Content marketing includes blogs, guides, hubs, courses, videos, games, tools, calculators, awards, books, magazines, reports, and more.
However, content marketing is unique because it isn’t defined by the type of content, but rather by the contents of the media. If content marketing is the practice of providing uniquely helpful, useful, and entertaining media to a specific audience, then content marketing isn’t defined by content types, but rather by the perceived value the audience receives from the content.
So let’s look at some content marketing examples categorized by types of content.
Blog content marketing involves writing content designed to educate, inform, and entertain readers. The content marketing examples below showcase how a well-thought-out blog can establish a company as an authority in its industry, increase organic traffic, and boost customer trust and loyalty.
1. Buffer Open Culture Blog
Type: Blog
Why it Works: Buffer’s Open Blog page shares and informs consumers on how they are uniquely approaching work-life balance. This blog example of content marketing drives customers to their transparent page, which gains more traffic to their online resources.
2. Clif Bar Stories Blog
Type: Blog
Why it Works: Through storytelling and describing ways to use the infamous bar, Clif Bar & Company has created a page to ensure shoppers get full snacking benefits. Their clientele gets a better look into the ingredients, the company, and adventurous first-hand stories so Clif can ensure consumers continue purchasing the products.
3. Border States Electric Supply Chain Solutions BSE Blog
Type: Blog
Why it Works: Border States has a whole blog dedicated to knowledge on Supply Chain Solutions. When looking up topics on Supply Chain Solutions, you are directed to the Border States page to inform you of many topics that help build brand awareness for customers simply scrolling through.
4. Rest Day Massage Therapy Blog
Type: Blog/FAQ
Why it Works: Rest Day guides you through commonly asked questions in a blog format to put your body and mind at ease. By providing tips and tricks on upkeeping your wellness, Massage Therapy can successfully retain its niche customers through expert education.
Guide content marketing prioritizes sharing information around topics that are usually more specific than what you’ll find on a blog. It provides your audience with in-depth content to help them better understand your brand or to enable them to make informed decisions. Guides are often displayed as a content hub, single pillar post, or gallery, as seen in the following content marketing examples.
5. Microsoft Stories
Type: Hub / Videos
Why it Works: Microsoft can be overwhelming for many people as a behemoth company. However, Story Labs gives Microsoft an edge with comprehensive storytelling and animations. Microsoft exemplifies content marketing by simplifying their content so the standard consumer can easily use & understand the entire brand.
6. Michelin Guide
Type: Award/Guide
Why it works: Michelin Tires originally started their Star Guide to help people on road trips (who eventually would need to buy tires) find the best places to eat along their routes. The Michelin Star Guide has since taken on a life of its own, and nowadays, many people are familiar with the guide without even realizing it is made by a tire company. Their concept stays the same: Offer value first without directly selling and reap the benefits on the backend.
7. Ford Motor Company Brochure Gallery
Type: Content hub / Brochure
Why it works: Car shoppers do more research online than at the dealership these days. Ford has responded to this trend by providing all the information a consumer might need when considering a new car purchase in one place, making it easy for potential customers to find and keeping Ford top of mind when making buying decisions.
8. Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO
Type: Guide
Why it works: SEO can be complex and challenging for newcomers to understand. This guide teaches readers everything they need to know to start with well-structured and easy-to-follow tactics. They provide immense value and frame MOZ as the place to go for SEO knowledge.
9. Shopify Store Examples Gallery
Type: Gallery
Why it works: People building or considering building an online store with Shopify may want to know what their store could look like and get inspiration and ideas. The Shopify Store Examples Gallery is a great resource for this audience and provides potential Shopify customers with the resources they need to be successful on the platform.
10. How We Work at Zapier
Type: Content Hub
Why it works: This content hub offers insight into how an admired company works and gives potential customers a closer look at Zapier before they buy. This view into Zapier’s workplace operations can make fans out of potential leads, driving them toward Zapier’s other (paid) offerings.
Course content marketing is the process of creating educational content bundled as a “course.” These courses are often offered in exchange for an email address. They must provide excellent value to encourage signups. Distributing courses allows brand owners to nurture and build relationships with their target market.
11. CoSchedule Product Training Courses
Type: Courses
Why it Works: CoSchedule’s Product Training offers free courses to train your organization on CoSchedule’s products. Customers can learn how to get more out of the product and reap endless benefits. By guiding consumers through the training courses, CoSchedule can keep the user’s satisfied due to streamlining their product.
12. Fender Play Courses
Type: Education
Why it works: These lessons are geared toward new guitar owners, especially those who buy Fender guitars. By helping new guitar owners learn to play their instrument, they are more likely to stick with it, trust Fender, and (one day) buy more guitars from Fender.
Educational resources like these are great ways to make recurring customers, as users will then turn to your brand for knowledge as they view you as a major thought leader within your niche.
13. Content Hacker Content Transformation System Class
Type: Video Class
Why it Works: Julia McCoy, CEO of Content Hacker, provides a 30-minute free video to train clients on her methodology and strategy for content marketing success. Starting with this simplified content marketing class, Content Hacker entices potential clients to their page for continued services and training.
Interactive content marketing encourages users to engage with a brand through content such as tools, polls, surveys, calculators, games, etc. Doing so helps your audience improve their processes and solve real-world problems, all while keeping your brand top of mind and relevant. Reference the following interactive content marketing examples to formulate your own ideas.
14. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
Type: Free Tool
Why it works: The Headline Analyzer from CoSchedule is a perfect example of providing value through content because it is a valuable tool that people can make a part of their routine whenever they need to write a headline. In this way, CoSchedule keeps their audience coming back repeatedly, keeping leads within the brand’s ecosystem to continue providing value and pushing leads toward the bottom of the sales funnel.
One key for CoSchedule in making the Headline Analyzer a success has been making continuous updates to the platform, ensuring that they can continue to draw customers back time and time again to try out new features.
15. HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator
Type: Free Tool
Why it works: Content marketers are constantly on the prowl for new topics to blog about and build content around, making this free tool from Hubspot a great value piece for their desired audience. By solving a common problem at no cost, HubSpot frames themselves as a valuable resource and keeps their audience coming back for more.
16. Pedaltrain Pedalboard Planner
Why it works: There’s nothing else quite like this free tool from Pedaltrain. It helps guitarists know which type of board they need to fit their unique pedal collection, helping to drive sales and reduce returns when people find the right board before they buy.
The visual aspect of this tool is perfect for guitarists as they plan their pedal setup, and the diverse collection of pedals to choose from on this tool makes it the ultimate resource for pedalboard planners.
17. U.S. Department of Energy Fuel Economy Trip Calculator
Type: Calculator
Why it works: This free fuel calculator is provided by fueleconomy.gov to solve a real problem. It is genuinely helpful and helps people make the most of their money when planning a road trip. It not only calculates the fuel cost for road trips but also provides people with directions they can use on their trip and lets you map out stops along the way.
Video content marketing refers to using videos to promote or market a product or service. It provides valuable information or entertainment to viewers, such as tutorials, customer testimonials, product demonstrations, or even full-fledged TV series. Video marketing is becoming an increasingly important channel for marketers, with 41% reporting that it provides a high ROI and 47% stating it is moderately important to their company’s overall strategy.
18. Formula 1: Drive to Survive
Type: Television Series
Why it works: Drive to Survive is a Netflix series produced by Formula 1, which generates a ton of buzz around Formula 1 racing amongst Netflix viewers who may have never checked out the sport before. By making this sport more accessible and providing viewers with a more personal, in-depth experience, Formula 1 has generated a significant amount of interest in their sport, encouraging casual fans to watch Formula 1 live and engage with the sport in new ways.
19. Le Creuset YouTube Channel
Type: YouTube Channel
Why it works: Cooking videos are extremely popular on YouTube. Le Creuset takes advantage by sharing their own videos and helping to raise awareness of their brand. This is an excellent example of finding ways to provide value within your company’s niche.
Video content is especially successful in our increasingly digital age, and providing content in a video format is a great way to make your brand more accessible to a larger audience.
20. Guitar Center YouTube Channel
Type: YouTube Channel
Why it Works: Nowadays, musicians learn about their instruments and obtain lessons through online services. The Guitar Center’s creation YouTube Page provides many videos, from classes to artist spotlights. Creating an interactive page for their consumers leads shoppers to buy their products and engage with Guitar Centers’ resources.
21. Hoka YouTube Channel
Type: YouTube Channel
Why it Works: HOKA TV features testimonies from customers worldwide that use HOKA products. The personable nature of this channel allows viewers to feel part of something bigger than just a shoe company which in turn creates HOKA’s true fans.
Book content marketing uses print or digital books to promote a product, service, or brand. This form of marketing typically involves an indirect promotional strategy which, when done correctly, pays off significantly in terms of long-term brand and product loyalty.
22. CoSchedule’s Agile Marketing Guide
Type: Book / Content Hub
Why it works: It is set up in a chapter format, allowing readers to jump to chapters more pertinent to their goals and the knowledge they want to gain. CoSchedule repurposed this content into a printed book available on Amazon.
23. Guinness Book of World Records
Type: Book / Award
Why it works: The Guinness Book of World Records connects the Guinness brand to something people are genuinely interested in. The book rarely, if ever, refers to Guinness products but increases the brand’s name recognition just by filling its own space within the cultural zeitgeist. This is an excellent example of content taking on a life of its own outside of the brand supporting it.
24. John Deere The Furrow Magazine
Type: Tabloid / Magazine
Why it Works: For over 125 years, The Furrow has been plowing the way as a top content marketing example as it addresses the flow of farm life. Furrow focuses on education over selling, establishing a trusting relationship between customers and the company since the consumer feels more capable of buying after being informed about the product.
Research content marketing can involve both original research, such as surveys, polls, and interviews, as well as curating and compiling research from other sources. By creating content based on research and data, businesses can demonstrate their expertise, thus building trust and authority in their niche.
25. Orbit Media Studios Annual Blogger Survey
Type: Survey
Why it works: Content that cites statistics is viewed as more authoritative than content that isn’t supported by data. By creating original research, you can make your brand the source of that data and naturally attract links from others citing you in their content.
Orbit Media Studios produces this annual blogger survey to establish their own thought leadership and provide context around trends in their industry.
26. CoSchedule Best Times To Post
Type: Original Research
Why It Works: CoSchedule analyzed over 37 million social media messages from more than 30,000 organizations to determine the best times to post on all major social media platforms. When armed with the proper data, you can extract key takeaways that provide immense value to your audience.
Providing the most up-to-date content on a topic closely related to CoSchedule’s platform helps demonstrate expertise, solidify authority, and instill trust.
27. AgileSherpas State of Agile Marketing Report
Type: Report
Why it Works: Half a decade of data collection has allowed AgileSherpas to report on the latest findings of Agile Marketing. Marketing organizations desire the adaptation of agile marketing from the research report, which sequentially leads organizations to acquire the services of AgileSherpas.
28. CoSchedule Marketing Strategy Trend Report
Type: Report
Why it Works: CoSchedule’s Trend Report updates their audience on successful marketing strategies with tips to improve strategies based on evidence from other marketers. This unique example of content marketing provides value first for the consumers that turn into a trusting relationship.
Topic cluster content marketing is a strategy that focuses on organizing content around a specific main topic and associated subtopics to create a comprehensive set of resources. The goal is to create a cohesive web of related content that can be easily navigated by readers and search engine bots, helping to improve SEO and drive more organic traffic to a website.
29. CoSchedule Marketing Hub
Type: Topic Cluster
Why It Works: Blanketing a broad topic like “marketing” conveys to both existing and potential customers that CoSchedule is an authority in the space. Each sub-topic is well-researched, showcases real examples, and focuses on providing value to the reader.
CoSchedule can also use these topics to create content around its product, demonstrating how the product can help readers achieve their marketing goals.
30. Viral Loops: Product Launch 101
Type: Topic Cluster
Why It Works: By creating a primary “hub” page, Viral Loops can answer, at a high level, every question related to the ins and outs of a product launch. Their hub page acts as a hook to draw the reader in, leading to them following the rabbit hole down each chapter.
Within each chapter, Viral Loops then goes into greater detail about the specifics, which helps convey topical authority to the reader and search engines.
31. Podia’s Guide To Selling An Online Course
Type: Topic Cluster
Why It Works: Online courses have exploded in popularity in recent years. Podia, a website-building platform, positioned itself to blanket the “online course” niche. The content covered throughout their topic cluster covers everything you need to know about creating, selling, and profiting from an online course.
One of the main components of selling an online course is having a platform to host it. That’s where Podia comes in. They can steadily funnel new traffic into converting customers by providing an immense amount of value upfront.
This piece was originally published November 22, 2018. It was reoptimized and republished June 4, 2021, December 1, 2021, July 31, 2022, October 21, 2022, and March 13, 2023. Leah DeKrey, Owen Piehl, Kate Schaefer, and Ben Sailer contributed to this piece.