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It can become increasingly difficult to come up with content marketing ideas as time goes on. This is especially true for businesses that rely on selling services since they won’t have a product line that can be updated or added to.
That’s why some companies spend over 70% of their marketing budget on content marketing. It’s also revealing how well content marketing does since 73% of these companies are very happy with their content marketing performance.
So, when in doubt, it never hurts to turn to competitors and other businesses to look for inspiration.
In this article, we’ll take a look at 9 impressive content marketing ideas from brands you can consider.
Before we get started, let’s define what content marketing is.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing itself is any content created with the sole purpose of attracting new customers and turning them into leads.
This includes all different forms of content, including videos, educational blogs, and articles as well as social media advertisements and campaigns.
Content marketing isn’t focused on getting the sale, but on building hype and brand recognition among possible customers.
As mentioned above, companies spend a large amount of their marketing budget on content marketing. This is because content marketing has plenty of advantages.
Content marketing advantages
Here are some of the benefits of content marketing.
- Content marketing helps boost traffic. Advertisements and ad campaigns will create interest in your brand, resulting in a large boost of traffic to your website.
- The large increase in interest will also lead to more sales if you’re selling a product, as well as an increase in subscriptions to a service you might offer.
- You can also use content marketing for other purposes like building an email list by offering something in return for an email address.
What makes a great content marketing strategy?
Content marketing strategies should be original, make use of current technology, as well as be aimed at a target audience. This could be age, gender, or nationality.
Content marketing strategies can also make use of current trends to create more interest, or even create their own trend. Larger companies like Coke have become well known for creating trends to market their products.
If you’re not sure where to get started or how to optimize your current marketing strategy, there are plenty of tools online to help you.
Here are some great content marketing tools to help you:
- Semrush
- Wask
- Searchmetrics
- Serpstat
- Google Keyword Planner
If you want to know more about creating the best content strategy, check out this 6-step guide to creating a B2B content marketing strategy.
Now that we have an overview of what content marketing is, let’s take a look at 9 impressive content marketing ideas from brands you can consider.
9 Content Marketing Examples
The content marketing examples will have 3 examples of each category:
- Video marketing
- Social media marketing
- Tried and true content marketing
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Reddit’s 2021 Super Bowl advert (video marketing)
Placing an ad during the Super Bowl can be costly and hotly contested.
A single, 30-second ad during the Super Bowl will set your company back $6.5 million.
The latest Super Bowl had 112.3 million viewers. It’s no wonder advertising during the Super Bowl is so expensive.
Some companies have used longer airtime, up to a minute, but what Reddit did in 2021 was unprecedented.
Reddit had a much lower marketing budget, which led to a short, five-second ad airing during the Super Bowl.
(Source)
Reddit spent its entire marketing budget on this single, short clip.
It was a strange video, starting off as a car promo, then cutting to some text, and then horses galloping through a field.
Sound confusing? It’s supposed to.
Very quickly, viewers went to social media to see what it was all about and stumbled upon this tweet.
The tweet racked up over 465,000 views and quickly became the center of attention on social media.
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Amazon’s Garage Delivery Service (video marketing)
Amazon’s In-Garage delivery might seem like a strange and even uncomfortable idea for some, but Amazon has done plenty of research.
In-Garage delivery is a simple concept on paper. You provide your local Amazon delivery man a digital key to your garage so that packages can be delivered and put inside your garage for safety.
According to The New York Post, 210 million packages were stolen in the United States alone in 2021.
Amazon’s advertisement aired on TV, but can also be found on their YouTube channel.
In-Garage service might be better for customers who felt that Amazon’s In-Home delivery is a little too risky.
The advertisement itself is quite simple, and wouldn’t have been too expensive to make.
It shows how simple its new service is and exactly how it works.
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Slack (video marketing)
Slack is an excellent digital HQ, that is used to create tasks among your team, as well as assign tasks, due dates, and check the progress of tasks.
Slack also has a YouTube channel.
Every year Slack hosts a conference to meet new customers, as well as educate them.
These conferences aim to educate its users on different business topics, like marketing, productivity hacks, customer care, insider insights and general tips and tricks for using Slack.
During the pandemic, Slack saw significant growth, since so many companies opted to work from home. Slack then started creating even more content for their YouTube channel, which has almost 50,000 subscribers.
Their content is aimed at their current users, offering guides and tips to effectively use Slack.
There are also videos from clients that currently use their software, offering excellent reviews about Slack.
As a business looking to leverage video marketing, easy-to-use video editing tools like Canva, Visme, or Clideo will help you come up with quick and appealing video content for your audience.
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Apple’s Shot on an iPhone (social media marketing)
What’s better than a user-driven campaign? It’s cost-effective, and much of the footwork is done by brand loyalists. Apple is a brand that has a long history of capitalizing on user-generated content marketing. In 2015, they launched a campaign called “Shot on an iPhone” that featured photos users shot on their iPhones.
In 2022 the trend continues. In January they hosted a new #ShotoniPhone campaign with their #iPhonemacrochallenge.
iPhone users that own an iPhone 13 Pro or Pro Max were asked to take the best macro photo and post it with the hashtags #ShotoniPhone and #iPhonemacrochallenge.
The best photos were posted in a gallery on Apple’s Newsroom in April 2022.
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GE (social media marketing)
General Electric is an excellent example of a B2B focused business that creates inspiring content marketing examples.
Their Instagram has plenty of inspirational content.
GE’s business might sound boring, or even difficult to really market, but taking a glance at their Instagram shuts those ideas down.
An excellent example is their #GEInstaWalk campaign.
Using micro and macro influencers like nk7, who specializes in photography, they created these excellent videos.
This video shows drone footage of a person in between massive wind turbine propellerspropellors.
They also allowed these influencers to tour their manufacturing facilities. Altogether this campaign resulted in over 8 million views on their Instagram accounts, and over 3,000 new followers.
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Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke (social media marketing)
How to get everyone talking about your brand.
Put their name on your product.
That’s exactly what coke did in 2011. The campaign started in Australia when Coca-Cola added the 150 most common names in Australia on their Coke cans and bottles.
They then encouraged people to share photos on social media using the hashtag #shareacoke with a picture of their name on the Coke can or bottle.
It’s no surprise that this campaign was extremely successful. A study showed that 80% of customers were more likely to buy a product if it was a personally customized product.
During the first summer of the campaign run in Australia, 250 million bottles and cans were sold.
The campaign quickly spread across the world, with Coke even adding an option to order a can or bottle of Coke with your own name on it.
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The Furrow (tried and true marketing)
The Furrow is one of the earliest examples of content marketing.
It all started when John Deere published their first Journal back in 1895 as a way to help and guide farmers to use their products correctly and effectively. It also addresses any issues users are dealing with.
It’s an old content marketing strategy that is still used over a century later. Offer insightful information about your products, as well as show expertise in your field and watch customers roll in.
The furrow is now available online as well, with plenty of insightful information and tasteful photography.
If you’re looking to write informative, high-quality content, there are plenty of AI writing assistants online that can help you write quality content like that found on The Furrow.
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LinkedIn (tried and true marketing)
LinkedIn uses the same content marketing strategy that John Deere started over a century ago, but takes things even further.
Sure, you can post weekly informational articles, but LinkedIn went above and beyond and published its very own eBooks.
These eBooks all focus on marketing.
LinkedIn used its reputation, expertise, and wealth of data to produce these excellent and informative eBooks. These eBooks show how well LinkedIn knows marketing and the online marketing space, which sets them above the rest of its competition.
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Simply Business (tried and true marketing)
Simply Business is an insurance firm based in the UK. They offer insurance mainly to B2B businesses.
They have followed a similar content marketing strategy, offering up tips and guides through their “Knowledge center.”
These helpful tips and guides, along with the beautiful design and photography show that old and boring sectors can create content that engages with a younger generation but still stay true to who they are.
What’s you favorite content marketing inspiration? Click To Tweet
Start creating your content strategy today
It’s no surprise that a considerable amount of time and money is spent on content marketing.
If you take note of these 9 content marketing ideas from brands, you can easily create a successful content marketing strategy that yields excellent results.
About Shane
Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, content marketing, and SEO. He is also the Founder and CEO of Content Solutions, a digital marketing agency. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.
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