If you’re new to promoting a brand online, this whole content marketing craze may seem inflated to you. Every educational source is emphasizing the importance of content
. Yes, content marketing is important for the overall success of your brand. It answers your audience’s questions, and it helps you build a higher level of trust. As a result, your target audience keeps coming back to your products or services whenever they need them.
But content marketing can also go wrong. When you’re using it in a mainstream way, you do what most other brands do, just because you feel you have to publish something. Before you go down that road, ask yourself: do you want this campaign to be successful? If that’s the case, then you should learn from the best. Then, you’ll do something better.
We’ll list successful marketing examples that will inspire you to get more serious about your own campaign.
1. The Easter Egg Hunt by SEMrush
SEMrush is one of the most popular online marketing toolkits. Although it’s a popular tool, the competition in that sector is getting massive. That’s why even the biggest names in the industry have to come up with innovative promotional campaigns.
Instead of focusing solely on attaining new customers, SEMrush dedicated a campaign to its loyal users. With this virtual Easter egg hunt tour, the brand gamified the educational process behind its tools. The users were challenged to complete actions and find 15 hidden eggs.
How does this fit into the category of content marketing? Content should never be boring. SEMrush could offer those educational steps in dull textual blog posts. The users would read the steps and take the needed actions. But that’s not marketing. With this approach, the brand targeted an increased retention rate.
Uniqueness – that’s the key to success. When you think of a content marketing concept, it’s important to see if it’s unique, at least among other US brands. You can use a free plagiarism checker online to see if any other brand has a similar approach. No matter how creative you think you are, it’s important to check. This valuable tool will save you from unintentional plagiarism.
2. A Valuable Content Base by Zendesk
Zendesk’s mission is to improve a brand’s relationship with its customers. Its own website is an impressive example of improved customer service. It’s a massive source of how-to guides, answers to important questions, and all kinds of practical content that answers to its users’ needs.
This is not the most creative approach to content marketing. You’ll notice that most brands have a blog on their website. But Zendesk took its content base to a whole other level. There is a valuable lesson to learn from this example: if you do something that everyone else does, do it in the best way possible!
3. The Beyond Silence Documentary by Be Vocal
Be Vocal is a non-profit organization focused on mental health advocacy. Its mission is to encourage people to speak up for mental health. With the Beyond Silence documentary, the organization went beyond simple content marketing. This is a high-quality film that showcases the struggles of three people living with mental illness. It realistically portrays their lives and the improvement they felt once they started speaking out about their struggles.
Some topics are too sensitive to tackle through a conventional marketing campaign. Casual social media posts and paid advertising may trigger a negative response. With such issues, a serious approach is more than necessary. Be Vocal chose the best approach to showcase important societal issues and encourage its target audience to take action.
This is our lesson: high-quality video marketing requires a significant investment. The content has to be impressive. It’s the work of an entire team, and it requires time, finances, and dedication. As Be Vocal’s example proved, the results are well worth the effort.
4. LinkedIn’s The Secret Sauce eBook
Why does LinkedIn need to invest in content marketing? Everybody knows about this website, and everyone important is already using it. Well, as any other brand, LinkedIn has a reputation to maintain. Its consistent focus on high-quality marketing is what made LinkedIn what it is – a leader in its niche.
The Secret Sauce: How LinkedIn Uses LinkedIn for Marketing is an eBook that explains how the brand uses its own toolbox to reach out to its target audience. Each example is complemented by tips that marketers can use to improve their presence on LinkedIn and reach out to the right people.
The brand’s marketing team spent years growing its strategy and analyzing its successes and failures. All that wisdom is collected in an eBook that’s easy to read, yet detailed enough to change the way you do marketing. It’s an absolutely perfect way for LinkedIn to prove that there’s no other company like it.
How can you get inspired by this example? Use detailed content in your promotional campaign. Your brand can thrive on its own experience, as long as it’s accompanied by valuable data. eBooks are a great way for content marketers to produce more content on a particular topic, but it also makes their brands look more professional.
5. Lenovo’s Customer Stories
Every content marketing guide will tell you this: a customer’s experience can be turned into an important aspect of your content marketing campaign. We’ve seen brands take this tip too literally, so their websites are full of “testimonials” written by copywriters. It’s important NOT to invent user stories and accompany them with photographs you found on the web. These testimonials have to be real. Your audience can tell!
Lenovo is a great example of how user testimonials can be turned into a successful content marketing campaign. The Beam Suntory customer story shows how Jim Beam used Lenovo’s technology to increase efficiency, reduce downtime, and raise spirits. The story is presented in a creative way through text, video, and sound. It involves facts and numbers, so the audience is convinced that it’s 100% realistic.
Case studies have always been an important element of content marketing. YouTube, Facebook, and other big names are known to use them as a way to convince their audience of the value of the products/services they sell. By combining video, sound and text, Lenovo took this approach a step further. This example teaches the valuable lesson of resources. Harness their complete power to achieve a unique result!
Be Original!
What do all these content marketing examples have in common? They are creative and unique! Maybe an eBook or a video is nothing new in the world of content marketing. But the way these brands approached the entire campaign is entirely unique.
Once again, we saw that impressive promotions require a detailed, creative, and resourceful approach. Instead of doing what everyone else does, find the angle that will make your brand bolder, stronger, and more appealing than any competitor.