTok, they’ve launched the #ChobaniOatChallenge — an effective way to gather all kinds of video content they will later repost on their own profile. The campaign works because UGC always works. The more you share your follower’s content, the more they will like you and create that content.
If you incentivize them with a reward, you are even more likely to achieve your content marketing goals: in this case, to gather reusable content and lighten the load on your marketing team, and to promote a specific product, gathering more followers in the process.
6. Search Engines Love Comparison Posts: Eachnight
Sometimes you will just want to create a post that search engines will love. You might want to go for the easy-to-rank-for keyword. Or maybe you’ll want to shoot for the moon and choose something that is more lucrative but a tougher cookie to crack.
Eachnight has an excellent post that demonstrates what a comparison post should look and read like, as well as how to attack high-powered keywords. Their mattress guide is a content jewel.
It’s an extremely long format, which search engines will love. It’s visually appealing, with plenty of white space and the use of punchy colors. Formatted very well, with a recapitulation at the top of the article and bullet points throughout.
Its biggest selling point, however, is the value of the content itself. If you are even in the market for a mattress, this post will help you choose one. It tells you what it feels like to sleep on a particular mattress and gives you all the relevant product details. You can also read either an in-depth description or just base your choice on top-level information.
Take a leaf out of their book and try to create a piece that is just as effective, detailed, and well-written.
7. Content Hubs Meet Video Series: Ahrefs
Content hubs are great pieces of content that can attract your target audience and keep them interested in your website and brand. Ideally, they will be very detailed and cover a topic so in-depth that no other resource will be necessary.
A brand that has nailed this type of content is Ahrefs. Their blog and YouTube videos complement each other perfectly, forming a powerful synergy that can teach anyone how to do SEO the right way and how to use their tool (which is their primary goal).
Both content hubs are cleverly sectioned according to the topic. So, once you start reading or watching, you will have your next pieces of content lined up for you.
In order to make this content marketing tactic work, though, you do need to be a bona fide expert in your field. You can’t expect masses of views unless you have the credibility to back your efforts up.
8. Convert Your Target Audience with Interactive Content: Transparent Labs
Creating interactive content has many benefits, including increased engagement, lead capture, and brand loyalty. It’s one of those content types that is never easy to create, but once you make the effort, you usually find yourself on at least one list of the best content marketing examples.
Our example, in this case, is a protein calculator from Transparent Labs. Its main appeal is that it serves a very clear and targeted purpose, which directly appeals to the brand’s prospective customers.
The fact that it’s quick and easy to use also helps. You don’t have to spend any time at all thinking about your habits or lifestyle. You make one simple choice and get your results instantly.
The brand has also cleverly left an email address field for newsletter signups and pre-ticked the consent box. Chances are most users will leave it ticked, giving them a chance to further promote their products and use different types of content to deepen the relationship.
9. Video is Still the Most Popular Content Format: Chewy
Video is still the most popular content format and needs to have its place in every ambitious content marketing plan.
One of our favorite examples of content marketing done right thus comes in video format from Chewy. They have very early on figured out that the most appealing thing about their brand is the fact that they sell to pets. And there is nothing cuter than a dog or a cat video, is there?
Their YouTube channel is full of entertaining, educational, and semi-promotional visual content. They feature plenty of how-to videos that will help pet owners deal with specific situations. All of them center around their gorgeous target audience: animals (well, animal lovers, to be exact).
With their direct links to the products used and promoted in the video, they truly have hit the nail on the head. These videos are highly watchable, functional, and valuable.
With content such as their “A Day in the Life of a Special Needs Cat Rescue and Sanctuary,” they are also raising awareness around critical issues in the pet community. This tactic also helps them become even more appealing in the eyes of their loyal customers, who are passionate about giving back and helping animals in need.
10. Email Marketing Needs to Show Some Restraint: 16Personalities
Finally, let’s talk about another content format that you need to make a part of your strategy: the email newsletter. Since the ROI of email marketing is still estimated to be $36 for every dollar spent, it’s one of the most effective strategies you can consider.
The example we are bringing you today comes from 16Personalities, who have found the perfect balance between promoting their product too often and not reminding their potential buyers that they are still out there.
When you take their test and sign up for their newsletter, they tell you right off the bat you will see sporadic emails from them. The first three serve to acquaint you with what they can offer, and then you get a weekly email specifically crafted for your personality type.
They have managed to find the perfect ratio of informative but not too annoying. They’re certainly nothing like most other email marketing tactics, which usually overwhelm your inbox until you unsubscribe.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, these examples of content marketing done right will help you conceive your own strategy going forward.
Remember: what works for one brand may not work for you, so adaptation will be necessary. Don’t aim to copy someone else’s good ideas, but rather use these examples as inspiration.
