If you’re like most business owners, you know that content marketing is important. But what’s the best content marketing strategy? How do you create a campaign that will actually work for your business?
The answer isn’t always easy, but luckily we’ve got some tips to help get you started. Keep reading to find out how to create and execute the best content marketing strategy for your SaaS product.
Best Content Marketing: Strategic, Targeted, and Engaging
The best content marketing is strategic, targeted, and engaging. It is designed to reach the right audience with the right message at the right time.
It is interesting and relevant, and it provides value to the reader.
What Is Content Marketing?
The goal of content marketing is to attract and nurture leads into customers.
Any form of communication you use to attract, educate, inform, persuade, and inspire a customer.
The goal of content marketing is to generate leads and create strong brand recognition. It is not focused on immediate sales.
Businesses can create and deliver their content through a variety of different mediums, such as blog posts, email newsletters, downloadable ebooks, discussion forums, and social media posts. By providing valuable content to your audience, you can attract new potential customers and turn them into loyal brand advocates.
Content marketing is the process of creating valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.
Content marketing is a great way to increase traffic, sales, and email subscribers. It can help you drive traffic from search engines, social media, and people following links in email or article-sharing sites.
Content marketing is often a great way to not just drive traffic, but to drive the right traffic (people who are more likely to become customers). If you are writing articles, you will be able to drive people to opt-in on your signup page (this is the best place for them to do that—don’t try and get it out of them elsewhere).
If you’re looking for some inspiration for your next content marketing campaign, look at some examples below. From big brands to small businesses, there’s something here for everyone.
Do you ever feel stuck for ideas when it comes to your content marketing?
You’re not the only one.
Most marketers know that content marketing is effective.
However, one problem with content marketing is that it’s a lot of work.
Content marketing can be exhausting, but if you’re doing it every day, it’s even more difficult to come up with new ideas.
We’ve compiled this list of great examples of B2C and B2B content marketing to hopefully give you some inspiration.
These business examples can help you come up with new and creative ways to create inspiring content that wins you more sales.
Before we dive into our list of 31 examples of great marketing, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about what “content” is.
Best Content Marketing Practices
When was the last time you searched for something on Google? Did you find the content you were looking for?
Did you feel engaged when you watched a video or read an article? Did it lead you to a next step where you learned more?
If you found yourself answering “yes” to any of these questions, then the author most likely paid attention to its structure and formatting.
And they’re now reaping the benefits. You, along with countless others, are now more aware of their brand and may be more likely to engage with their content in the future.
Digital content is most effective when there’s a clear, step-by-step plan to follow. This not only ensures that you and others can make informed decisions, but also that your content is as useful as possible.
As a content marketer, I’ve helped thousands of companies successfully tell their stories and increase their presence on the web. In doing so, I have learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work when it comes to content marketing.
Through trial and error, I’ve discovered some effective techniques for getting through to busy people.
If you’re looking to boost your marketing game, it’s helpful to know which types of content are most effective. Let’s walk through some of my favorite pieces of content that I came across in the past year.
I’ll explain each method I used and why it was successful.
1. Switchback Travel’s Image Featured Snippet
Google’s featured snippets are answers that pop up at the very top of a search result page.
Image Featured Snippets on Google are an important source of traffic to websites because they take up a large portion of the search results below them.
The most common types of snippets that appear on Google are paragraphs, lists, videos, and images.
One way to optimize your content for Google is to optimize your images for the “featured snippets” that appear at the top of search results.
In the example below, Switchback Travel’s image was displayed as the image result for the search term “best hiking boots”
Occasionally, the same site can rank for both the text snippet and image result, but other times, different sources can both claim the featured snippet.
To optimize images for better search results, use relevant keyword phrases.
2. Toyota Europe’s YouTube Featured Snippet
Google pulls data from YouTube, which is why it’s critical to optimize all of your video content for search.
In addition to displaying a thumbnail of the video, YouTube may also choose to show a short snippet of the video.
If you want to optimize your videos for YouTube, you must include keywords and phrases in your video titles and descriptions. This will enable your videos to be featured in search engine results, thus helping you to reach a wider audience.
Toyota Europe did this for its “how to install a roof rack” video.
3. Washington Post’s List-based Article
Creating list-based articles is a great way to get featured in a search result.
For example, this Washington Post list pops up when searching for “how to plan for a road trip” on Google.
4. RVing Planet’s Bulleted Featured Snippet
The bulleted list is a type of formatting that Google often uses for list-based articles. These can be either ordered or unordered and can also take the form of a “Best of”.
Let’s say you’re in the market for a home-on-wheels, and you’d like to learn more about it. This blog post about “RV Planet” could be helpful.
(Source)There are several ways to optimize your content so that Google pulls it into its featured snippet box.
- Include a YouTube video near the top of your page.
- Optimize the alt-text of your images throughout the page.
- Describe the page on top.
5. Content Marketing Institute’s Click to Tweet
If you make it as easy as possible for your contacts to share your content, then they’re much more likely to do it.
One way to encourage readers to share your post is to add a “Click to Tweet” button that will automatically share that content with their followers.
I once wrote a blog post for Content Marketing Institute with a Click to Tweet box. Months after publication, people are still sharing that article on Twitter through the Click to Tweet option.
6. Digital Olympus’s Expert Roundup
Regardless of your field, there are thought leaders to whom many people look up. Teaming up with these influencers will give your content a boost. More important, they’ll be more likely to share the content with their audience if they’re mentioned.
Digital Olympus reached out to over 40 marketing professionals to ask them what their best method was for gaining website traffic. Then it featured all the contributions with a headshot of each influencer next to their name.
The table of contents is also anchor-linked, so users can jump directly to the sections most relevant to them.
7. Colgate’s Research Page
Creating a list of useful resources on a topic is a great way to create valuable content for your audience.
If you’ve been creating content for a while, then you probably have a bunch of content that relates to the topics that you’re trying to build authority on. This is a great way to start leveraging your existing content to improve your SEO!
For instance, Colgate has 2,400+ pieces of content on gum disease alone.
With so much information out there, it’s no wonder that patients feel overwhelmed. That’s why Colgate created a resource page of targeted content that address common questions, such as “what causes gum disease” or “how is gingivitis diagnosed”.
The explainer text provides an overview of Colgate’s research and development process, while the bulleted list details the various stages of research and development. Links to relevant content on Colgate’s site are also provided, making it easy for readers to find more information on the topics covered.
8. Moz’s Topic Clusters
Topic clusters are a strategy that helps search engines like Google understand the organization of your content.
Some brands are taking their use of a topic clusters to an even higher level by creating multi-page guides or masterclasses that link together like pillar pages.
Pillar pages are web pages that comprehensively cover a single topic and link to other pages with related content.
My favorite example of this tactic is from Moz, with their Beginners’ Guide To Content Strategy.
Each page of moz.com has a chapter listing at the end that links to more related, specific topics.
Linking to relevant pages within your content can improve the reading experience, as well as help your SEO. By linking each of your pillars to a chapter, you can not only provide value to your readers but also improve your rankings for key terms.
This has worked great for Moz, as most of their pillar pages for this guide are ranking in the top 1-3 positions for their targeted keywords.
9. Mailshake’s Marketing Automation
With marketing software, you can automate your messages to customers and potential customers. You can reach them via email, text message, social media, and the web.
Each message is sent through a series of predetermined actions, known as a workflow.
Using marketing automation, you can engage with your customers, but you must be sending them messages that are relevant to them.
Email outreach tool Mailshake created a cold email masterclass through marketing automation. Eight comprehensive lessons cover everything from the basics of cold emailing to more advanced strategies, making it the perfect resource for anyone looking to improve their email outreach skills.
Mailshake knows this is a lot of information to digest, and that visitors probably won’t read all of it at once.
To help people learn in a step-by-step manner, they packaged their course into an email series with 8 emails.
Mailshake got 5,321 opt-ins for this masterclass series. This proves that this method can be very effective if done correctly.
10. Townsend Security’s Content Offer
One way to turn website visitors into qualified sales opportunities is to offer them something valuable in return for their contact info.
This “thing” is a content offer like guides, workbooks, templates, or webinars.
Content offers are a great way to provide value to your audience. They can be used to educate, entertain, or simply provide helpful information.
Creating new content offers can take a lot of time and resources.
One way to create an effective, valuable piece of content is to repurpose and repackage existing content from your site.
One example is data security company Townsend which created a pillar page for encryption key management.
To turn website visitors into leads, Townsend repurposed and package its content into downloadable guides.
This enabled people to take the content with them instead of having to search for the pillar page every time they wanted to read about encryption.
During the first year, 63% of visitors to the pillar page submitted their contact information in exchange for a downloadable PDF.
11. Venngage’s Free Product
Your product or service should be your most effective marketing tool. One great way to provide value to your audience is by creating a tool that helps solve their problems.
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.
If you’re a writer who needs help creating visuals for your web content, Venngage is a great option. They offer a wide range of tools to help businesses create compelling visuals that will engage and inform their audience.
With a free account, users can access a variety of templates for creating things like infographics, presentations, brochures, and checklists.
With Venngage, you can easily create visuals that are both compelling and professional-looking.
The next time your design team needs to create graphics, you’ll remember to use Venngage.
Getting Started with a Content Marketing Strategy
You’ll continue to build on your content marketing knowledge as time goes on. When you’re first getting started with content marketing, it’s normal to feel like there’s a lot to learn. The best way to approach this is to simply try a lot of different things and see what works for you. Over time, you’ll continue to build up your knowledge and expertise in this area.
As time goes on, you’ll continue to learn more about marketing with your content.
Wondering what are the best types of content for marketing? Here’s a list of the basic things you’ll need to get started.
- Decide on your brand voice. Are you going to be very formal, casual, or somewhere in between?
- Set goals. What are you hoping to achieve through content marketing?
- Set KPIs. What numbers do you need to hit to achieve your goals?
- Know your audience. Talk to your customers and create buyer personas.
- Make a plan. Figure out which types of content you want to produce and where to promote it.
- Create content. The channel you use to deliver your content will have some influence on the type of content that you’ll create.
- Create design. Good design is just as important for your content as it is for anything else. When done the right way, it will make your articles more engaging and build up your company’s brand.
- Measure results. How did your content strategy perform? What were your top-performing channels and which weren’t? Use data to inform your strategy moving forward.
Conclusion
The world of marketing is changing rapidly. In the time it took you to read this sentence, a new channel, tactic, or competitor has emerged.
If you want to stay ahead of your competition and keep your customers engaged with your brand, start with learning how to master the fine art of marketing with great content. This will help you create the best content marketing that speaks to your audience and grows your customer base. So what are you waiting for? Get started today!
