Content marketing and digital marketing go together like bed and breakfast. Copy and paste. Joey and Chandler. A perfect pair who are inseparable. To be honest, content marketing plays the second fiddle to digital marketing. When you think about your favorite brands, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? An image? A person? A story?
This is because the most powerful brands ingrain themselves into our lives with great content. Historically, this content has been limited to print ads and TV commercials. But today, brands are creating content for a variety of channels, showing different facets of their personality with articles, videos, social media posts, email newsletters, music, podcasts and microsites.
Let’s take a look at some of the best content marketing examples from top brands and dive into what’s so great about each one. By the time we’re done, you should have some ideas and inspiration to take away and use in your own content marketing strategy.
#Share a coke campaign
Coca-Cola’s, ‘Share a Coke’ campaign broke all the records after its release in 2014. The brand’s brilliant idea to wrap some names around their bottles and cans across supermarket shelves won people’s hearts. It was the brand’s most brilliant content marketing example to date as people loved searching for their names each time, they’d grab a Coke from the fridge of a grocery store.
Why it works?
Coca-Cola had to do close to nothing for their social media outreach because their loyal fans did majority of the work for them.
If you head over to Instagram and type in #shareacoke it shows over 628,000 social images that are shared by the brand and its followers. Not only are these images great for creating an online reputation and bringing in new leads, but also generate content that brands can use ten years down the line.
Source: Instagram/#ShareaCoke
AirBnB Magazine
In today’s digital age, a well-designed piece of print media can feel like magic. But a well-designed piece of branded print media is even more rare to find. That’s why Airbnb’s travel guidebook is a stellar content campaign.
Why it works?
The magazine brings about and showcases several things at once, it ties a particular design aesthetic and an open-minded POV to the brand name. It is divided into categories like food, drinks & nightlife, sightseeing, arts & culture, shopping, and parks & nature.
As you flip through the magazine, you’ll understand that AirBnB is pursuing a diverse, active, culturally in-tune target audience. Also, the magazine stresses upon the fact that AirBnb users are not “stay at the local hotel chain” kind of people. They prefer quirkier and spontaneous vacations. The best part? There are sections based on different continents. You can search for the best bars in New York or the best museums in Paris with one click.
Grammarly’s weekly emails
I always recommend Grammarly to everyone I work with. Not only does this product make our jobs easier, but it quite impressively gamifies the writing process. Each week, they send users; a quick recap of their writing and show them how they can stack up against other users.
Why it works?
Again, as you know data is powerful. Grammarly weekly emails you a summary of your activities and shows your progress in the Productivity, Mastery, and Vocabulary sections. It’s a great tactic to encourage users to keep using Grammarly since there are many achievements to unlock.
Spotify Wrapped
Don’t you get excited when Spotify drops your annual wrapped hits, stats, and playlist? Every year, Spotify creates a list to summarize the artists, songs, playlists, and podcasts you’ve been listening to all year.
Why it works?
Everyone thinks they have great music taste. This gives you a chance to show off to your friends how much you’ve listened, who’s your favorite artist, and how you’re a tastemaker. The entire playlist is customized for each Spotify user (premium or not), complete with links to download and share.
The Bottom Line
Sharing some of the tips that can help you become the next big thing in the content marketing
- Going social with your content has its own perks as you can get user-generated content for your brand that you can use in the future.
- Like Grammarly, lean into the uniqueness of your product and show your users what they’ve accomplished over time through proprietary insights.
- Short form content can tell big stories
- Reach out to niche-specific bloggers in your industry who may be interested in featuring your brand
- Start using SEO from the start to establish yourself as an authority
- Establish 3-4 main colors for your brand and stick to them throughout your content marketing channels whether it’s Instagram, LinkedIn, Website or Google Ads
- Send personalized newsletters to your audience — create an email popup to act as a lead magnet on your website
- Build a personal brand around videos and look for ways to get more people to find and see your videos
- Join different communities on Facebook, Slack, or Discord to find blog owners in your industry who are up for some guest blogging
- Constantly monitor your content marketing analytics to see the influx of traffic after acquiring some inbound links
It’s Your Turn to Slay Content Marketing
Are you ready to amp up your content marketing efforts?
Every content marketing plan starts somewhere. As you saw in these examples, many brands built their industry-specific content marketing from zero. Another lesson: focus your efforts on just a tactic or two and balance it smartly. You’ll eventually know which tactic is going to work once you’ve done some initial market research.
Does your target market like to read blogs? Are they into podcasts? Build your growth around that. Is your brand a perfect fit for social media game? Start creating unique and informative social content more frequently. Your prospects are waiting are you to get discovered. So, don’t hesitate; it’s time to nail the content marketing game!
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