6 Brands Getting It Right With Content Marketing
Whether you’re already knee-deep in your own content marketing strategy or still trying to find how to start, one thing’s for sure: You want to see good examples. Observing the ways that other brands are publishing content to benefit their brand can give you inspiration and ideas for improving or creating content for your own company. So with that in mind, consider the following six examples of brands that are getting it right with content marketing today, from Kraft Foods to Home Depot.
1. Kraft Foods
Over at KraftRecipes.com, food brand Kraft Foods offers a magazine-style layout filled with food-focused content. From recipes to tips to a community forum where members share recipes and comments, KraftRecipes.com caters directly to Kraft’s target audience—home cooks looking for kitchen inspiration and ideas.
2. American Express
With its highly popular OPEN Forum, American Express uses expert voices to share insight on various business and financial topics—and it does so in a slick layout with attractive fonts and photos. What’s more, rather than churning out old, stale content, AmEx builds what iMedia Connection calls “really cool content,” which is another way of saying memorable, genuinely interesting articles that give value to readers, like “Manage Your Time–Don’t Let It Manage You” and “How to Write Emails That Lead to ‘Yes‘”. Its posts are about more than selling the American Express brand—they’re about benefiting the readers.
3. Home Depot
The brand known for offering warehouses of construction supplies is the same brand doing a bang-up job of content marketing across various platforms. “Its entire online presence stays [relevant] to seasonal and geographic trends, as well as the audience of DIY home improvement customers,” says Nate Riggs at Content Marketing Institute. Beyond its main website, which at the Christmas season features a “Get It In Time for Christmas!” banner about free shipping and a left-hand sidebar tab for “Holiday Decorations,” Home Depot has seasonal Pinterest boards (and over 100,000 followers). It also updates its Google+ and Facebook banners seasonally.
4. Whole Foods Market
It’s hard to find a better example of content marketing than the grocery retail chain Whole Foods Market. Not only does this brand have a strong presence on every social media channel, from Facebook to Pinterest to Instagram, it also uses all of those channels to build its image and draw followers back to its site. What’s more, its website is filled with timely, relevant content, like “Top 10 Baking Tips for the Holidays” and “How to Host a Cookie Swap” in December.
5. Cisco
Demonstrating the company’s array of technical products and services, Cisco runs numerous blogs that cater to its areas of expertise. Accessible from Cisco’s home page, these content-rich sites cover everything from small business technology to specific industries like healthcare.
6. Liberty Mutual
Insurance provider Liberty Mutual is famous for commercials like this one, highlighting the idea of “doing the right thing.” Its Responsibility Project takes that idea one step further with all kinds of content relating to the idea of responsibility. From a profile of a responsible Swedish soccer star to a piece about the homeless book clubs popping up around the world, the Responsibility Project reinforces Liberty Mutual’s brand messaging and image.
Your thoughts?
Do the above examples inspire you with new ways to use content to build your brand? Could you set up a website with relevant articles? Could you use seasonal events and celebrations to promote your products? What other strong examples of content marketing have inspired you?