17/04/2019 Learn From the Best: 8 Inspiring Content Marketing Examples

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ARTICLES RESOURCES RESEARCH TOPICS EVENTS TRAINING CONSULTING MAGAZINE PODC

By JODI HARRIS published JANUARY 22, 2019

Content Creation / Influencer marketing / Interactive content / Social Media / Video

Learn From the Best: 8

Inspiring Content
Marketing Examples
People learn by
creating
connections
between the
familiar and the
possible. So it
should come as
no surprise that,
as content
marketers, we
o en approach
the task of developing new ideas and initiatives by referencing,
analyzing, and iterating on the creative experiences we know and
love – standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.

Of course, discovering the essence of what makes some

campaigns rise above so many others is no small feat. Nor is
figuring out how to apply those elemental insights in pursuit of
our own business goals, audience needs, and competitive
opportunities.

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To help ease your creative content journey, we’ve just done some
of that legwork for you.

In our latest examples collection, Get Inspired: 40 Examples That

Are Driving Content Marketing Forward, we show how leading B2B
and B2C businesses raised the marketing bar with standout
content efforts. An update to one of our most popular e-books,
this year’s edition features novel creative formats and platforms,
shares insights on the latest technology-driven approaches, and
illustrates new ways brands are igniting the flames of long-lasting
consumer passion with a spark of ingenuity.

We hope you’ll love every one of the examples included in the full
e-book. Here’s a sneak peek at a few of my favorites – along with
some lessons from their success:

Lesson 1: Help evangelists tell their stories

What’s more powerful than content that tells your brand story?
Enabling influential members of your audience to share their
experiences with your business. Give them a way to express their
ideas, opinions, or artistic talents – and recognize them for their
contributions – and you’ll earn a special place in their hearts. 

Case in point: #WeAreCisco

 
Cisco invited 20 super-ambassador employees from several office
locations to an online brainstorming session about how to
connect with university students, new graduates, and other
members of Generation Z. That group (dubbed the Kitten Rainbow
Unicorns to reflect everything that’s awesome about the web)
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developed a successful ongoing program in which the company’s

young go-getters share daily Snapchat Stories about what it’s like
to work inside Cisco.

.@Cisco ambassador employees

share daily #Snapchat Stories about
what it’s like to work there, says
@joderama. CLICK TO TWEET

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How 3 Serious Brands

Engage Humanly on Social Media

Lesson 2: Place your products in a practical

context
Creating content that provides exclusive tips and reveals hidden
functionalities or offers helpful user hacks, shortcuts, or
personalized offerings can deepen engagement and help
customers get more out of their investment in your brand.

Case in point: Orlando Magic’s personalized communication

AI tools can make messaging more targeted and valuable. For

example, the Orlando Magic NBA team uses Wordsmith to
personalize its emails and in-app messages to fans and
ticketholders. The messages are triggered by pre-set rules,
conditions, or available offers like ticket resales.

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.@OrlandoMagic uses #AI to

personalize emails and in-app
messages, says @joderama.
CLICK TO TWEET

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 13 Smart Brands Using

Technology to Power Their Content

Lesson 3: Solve problems with self-serve

utility
Answering customer questions and providing easy access to
account data, tech support, or other customized solutions is a
great way to increase their satisfaction with your business – not to
mention it can save some wear and tear on your sales and service
teams and call centers.

Answering customer questions is a

great way to increase their
satisfaction with your business, says
@joderama. CLICK TO TWEET

Case in point: Cleveland Clinic’s MyChart Patient Portal

A patient journey complicated by the need for ongoing care can

present health care industry marketers with a distinct set of
informational challenges. But Cleveland Clinic is among a number
of digitally savvy health care organizations rising to the occasion
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with its patient portal and MyChart system. Invaluable content

tools like this offer patients direct access (online or through the
mobile app) to relevant portions of their electronic medical record
(including lab results, diagnostic images, prescribed medications,
and physician notes and recommendations), enabling them to
easily share information with their health care providers and take
better control of any follow-up care they might need.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Does Your Health Care

Content Hold the Cure for Customers in Crisis?

Lesson 4: Deliver a personalized

experience
The best content campaigns are those that linger long past the
initial engagement and satisfy a customer’s need for ongoing
personal attention. Whether it’s telling a series of universally
relatable stories or enabling your audience to process and apply
greater emotional intelligence to decision-making, creating
content that speaks to their individual motivations and unique
situations is a powerful way to build more trusting and loyal
relationships right from the start of their interactions with your
brand.  

Case in point: OppenheimerFunds’ Fact vs. Feeling tool

To help potential clients assess how best to approach long-term

financial planning, OppenheimerFunds conducted Optimist Index
research, using biometric technology to gauge the physical cues
that bodies exhibit in reaction to three key investment themes:
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aging, emerging markets, and innovation. The resulting emotional

response data formed the basis of a multi-sensory interactive
content experience that provides visitors with a personalized
reflection of their economic optimism and suggests investment
strategies that would best align with their comfort level.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Dump the Sales Funnel in

Favor of Lifecycle Marketing

Lesson 5: Spark meaningful discussions

that promote worthy causes
Though some topics – like mental illness, racism, gender identity,
or homelessness – are daunting for even dedicated nonprofit
brands to approach with due sensitivity, significant benefits can
be had when you position your marketing content as an agent of
necessary change. Informative content that increases
understanding of deep-seated societal issues; provides a forum
for open, honest discussions; or actively advocates for those in
need raises the bar for marketing with purpose – a critical
differentiator among millennial and Generation Z consumers, who
might prefer to support brands that believe in something greater
than themselves.

#Marketing w/ purpose is a critical

differentiator among millennial &
Gen Z consumers, says @joderama.
CLICK TO TWEET

Case in point: Be Vocal’s Beyond Silence documentary

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This nonprofit organization partnered with award-winning

documentarian Shaul Schwarz to launch Beyond Silence, a 29-
minute documentary that takes a novel approach to discussing
mental health. The film follows three people living with mental
illness, honestly portraying their personal struggles, yet showing
how their lives changed for the better when they decided to speak
out about those struggles. Despite the absence of any paid
promotion for the film, Beyond Silence successfully extended the
reach of the Be Vocal message. According to health care
communications agency Biosector2, the effort earned coverage in
more than 242 articles and an estimated 416 million impressions.

Beyond Silence extended reach of

#BeVocalSpeakUp message to 242+
articles & est. 416 million
impressions. @joderama CLICK TO TWEET

And, looking beyond its marketing impact, the effort has also led
to a meaningful societal change: The Federal Bureau of Prisons
has begun to incorporate Beyond Silence into its mental health
and suicide prevention training program for 63,000 staff members
across 130 locations.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

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How to Be an Agent of Change: Examples From

Top Content Marketing Award Winners

How to be Purposeful With Your Purpose-Driven

Content [Examples]

Lesson 6: Prioritize lifetime customer value

The old Girl Scout mantra – make new friends, but keep the old –
may hold a nugget of wisdom for marketers, since research has
shown that it can be more cost effective – and more profitable – to
focus on retaining customers rather than on acquiring new ones.
If you have a hot brand on your hands, why not reward those loyal
customers and active subscribers for their passion and patronage
by giving them exclusive content they can’t find elsewhere – like a
sneak peek behind the scenes, Easter eggs for them to discover, or
new platforms on which to connect with others who share their
interest?

Case in point: SEMrush’s Easter Egg Hunt

SEMrush is a competitive research toolkit for online marketing

with more than 20 research tools for SEO, PPC, and content
marketing, and an expanding list of features. Although coming up
with those new features hasn’t been a problem, telling its users
about them has. SEMrush gamified its educational process with a
virtual Easter egg hunt, challenging users to find 15 “eggs” by
completing desired actions within various SEMrush tools.

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HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 4 Case Studies Show How

to Crush It With Out-of-the-Box Content Marketing 

Lesson 7: Incorporate the awe factor …

Working with innovative platforms, interactivity, or other tech-
enhanced content techniques is a great way to impress both
digital-savvy audiences and those who are eager to enhance their
field of experience. Being among the first brands to branch out
into uncharted territories can also give you a distinctive edge over
your competition – as long as you have a sound strategic reason to
incorporate those flashy new features.

Case in point: Gjensidige Insurance’s “Birthual Reality” experience

Birthual Reality

Sweden’s Gjensidige Insurance worked with a local hospital to film

the birth of a child in 360-degree video, creating a VR experience
that anyone can watch. It’s a fantastic way for expectant moms to
get a sneak peek into the birthing experience, which typically
remains shrouded in a cloud of anxiety-inducing mystery. The
insurance company anticipates that the effort (shot from a
respectful angle that lets viewers stand in alongside the mom) may
help expectant parents feel more comfortable and prepared for
the birth of their own child.

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HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Does Your Health Care

Content Hold the Cure for Customers in Crisis?

Lesson 8: … but never underestimate the

power of the ‘aww’ factor
Brands in all industries, from beer brewers to business
computers, understand the emotional appeal of injecting
cuteness into their content (just think of how many adorable
animals found their way into Super Bowl commercials last year
and tell me I’m wrong). That’s not to say your business should
randomly put a kitty meme or puppy picture into your next video
or blog post and call it a strategic campaign; but if your brand
already has an organic connection to a topic your audience
members are likely to feel passionate about, why not look for
creative ways to further their joy while simultaneously furthering
your marketing mission?

Case in point: Getty Images’ Amanda Foundation Collection

Pet adoption is a rewarding experience on its own. But the

Amanda Foundation (a Los Angeles-area rescue organization)
found a great way to make gorgeous pictures of the animals under
its care pay off, too. The group partnered with Getty Images to
create a stock image collection using the photos the Amanda staff
routinely takes in its efforts to help homeless pets find loving

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homes. For every stock image purchased from the collection, the
Amanda Foundation receives a donation.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Win at Content

Marketing

Conclusion
As busy content marketers, we may not have the kind of time it
would take to map the full genome of content genius down to a
reliable and repeatable science, but we can all recognize the signs
of an authentic and powerful storytelling effort that inspires
audiences to take action. We hope these examples give you plenty
of raw material to keep driving your own creativity forward.

Download the 2019 e-book with all the great examples.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

Author: Jodi Harris

Jodi Harris is the Director of Editorial Content &
Curation at Content Marketing Institute. As a
content strategy consultant, Jodi helps
businesses evaluate their content needs and
resources; build infrastructure and operations;
and create compelling stories to be delivered
across multiple media channels and platforms.
Follow Jodi on Twitter at @Joderama.

Other posts by Jodi Harris

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Alison Ver Halen • 3 months ago

Thanks for the great tips! I couldn't agree more, especially
when it comes to personalization. It's getting easier every
day and consumers now expect to have everything
personalized for them.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

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HOW-TO GUIDES
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GETTING STARTED
Content Marketing 101 begins

PLAN
Build fundamentals of your plan

AUDIENCE
Understand your core audiences

STORY
Tell your brand story

CHANNELS
Determine your distribution channels

PROCESS
Manage your team and tools

CONVERSATION
Create your content and listen

MEASUREMENT
Prove the effectiveness of your
program

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