Successful Content Marketing Examples
All of us at some point of time would have come across a meme on the web stating, “ Content is king”. The conglomeration of the whole marketing is like the tissue and muscle based on the skeleton called content. Let’s discuss some of the top most content marketing examples.
Definition in the Popular Sense
Content Marketing can be perceived as the contemporary countenance of marketing. A renowned web source known as Content Marketing Institute (CMI) defines Content Marketing as follows, It is a strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
A Brief Cognizance
The concept of Content Marketing embeds a newer strategy of providing valuable information and potential solutions to the issues the users encounter, in order to gain their trust and loyalty which in turn lead to sales. It doesn’t use the age-old yelling mechanism in the faces of users, instead it provides them intelligence over various products and their strengths, weaknesses and continuously tries to educate them which acts as a hook. Once the hook is created, the trust is established, finally rewarding the firm with sales. As a popular marketing jargon says, “Good marketing doesn’t look like marketing”, content marketing never lets its users think it is purely selling. Instead it acts as a polished way of marketing without constantly pleading to buy. Content Marketing is still in its infancy as a large number of companies still consider their Content Marketing mechanism as a test. As a result they miss the predominant factors that are used to create great content and propagate it. Abiding by all these issues, they fail to achieve desired results and never seriously incorporate an efficient Content Marketing strategy.
A Finding
On the flipside, a 2017 survey by CMI in North America revealed that 62% of B2B marketers confessed that compared to last year, their Content Marketing strategy has been somewhat successful. Same is the case with B2C marketers, 63% of them revealed that their Content Marketing strategy is more successful than last year. These figures tell us the usage of Content Marketing mechanism is increasing and firms which are using it already are doing it in a more efficient manner which is very good news. There are a lot of big players worldwide who used the Content Marketing strategy in a coherent path and achieved best results. Let us have a glance at some of the best content marketing examples.
1. Xerox
This world leading photocopying equipment manufacturer was started a century ago in 1906. It carved a niche in the field and influenced the world to that extent that the Xerox itself became a synonym for photo copying mechanism. The company detected the same thing became an obstacle as it created some branding issues. Actually Xerox offered its services which spanned into various verticals, but customers at a large extent were unaware of it because of the shadow created by photocopying services. They embedded the Content Marketing strategy in their arsenal and started a digital magazine named Real Business. It became popular in a short time and it became a platform for many smaller subsidiaries to make their voice heard. The Content Marketing strategy used by Xerox worked successfully and changed the view of customers towards it. One among the top content marketing examples is xerox.
2. Expedia
Expedia is a renowned travel brand which leveraged the most of Content Marketing. It raised the standards of the travel portals from raising its own level from an ordinary ticket booking website to a more emotional one. As we all know that travel is an emotional proportion, people at that point were used to filling up “FROM” and “TO” bars. But Expedia merged travel science with emotional quotient by producing high level touching content and publications. It introduced a series of travel videos named “Find Yours” which acted as a campaign to boost their sales. It uses various channels and infographics which act as a hook to their customers.
3. General Electric
One of the successful content marketing examples is General Electric, widely known as GE is one of the world leaders in the energy and manufacturing sector. It has its expansion into various verticals like IT, outsourcing, healthcare and many more. GE introduced GE Reports in 2008 in its marketing portfolio which then transformed into a blog and now evolved into a full fledged digital magazine which provides information about all the areas the company is into. It quickly gathered one million views and is acting as a platform for communication to all the higher level marketing officials and communicators within. GE Reports now emerged into one of the best global corporate magazines.
4. Red Bull
Red Bull is a famous beverage company which used its Content strategy to achieve the best results. It introduced a website named Red Bull TV which streams the videos from all over the world. The main themes it focuses on are high octane events and adventure videos which include various outdoor events. It completely justified its brand image as an energy drink and achieved remarkable events. It indulged its users effectively into its content by making them actively participate in them. It also proved that the content which a firm produces need not to solely revolve around the product but can also be on the activities which their customers prefer.
5. Cisco
Cisco is an American networking giant which heavily relies on Content Marketing. In B2B storytelling, it carved a niche by narrating digital stories which created dedicated and engaged audience for them continuously through the years. Cisco’s Head of Content services in the UK recently said that they staffed 200 content writers globally to serve the needs of their clients. Cisco runs its own website named The Network. The main focus areas of the website is publishing stories that create interest about latest technologies and trends and it followed a mammoth following in the techie community. Currently it is running a Content Marketing campaign named “Never Better” which is hugely successful. Through this campaign, it circulates various videos of emotional content spanning from saving wildlife to making smarter cities. In these stories, it in turn embeds the role of Cisco’s technologies in achieving them. Cisco commands a huge following on the social media. It has around 435,000 twitter followers and a huge number of 700,000 facebook followers. When it comes to successful content marketing examples, cisco can be considered as one of the best example.
6. ADP
Automatic Data Processing is a multinational company that specializes in human resource management and payroll solutions. ADP plays a crucial role in among the finest content marketing examples. It creates various softwares that assists various organizations in the field of HR. Three years ago, when the company decided to launch its fourth iteration of its software named Workforce Now, it seriously started thinking about a marketing strategy to create demand. They joined hands with a marketing agency named Stein IAS, and started a Content Marketing campaign which yielded remarkable results. The whole strategy revolved around the pain points of small to medium sized businesses. They provided insights into how ADP’s Workforce Now can assist the businesses with employee numbers ranging from 50 to 999 with potential solutions in human capital management issues. They were successful in embedding a tracking mechanism into the campaign and measuring the results as $1 million in three months.
7. Toshiba
Toshiba is a Japanese multinational manufacturing company foraying its expansion across several verticals. One of the verticals it is into in the USA is Toshiba America medical systems which manufactures several intelligent health systems and devices. The company’s healthcare division hired renowned economist Tom Szostak to elevate the strength of its Content Marketing campaign which turned out to be the most rewarding decision. Through its Content Marketing approach, the company wanted to create a one stop resource for various communities operating in the field such as doctors, hospitals and healthcare businesses. By the new healthcare reforms and policies, the hospitals and customers were influenced a lot regarding their buying decisions. The need for health care systems will be ever growing and the economic reforms of the health field can influence the sales. So keeping all these factors, they created this campaign so that it can influence the customer’s decision to buy machinery in turn who can serve better by dealing with more patients. Toshiba in 2011 had organized an SEO campaign and invested huge revenues into it and achieved the desired results. It gathered a huge following of 160,000 followers by the end of that year on Linkedin. Toshiba is referred to as one of the perfect content marketing examples in the digital arena.
8. Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile was the first wireless services provider which entered into the arena of Content Marketing. Social media is flooded with players that use the Content Marketing strategy to a maximum extent. If a new player wants to take the share, it is mandatory to be innovative and have to offer the content which is of higher and more desired level. Virgin Mobile and Buzzfeed went into a partnership and innovated a new and active social media strategy by establishing a 24/7 newsroom called Virgin Mobile live. It acted as a platform for the company to publish and share the most trending topics that are relevant. It attributed the Virgin Mobile with trust and loyalty of the users and in turn raising the brand image. In the words of Ron Faris, the head of Brand Marketing for Virgin Mobile, “Scaling our content efforts isn’t just about expanding the size of our social reach. It is also about deepening the level of engagement we have with our fans in the social communities they hang out in”.
9. Marriott
Marriott is a famed multinational brand name in the field of hospitality. It has a portfolio of 19 brands consisting of 4,200 hotels worldwide. Recently Marriott launched its global Content Marketing studio which produced hell lot of content which is travel and leisure oriented. It attracted a lot of travelers through its innovative and purpose driven content which included infographics, short films and web episodes. The head of global creative & Content Marketing for Marriott, David Beebe said, the aim of their content studio is to create a path to cater to a large set of audience and make them engaged. He feels that the traditional advertising is not generating required buzz in the latest generation of audience. So they wanted to create something which is not interrupting and can create human interest. Currently Marriott publishes a digital magazine called Marriott Traveller Which provides information about travel and answers it’s users on the social media. Marriott is referred as one of the successful content marketing examples in the digital world. They believe in the fact that the challenge of content is the scale and committed to do it again and again for the satisfaction and delight of their customers.
10. American Express
American Express, widely called Amex is a world famous financial services firm. It is perhaps the long-standing firm which is using the Content Marketing strategy in various forms from the last 100 years. It introduced an online platform known as OPEN forum.It is a community that houses a large number of medium and small scale business owners and acts as a stage to mingle and discuss their issues and come up with potential solutions. It also acted as a forum where the experts in the financial field come down and shel their opinions and advice to the users. Amex believed that bringing objective experts can be more trustworthy to the audiences since people believe in neutrality other than making the people in their own organization write the reports and advise the users. American Express knows that they have already a large market share and they want to focus on the smaller businesses. They believe in the philosophy that if smaller businesses grow they will grow in turn.
P.S.
There are many factors which contribute to the success of an organization. Content Marketing is an important factor for them. There are many tracking mechanisms to reveal the exact percentage of the success through it. The above mentioned are some of the firms which executed the mechanism perfectly and achieved the desired results. Hope you too start your foray into the world of Content Marketing which can deliver you a better brand value and a profitable outcome.