Be inspired by these five brilliant content marketing examples that your business can emulate to connect to targeted prospects.

The world of net is huge, and there’s certainly no lack of content marketing examples you can use for your business. Content marketing is the key to earn more web traffic, increase online revenue and building your brand.

That’s why as many as 88% of organizations are turning to content marketing as a major part of their marketing practices.

We’ve covered how crucial content marketing is to business. And we think it’s going to stay for good.

But creating and fine-tuning a content marketing plan that works can be such a drag.

We’ve compiled a list of 5 content marketing examples that hit all the right notes and to get you inspired.

#1 Dollar Shave Club

They broke the industry by offering razors-to-your-door service for as low as $3 per month.

Then they broke the internet with one video. Yes, one video.

We don’t even have to use words to tell you why they make such as great content marketing example. Just watch it:

It was their launch video — also the start of their brand awareness journey.

Look at how raw and low-budget the video is.

It did everything that was needed. What they do, how they do it, why they do it, how the things they do benefits customers, the brand’s vision, mission, social responsibility etc.

End result? It hit a total of 24 million views.

4 years later, they were acquired by Unilever for a whopping $1 billion.

Apart from that, they invest effort and money into blogging. We wouldn’t say they have a large readership. But they update it regularly with masculine topics specifically catered to men — also known as niche content.

Low readership and niche content? Doesn’t that harm the brand?

Aha! Just the opposite: you’d be surprised at its marketing value.

Facebook is used as their main content distribution channel for their blog posts, but they also employ a distinct content strategy for their Facebook-only posts. With an enormous fan base of 3.3 million and counting, they’d have to make sure the content they put out is intriguing, humorous and of course, educational.

They are also on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat and LinkedIn for business.

#2 Warby Parker

This unicorn startup transformed the web-only business model: sending under-$100 glasses to customers and letting them try for free.

As a product-based company, they’ve succeeded in remoulding the web-purchasing culture and how people can trust them as a brand — allowing people to touch and feel the glasses without charge before buying.

Technically speaking, they don’t qualify fully as one of the best content marketing example around. Because, it’s  their business model that has captured love all over the world.

How so?

Imagine you’re a new customer of Warby Parker. You’d probably feel skeptical about buying a pair of spectacles online. You’re not sure of the quality, the trueness of the colour and how it will look on you.

So, you ordered 5 pair of glasses online to be sent to you. For free.

Nothing feels more practical and guaranteed than trying on the products as a customer, right?

By sending glasses to targeted prospects to try for free, Warby Parker not only help propel purchasing decision, but also powerfully instil trust in people towards the brand.

What they really needed was a social media platform to engage and reel new customers in.

Which was a success, otherwise we wouldn’t have listed them as one of the brilliant examples.

Content on their Facebook page is humorous and approachable, yet spreading awareness of their physical store, and company’s mission and vision to their fans.

A lot of brands make the mistake of repurposing the same content on different social media platforms. But every platform has different functions and audiences. For example, Instagram is not as interactive as Snapchat.

Even though Warby Parker shares video on their Facebook page, video content on their Youtube channel is entirely revamped for different audiences and objectives.

They feature longer videos like short films, helpful tips and tricks about their glasses, details about the people that the organization helped, and artists’ performances in their brick & mortar stores (which they set up afterwards due to great demand) to express their company’s culture.

#3 Circles.Life

Singapore-based telco Circles.Life is a real fighter.

They started in 2016, dead set on targeting the young and data-hungry as their customer base.

And here’s what makes them a warrior — having Singapore’s three largest telco, Starhub, Singtel and M1, as their direct competitors.

Their business model, similar to Warby Parker, is strictly web-based.

Phones and mobile plans can be purchased directly on their ecommerce site, and SIM cards will be mailed to customers. Even their customer service happens purely on WhatsApp.

By operating a fully-online business model, they’ve significantly reduce costs which helps fulfil the organization’s unique selling proposition — no-contract mobile plan.

Without a contract, customers are free to change their plan through the organization’s mobile app whenever they want.

And it certainly doesn’t hurt offering the lowest-priced data plan (SGD 28 for 6GB) city-wide.

With such attractive prices and a hassle-free buying process, the benefits are pretty right-in-your-face for these customers.

While not too keen on blogging (last updated 16 November 2016), which isn’t necessary as the value that the products and services can bring to customers are communicated through their business model, Circles.Life sure is assertive on Facebook and Instagram.

We know the struggles of converting someone, especially one who is already comfortable with brand X.

But good news: getting comfortable is one thing, getting complacent is another.

Circles.Life acts as the disruptor in prospects’ lives, reminding people through Facebook content that they factually lack ample data to accommodate their ‘content snacking’ habits.

To strengthen their message, they launched their latest campaign — Fight Data Deprivation — and posted a Facebook video almost daily throughout August 2017 to promote their no-contract mobile plan.

#4 HubSpot

Ohhhh… One of our favourite content marketing example! If you’re a digital marketer or a business owner, you might have chance upon this B2B developer and marketer of software products.

Their content-rich blog highlights the all-too-familiar pain points of marketers and provide in-depth solutions or offering ebooks, templates, free guides etc. whenever they can, without hard-selling their own products.

Besides that, they even launched HubSpot Academy for interested personnel to take up marketing courses.

If they put up solutions on their blog, wouldn’t they be losing sales?

Just to make it clear, the solutions here does not mean HubSpot offers their products and services free through content marketing. They are simply offering knowledge-based solution.

Imagine business A is a cafe. Their content strategy expands on topics about the coffee beans they used, but doesn’t mean they are giving away their coffee beans and secret recipe for free.

Truth is, in today’s world where ‘dialogue’ between people and brands became the linchpin of the business world, changes the way how you should sell.

The old-world selling technique of keeping all valuable information to yourself isn’t as exactly as effective in this era.

When it comes to online, businesses have to sell their knowledge more than anything else.

Basically, HubSpot gives their targeted prospects an exceptional learning experience online, with the objective of inspiring fierce loyalty and rock-hard trust.

They are active socially on several social media platforms, with Facebook and Instagram leading the pack. Their most recent Facebook campaign #SummerStartup, encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to share their idea on their page to win an opportunity at entrepreneurship with HubSpot, gathered almost 25K responses.

Interestingly HubSpot takes Facebook GIFs seriously. Ever since they found out that the social media platform allows posting GIF as comment, they started having major fun with it!

Remember in 2014 when Taco Bell was killing it on social media?

It’s certainly a breath of fresh air to see HubSpot detach itself from corporate tone by responding to comments in a unique way.

Using functions right on each social media channels can help you connect with your fans and make you seem more human.

#5 Qanvast Singapore

When 4 millennials recognized the pain point that the majority of homeowners in Singapore encounters, that’s when they nailed it.

They founded Qanvast, a matchmaking platform meant to link up homeowners with trustworthy interior design firms in Singapore. It started as a mobile app, then strengthening its online presence with a value-packed website, providing homeowners with inspiration for renovating their homes.

Their blog content revolves around two categories: articles on home, living and renovation and completed projects featuring renovation costs, location and home types.

These are relevant topics and search queries that most homeowners in Singapore are easily searching for through search engines.

Visual plays a huge role in their case. Having appealing photos help homeowners build confidence in the services that they may employ through the website and make more precise renovation decisions.

The same rule extends to their Facebook page. Singular finished renovation projects are featured on their page with clear-cut details and call-to-action.

Facebook is also the main content promotional medium for their website’s articles.

Conclusion

The internet is changing exponentially. And it isn’t short of brilliant content marketing plans.

Opinions on good content marketing varies. Some think ‘viral’ content is the peak of content performance, others prefer a numerical increase in sales traffic. In short, the value of a great content marketing plan is in the eye of the beholder.

No matter what, you should always thoroughly think through the following questions before devising a content marketing plan:

Do people…

• Perceive the brand in the way businesses desire through their content marketing practices?
• Share it between themselves in their daily lives?
• Benefit directly from their content?
• Connect with the concept and information?

Content marketing for your business is a big project. Don’t rush into it. Make sure you have those distinct answers, take inspiration from the abovementioned content marketing examples, then experiment and do what you think will work for your business.

Speak to us if you are at a loss of what you can do for your business.