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20 Content Marketing Examples That Stand Out in 2022

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Do you remember a time where a piece of content made you a longtime fan of a particular brand or company? Maybe it was a funny YouTube video or a super informative blog post — both of which are content marketing examples.

Content marketing examples include media like newsletters, podcasts, social media posts, and videos. All of these forms of content are meant to provide useful and relevant information that delights users and attracts them to your brand.

To help you use content marketing to your company’s advantage, here are some of my favorite content marketing examples of 2022.

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1. Spotify Wrapped Playlists

Spotify Wrapped is one of the music streaming app’s most successful content marketing campaigns. Near the end of every year, Spotify users get a fun roundup of all the music they’ve listened to that year. The roundup is broken down into genres, years, artists, and more, and is displayed with brightly colored graphics.

It then creates a personalized playlist of the user’s most listened to songs, and users have the option to share their wrapped playlists on social media — a key element that has made the campaign to trend on social media every year since its inception.

 

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2. DuoLingo’s TiKTok

You likely know DuoLingo as the website and app that helps users learn a new language, but the company has generated buzz on TikTok for another reason — the company’s self-proclaimed “unhinged” mascot.

DuoLingo has amassed over 4.5 million followers on TikTok thanks to its consistent stream of content featuring the company’s iconic green owl mascot. Though many of the videos do not mention the company’s products and services, the account’s ability to create funny, trendy content has helped raise brand awareness on the app — something many brands struggle to do.

3. Canva’s Design School

Canva’s Design School provides value to its users by teaching them how to create engaging images with minimal design experience and without complicated software. It also does a great job of showing all the design possibilities Canva has to offer.

4. Hairstylist Theresa Van Dam’s TikTok

Theresa Van Dam is a hairstylist and owner of the Fantastic Sams Salon in Lenox, Illinois. Her TikTok account is famous for her skits that show how she deals with rude customers — all of whom she calls “Karen.”

Her content is often praised for being relatable to anyone who has ever had to deal with unruly customers.

This relatable approach to content works because while TikTok users come to the account for laughs, they are also shown videos of her excellent work as a stylist. Her TikTok now has 4.9 million followers, and Theresa has said often in her videos that she now has so many customers she often requires new ones to book her months in advance.

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5. Girl With The Dog’s YouTube Channel

Girl With The Dog’s is a YouTube channel run by a professional pet groomer named Vanessa, owner of Perfect Pooches Dog Grooming in Ontario Canada.

The channel features excellent content marketing by providing entertainment for viewers while also showing off her skills as a groomer — I mean, who doesn’t like to see dramatic huskies screaming at a little blow dryer?

As a result of her content marketing efforts, Vanessa’s channel now has 1.5 million followers — and her clientele has grown to include cats and the occasional pig. She was also able to raise enough money to donate to animal sanctuaries.

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6. Crunchyroll Collections

Crunchyroll is a U.S.-based company that licenses, distributes, and streams anime around the world. One of the ways Crunchyroll markets itself online is through YouTube via its Crunchyroll Collections channel. Crunchyroll Collections hosts clips and compilation videos of highly searched moments from popular anime.

This type of content marketing engages viewers, keeps the brand at the top of search results for popular anime, and shows how broad the company’s catalog is — encouraging viewers to subscribe to its streaming service. Notice there is even a button in the channel’s banner that viewers can click to start a 14-day free trial if they want more content.

Crunchyroll is a content marketing exampleImage source

7. Chewy’s YouTube Channel

Chewy is an online retailer of pet products that has found a unique way to promote its different products. Chewy’s YouTube channel is full of advice regarding pets, training, and animal health. It also features educational videos, like “A Day in the Life of a Special Needs Cat Rescue and Sanctuary.”

In most videos, Chewy provides valuable information while tying in their products. For example, in the video “How to Introduce a Dog to a Cat,” the company lists the materials needed to introduce the two animals — showing all the different products they sell.

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Furthermore, the description of the video includes a link to a post on the company’s blog that gives more information. The blog post also provides links to where pet owners can buy the materials they need off the official Chewy website. This encourages viewers to visit its website and make purchases.

The BeChewy blog is a content marketing exampleImage source

8. Amazon Prime’s The Anime Club

Anime has become more popular over the years, and many streaming services are cashing in on the trend — including Amazon Prime. But how does Amazon stand out among the stiff competition of Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Hulu? It started by partnering with actress and content creator Cheyenne The Geek to create a web series called The Anime Club.

The Anime Club gives anime recommendations based on genre and tackles different topics often referenced in anime. All the anime Cheyenne references are available to watch on Amazon Prime, encouraging viewers to subscribe to the streaming service.

9. UN Refugee Agency’s “Forced to Flee” Podcast

The UN Refugee Agency’s Webby Award-nominated podcast helps raise awareness for refugees by telling their unique and heart wrenching stories. This form of content marketing is compelling, leaves the audience with a better understanding of a refugee crisis, and shows the importance of agency’s work.

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The UN Refugee Agency's podcast "Forced to Flee" is a content marketing exampleImage source

 

10. The Washington Post’s TikTok

The Washington Post’s TiKTok takes a comedic approach to history, news, and politics — appealing to its 1.4 million followers. The account also links to the Washington Post’s website.

11. Jackson Galaxy’s YouTube Channel

Jackson Galaxy is the former host of Animal Planet’s “My Cat from Hell,” a show that cat owners get along better with their unruly cats. Now, he has a website where he sells cat products and consultations.

To help promote his work and establish himself as an expert, Jackson runs a YouTube channel where he answers common questions regarding cats and cat ownership. In these videos, he provides advice, promotes his book, and showcases the products he has on his website that can help cat owners.

12. You Suck at Cooking

You Suck at Cooking started off as a funny YouTube channel that showed people help to cook simple meals. Years later, the channel is still hilarious but is also used to promote the host’s cookbook. The channel’s dry humor, random skits, and running gags help it stand out from other online self-help cooking resources.

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13. Warby Parker’s Email Marketing

One of the many reason’s Warby Parker stands out from other online glasses retailers is its fun and eye-catching (no pun intended) email marketing campaigns. In the example below, Warby Parker welcomes summer vacation with its bright crystal-themed glasses eyewear. The calls to action in the email are easy to spot, the colors are bright and fun, and the company’s social media accounts are clearly presented.

Warby Parker's email marketing is a content marketing example14. Content Marketing Institute’s Click to Tweet

If you make it easy for people to share something interesting with their network, then they’re much more likely to do so. Embedding a “click to tweet” button that automatically shares quotes or statistics from your article is an effective way to do that.

For example, this blog post that I wrote for Content Marketing Institute is the most widely shared guest blog post I’ve ever written:

Click to Tweet is a content marketing example

Months after publication, I still get daily Twitter notifications from people tweeting about this article. And the majority of the tweets come from the “click to tweet” option that Content Marketing Institute offers throughout the post.

If you want to start adding “click to tweet” options throughout your website content, check out this free tool.

15. Digital Olympus’s Expert Roundup

No matter what industry you’re in, there are influencers to whom people look for advice.

Digital Olympus interviewed over 40 digital marketing experts for one of their blog posts, asking each expert to provide their most effective method for acquiring traffic.

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What I most like about this blog post is how Digital Olympus organizes the contributions. At the top of the page, there’s a headshot of each expert next to their name. If you want to read a particular expert’s tip, you simply have to click on their headshot and you’ll jump down to their quote.

There’s also an anchor-linked Table of Contents that allows for topic-based searches. This way, readers can jump to the specific sections that are most applicable to them.

Digital Olympus' expert roundup is a content marketing example

16. Colgate’s Research Page

Creating a resource page made up of helpful links on a given topic is an effective way to create helpful content.

If your business has been producing content for a while, then chances are you have clusters of related content to support the topics around which your business wants to build authority.

For example, oral hygiene company Colgate has over 1,200 pieces of content related to their broad topic “gum disease.”

Colgate's research page is an example of content marketing

That’s a lot of content to sift through, which is why Colgate created a resource page made up of specific sections of gum disease-related content, like “What are the Stages of Gum Disease?” or “How to Cure Gingivitis.”

Each section offers:

  • A paragraph of explainer text
  • A bulleted list of details on the sub-topic
  • Links to relevant content on their site

17. Moz’s Topic Clusters

The topic cluster framewor is a highly effective SEO strategy that demonstrates to Google that the content on your website is organized and relevant to searchers. To learn more about this framework, watch the video below.

Some brands have taken this approach to the next level by creating a multi-page masterclass or guide that links together like-themed pillar pages. A pillar page is a website page that covers a topic in-depth and links to a cluster of related content, also known as a cluster. One of my favorite examples of this is Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing.

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Moz creatively puts a chapter list at the start of each page that links out to more specific content marketing-themed pages within the topic cluster.

Additionally, using an anchor-linked chapter list is an effective way to connect the cluster together — it provides value to the reader while passing authority through to each pillar page.

18. Mailshakes’ Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a combination of software and strategy. With marketing automation, businesses can target prospects and customers with automated messages across multiple online and offline channels including email, text, web, and social media. Each message is sent automatically according to a pre-set list of instructions, called workflows.

Marketing automation can be an effective tool to keep your audience engaged with your brand, but it’s important to make sure you’re sending the right messages to the right people at the right time.

Mailshake, an email outreach tool, implemented marketing automation effectively by creating a Cold Email Masterclass to teach people how to make better connections via email outreach. The masterclass is made up of eight comprehensive lessons (i.e. pillar pages).

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Mailshake knows that this is a lot of content for people to consume, and visitors won’t likely read it all in one sitting.

To make it easier for people to learn step-by-step, Mailshake repackaged their masterclass into an eight-part email series. In other words, they automated their education to help their audience.

Mailshake's marketing automation is an example of content marketing

Mailshake acquired 5,321 email opt-ins for their cold email masterclass workflow in under one year — proof that, if done well, this could be an incredibly effective strategy.

19. Townsend Security’s Content Offer

One tried-and-true way to convert visitors into leads is by offering something of value in exchange for their contact information (i.e. email address). This “something” is referred to as a content offer.

Content offers include, but are not limited to:

  • Guides
  • Workbooks
  • Templates
  • Webinars

It can take a lot of time to create a valuable content offer from scratch.

One effective way to create a meaningful content offer is to repurpose and repackage pieces of content found on your website. For example, data security company Townsend Security created a pillar page for one of their topics of expertise — encryption key management.

To help convert visitors into leads, Townsend repurposed and repackaged the content on their page into a guide. This allowed people to take the content with them, as opposed to having to search for the pillar page each time they wanted to read about encryption key management.

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Townsend Security's content offer is a content marketing example

In the first year of publishing their encryption key management pillar page, 63% of visitors gave their information in exchange for a packaged PDF of the on-page content.

20. Venngage’s Free Product

Your product should be your best marketing. An effective way to provide real value to your prospects is to create a free tool that aligns with your products and/or services.

If you can get a free user hooked on one of your free tools, then you’re giving yourself (and your sales team) the best chance at demonstrating the value of your paid tools, too.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re a writer who needs help with creating visuals for the web content you create. You might consider using Venngage, a company that helps businesses create compelling visuals. In the free version of their platform, users get access to a wide variety of templates for infographics, presentations, brochures, checklists, and so on.

In the future, when your marketing team is considering paid products for design, you’ll have Venngage top-of-mind.

Venngage's free product is a content marketing example

And there you have it — 20 content marketing examples to help get your creative juices flowing. Consider how you can apply one (or several) of these examples to your business to strengthen your content marketing efforts.

We live in a fast-paced digital world. In the time you read this blog post, a new channel, a new tactic, or a new competitor has emerged. The best chance you have at telling your business’s story and growing a pool of engaged prospects and customers is by learning the art of content marketing — and starting to apply it to your business, today.

Start the free Content Marketing Certification course from HubSpot Academy.

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How To Develop a Great Creative Brief and Get On-Target Content

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How To Develop a Great Creative Brief and Get On-Target Content

Every editor knows what it feels like to sit exasperated in front of the computer, screaming internally, “It would have been easier if I’d done it myself.”

If your role involves commissioning and approving content, you know that sinking feeling: Ten seconds into reviewing a piece, it’s obvious the creator hasn’t understood (or never bothered to listen to) a damn thing you told them. As you go deeper, your fingertips switch gears from polite tapping to a digital Riverdance as your annoyance spews onto the keyboard. We’ve all been there. It’s why we drink. Or do yoga. Or practice voodoo.

In truth, even your best writer, designer, or audiovisual content creator can turn in a bad job. Maybe they had an off day. Perhaps they rushed to meet a deadline. Or maybe they just didn’t understand the brief.

The first two excuses go to the content creator’s professionalism. You’re allowed to get grumpy about that. But if your content creator didn’t understand the brief, then you, as the editor, are at least partly to blame. 

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Taking the time to create a thorough but concise brief is the single greatest investment you can make in your work efficiency and sanity. The contrast in emotions when a perfectly constructed piece of content lands in your inbox could not be starker. It’s like the sun has burst through the clouds, someone has released a dozen white doves, and that orchestra that follows you around has started playing the lovely bit from Madame Butterfly — all at once.

Here’s what a good brief does:

  • It clearly and concisely sets out your expectations (so be specific).
  • It focuses the content creator’s mind on the areas of most importance.
  • It encourages the content creator to do a thorough job rather than an “it’ll-do” job.
  • It results in more accurate and more effective content (content that hits the mark).
  • It saves hours of unnecessary labor and stress in the editing process.
  • It can make all the difference between profit and loss.

Arming content creators with a thorough brief gives them the best possible chance of at least creating something fit for purpose — even if it’s not quite how you would have done it. Give them too little information, and there’s almost no hope they’ll deliver what you need.

On the flip side, overloading your content creators with more information than they need can be counterproductive. I know a writer who was given a 65-page sales deck to read as background for a 500-word blog post. Do that, and you risk several things happening:

  • It’s not worth the content creator’s time reading it, so they don’t.
  • Even if they do read it, you risk them missing out on the key points.
  • They’ll charge you a fortune because they’re losing money doing that amount of preparation.
  • They’re never going to work with you again.

There’s a balance to strike.

There’s a balance to be struck.

Knowing how to give useful and concise briefs is something I’ve learned the hard way over 20 years as a journalist and editor. What follows is some of what I’ve found works well. Some of this might read like I’m teaching grandma to suck eggs, but I’m surprised how many of these points often get forgotten.

Who is the client?

Provide your content creator with a half- or one-page summary of the business:

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  • Who it is
  • What it does
  • Whom it services
  • What its story is
  • Details about any relevant products and services

Include the elevator pitch and other key messaging so your content creator understands how the company positions itself and what kind of language to weave into the piece.

Who is the audience?

Include a paragraph or two about the intended audience. If a company has more than one audience (for example, a recruitment company might have job candidates and recruiters), then be specific. Even a sentence will do, but don’t leave your content creator guessing. They need to know who the content is for.

What needs to be known?

This is the bit where you tell your content creator what you want them to create. Be sure to include three things:

  • The purpose of the piece
  • The angle to lead with
  • The message the audience should leave with

I find it helps to provide links to relevant background information if you have it available, particularly if the information inspired or contributed to the content idea, rather than rely on content creators to find their own. It can be frustrating when their research doesn’t match or is inferior to your own.

How does the brand communicate?

Include any information the content creators need to ensure that they’re communicating in an authentic voice of the brand.

  • Tone of voice: The easiest way to provide guidance on tone of voice is to provide one or two examples that demonstrate it well. It’s much easier for your content creators to mimic a specific example they’ve seen, read, or heard than it is to interpret vague terms like “formal,” “casual,” or “informative but friendly.”
  • Style guide: Giving your content creator a style guide can save you a lot of tinkering. This is essential for visuals but also important for written content if you don’t want to spend a lot of time changing “%” to “percent” or uncapitalizing job titles. Summarize the key points or most common errors.
  • Examples: Examples aren’t just good for tone of voice; they’re also handy for layout and design to demonstrate how you expect a piece of content to be submitted. This is especially handy if your template includes social media posts, meta descriptions, and so on.

All the elements in a documented brief

Here are nine basic things every single brief requires:

  • Title: What are we calling this thing? (A working title is fine so that everyone knows how to refer to this project.)
  • Client: Who is it for, and what do they do?
  • Deadline: When is the final content due?
  • The brief itself: What is the angle, the message, and the editorial purpose of the content? Include here who the audience is.
  • Specifications: What is the word count, format, aspect ratio, or run time?
  • Submission: How and where should the content be filed? To whom?
  • Contact information: Who is the commissioning editor, the client (if appropriate), and the talent?
  • Resources: What blogging template, style guide, key messaging, access to image libraries, and other elements are required to create and deliver the content?
  • Fee: What is the agreed price/rate? Not everyone includes this in the brief, but it should be included if appropriate.

Depending on your business or the kind of content involved, you might have other important information to include here, too. Put it all in a template and make it the front page of your brief.

Prepare your briefs early

It’s entirely possible you’re reading this, screaming internally, “By the time I’ve done all that, I could have written the damn thing myself.”

But much of this information doesn’t change. Well in advance, you can document the background about a company, its audience, and how it speaks doesn’t change. You can pull all those resources into a one- or two-page document, add some high-quality previous examples, throw in the templates they’ll need, and bam! You’ve created a short, useful briefing package you can provide to any new content creator whenever it is needed. You can do this well ahead of time.

I expect these tips will save you a lot of internal screaming in the future. Not to mention drink, yoga, and voodoo.

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This is an update of a January 2019 CCO article.

Get more advice from Chief Content Officer, a monthly publication for content leaders. Subscribe today to get it in your inbox.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Quiet Quitting vs. Setting Healthy Boundaries: Where’s The Line?

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Quiet Quitting vs. Setting Healthy Boundaries: Where's The Line?

In the summer of 2022, we first started hearing buzz around a new term: “Quiet quitting“.

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Microsoft unveils a new small language model

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Microsoft unveils a new small language model

Phi-3-Mini is the first in a family of small language models Microsoft plans to release over the coming weeks. Phi-3-Small and Phi-3-Medium are in the works. In contrast to large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, small language models are trained on much smaller datasets and are said to be much more affordable for users.

We are excited to introduce Phi-3, a family of open AI models developed by Microsoft. Phi-3 models are the most capable and cost-effective small language models (SLMs) available, outperforming models of the same size and next size up across a variety of language, reasoning, coding and math benchmarks.

Misha Bilenko Corporate Vice President, Microsoft GenAI

What are they for? For one thing, the reduced size of this language model may make it suitable to run locally, for example as an app on a smartphone. Something the size of ChatGPT lives in the cloud and requires an internet connection for access.

While ChatGPT is said to have over a trillion parameters, Phi-3-Mini has only 3.8 billion. Sanjeev Bora, who works with genAI in the healthcare space, writes: “The number of parameters in a model usually dictates its size and complexity. Larger models with more parameters are generally more capable but come at the cost of increased computational requirements. The choice of size often depends on the specific problem being addressed.”

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Phi-3-Mini was trained on a relatively small dataset of 3.3 trillion tokens — instances of human language expressed numerically. But that’s still a lot of tokens.

Why we care. While it is generally reported, and confirmed by Microsoft, that these SLMs will be much more affordable than the big LLMs, it’s hard to find exact details on the pricing. Nevertheless, taking the promise at face-value, one can imagine a democratization of genAI, making it available to very small businesses and sole proprietors.

We need to see what these models can do in practice, but it’s plausible that use cases like writing a marketing newsletter, coming up with email subject lines or drafting social media posts just don’t require the gigantic power of a LLM.



Dig deeper: How a non-profit farmers market is leveraging AI

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