Content marketing is probably one of the most Googled terms for marketers, and with 93% of organizations doing everything they can to produce awesome content, it’s here to stay.
But how can you be sure that you’re getting it right? We’ve put together 10 pieces of content (in no particular order) to help you get inspired…
10. Evans Halshaw – James Bond Infographic
Evans Halshaw is the largest volume car retailer in the UK, and they have made great efforts with their content marketing. Every plugged-in marketer knows that in order to grab people’s attention, you need to be unique, clever and relevant. So what did they do? Well, they released an infographic that tied in with one of the highest grossing films of 2012 – James Bond’s Skyfall.
The infographic lets the user scroll through the different cars that have been used over the years in each Bond film, and asks the viewer which is their favorite car. It’s so simple, yet it subtly lets the user think about Evans Halshaw, while combining it with a popular topic at the time. You can find the infographic here or check it out below:
9. Metro Trains – Dumb Ways to Die Video
An Australian company, Metro Trains, wanted to run a campaign that would promote rail safety; normally, safety messages are dull, boring, and nobody really pays attention to them. But advertising agency McCann Melbourn wanted to help Metro Trains create something that would make people sit up and listen – and that’s exactly what they achieved with “Dumb Ways to Die”.
If you haven’t seen this video then you’re obviously not one of the 83 million who have viewed it on YouTube! It creatively tells the story of various silly ways in which you can die, with the help of colourful characters and a really catchy song (that was later released on iTunes).
The campaign was so successful that it reduced accidents and deaths by 21% and 1 million young people actually pledged to be safer around trains.
8. Old Spice – Social Feed Twitter
Social media can be a great way to create shareable content. Many brands are doing all they can to get those shares, likes and follows up and no-one has mastered this better than Old Spice. This is a brand that – as lifted from their very own Twitter bio – has “74 years of experience helping guys improve their mansmells with deodorant, body-wash, antiperspirant and fragrances.”
The key to getting more followers and shares is to publish tweets that your followers actually care about – rather than constant sales messages, and Old Spice filled up their feed with none stop humor. This clever marketing has gained them a whopping 224K followers and counting – pretty impressive huh?!
Example of Old Spice tweets:
7. Wyzowl – World Cup Video
Video creators Wyzowl, decided to come up with a great idea to tie in with the World Cup 2014. They take the complexity of the off-side rule and explain it through the power of animation. Any soccer fan will tell you how hard it can be trying to explain the rule to a person who doesn’t watch the game, so this video should clear things up!
It’s set in the host’s nation – Brazil – and tells the story of the off-side rule with the help of a football, illustrative text and subbuteo players. This video really helped bring more awareness to Wyzowl and has gained over 15k views on YouTube alone. Check it out below!
6. AMC Theatre – Ron Burgundy Infographic
American movie theatre chain AMC knew that people were going to be excited about the new Anchor Man film. But how could they persuade people to come to their theatre ahead of anyone else’s? Well, they decided to create an infographic that offered some top tips on how to dress as Ron Burgundy himself.
It features a run down of the various items that Ron Burgundy wears or uses to impress and ends with a great CTA for people to go see the film at AMC. This infographic is extremely humorous so it’s hardly surprising that it got plenty of likes and shares! Check it out below:
5. Help Scout – ’10 Customer Service Stories’ eBook
Help Scout is a company that set up an invisible help desk for companies who want to provide better support for their customers. In addition to providing this platform, Help Scout offers their clients a great range of content that they can use and download, to give them the extra edge in their industry.
All based around how to provide effective customer service, the team at Help Scout are great at creating eBooks – which is why they have made our list today. Their ’10 Customer Service Stories’ in particular stands out because it shows their clients what other people are doing, and how they can learn from it. It’s really well designed and well written, and you can view the entire eBook here.
4. Sharpie – The Blog
If you didn’t think you could blog about a Sharpie pen more than once, then you’d be very wrong. This sassy felt tip pen company has filled its entire blog with images of what their customers have done with a Sharpie pen, making it really hard to pick out our favorite post!
From people who colored their t-shirts with the American flag, to ways in which you can decorate your own coffee table, the Sharpie blog is incredibly creative. So not only does it mean great content to share on their social, but it encourages people to use their product! Great work Sharpie – we salute you. Check out the blog here.
3. Doritos – Super Bowl Hack
As you’ve no doubt seen from their adverts, Doritos loves to get creative with their marketing – and this example is no exception! They decided to give their fans tickets to the Super Bowl in 2014, but on one very simple condition – the fans had to wear orange t-shirts. So what was the result?
Well, they strategically bought the seats so that from afar it would look like a giant Dorito. So not only would everyone at the game see it and get hungry, but they could tweet it to their thousands of followers and get thousands of likes and shares in the meantime! Check out the tweet below:
2. Dollar Shave – Advert
Dollar Shave Club offers a very simple product – razors, but for a lot cheaper. With so much competition out there, they knew they needed to stand out and their price alone wasn’t going to help them with this. So that’s how they came up with this genius marketing advert that has been viewed 15 million times over.
Featuring the CEO Michael Dublin himself, this ad is funny, unique and pretty damn arrogant – but somehow it gets the job done. It’s this kind of crazy marketing that people will talk about for years. And if you haven’t seen it, then where have you been?! Check it out below:
1. Google’s Doodles
Arguably the most successful internet company ever, this company doesn’t need an introduction. One thing they are good at is great content. It’s a mistake to think that such a huge company doesn’t need to promote itself. Google needs to evolve and stay relevant just like the rest of us – and it’s no real surprise that they do it extremely well.
The Google Doodle has turned into a much loved tradition. Basically on notable days throughout the calendar, Google will transform its logo into animations to match up with the day it’s celebrating. It’s interactive, it keeps the audience engaged and it makes you go onto Google just to see it! You can check out all of the here.
What Can We Learn From This?
If there’s one thing to takeaway from these incredible examples of content marketing, it’s that you need to stand out from the crowd. That’s the only way that people will share and talk about your content. Don’t worry if you don’t have the time, resource or creativity to do this – there’s plenty of content marketing experts out there to help you. One thing is for sure, the power of content marketing is hard to ignore.
Let us know in the comments below if there are any content marketing pieces that we missed – we’d love to hear from you!