Dec 18, 2020
Content Marketing: How it’s been done in the past
Have you ever seen an ad for something? Read an article that’s given you links to the number one’s website? Or looked at the social media page of a brand?
If you have, you will have seen what is known as “content marketing”. With the internet being one of the most common ways that we tend to live our lives, the value of content marketing is becoming more prevalent.
Today, we’ll be going over some of the best content marketing examples.
In this article, I want to speak a bit about some of the people who have made content marketing work for them.
Content Marketing explained
Firstly though, let’s talk about what content marketing is. To put it bluntly, content marketing is when you market content.
I know that sounds kind of obvious, but I feel it’s necessary to put it in layman’s terms because sometimes, people speak about it like it’s more complicated than it actually is.
When we say “content”, we’re referring to something that people are going to see, which will lead to you getting more money. It could be an article, a video, a website, an image, and many other things.
Marketing is a fancy way of saying “promoting”. You want to promote your content as much as you can.

Why is content marketing so Important?
This does, of course, lead onto the question of “Why is content marketing so important?”. And there are several reasons why content marketing can help to build your brand and bring in more customers.
Firstly, it gives you the ability to track leads. Leads are people who are not yet customers but are the kinds of people who have the potential to be customers one day. For example, if you work in real estate, your leads are going to be working professionals of childbearing age.
With so many people using the internet, it will be wise for you to capture as many of them as you possibly can. With content marketing, you’ll be able to reach more people than you would otherwise be able to.
When people see a lot of you, your brand name is going to stick in their minds more. If they see content that you have produced which they enjoy, chances are, when they think of you, they’ll be feeling some positive thoughts.
If you get it wrong
However, it’s also important to remember that you need to do content marketing right. If you get it wrong, there may be some nasty consequences.
The first one is a loss of time and money. If you put a lot of effort into content marketing and find that the results are nowhere near as good you had hoped, you will find that all of the time and money that you spend will have gone down the drain.
When done right, content marketing can give you a brilliant reputation. But when done wrong, it can have the opposite effect; people will think of your failed campaign whenever they think of you.
For example, think of Pepsi’s failed campaign with Kylie Jenner. It was supposed to be a political statement, but most people ended up mocking it for a variety of reasons.
Metrics to check if your Content Marketing is bringing positive results
Metrics are what we use to measure the success of our marketing campaigns. Without metrics, there is no way of telling how successful your campaign has been.
However, just like in life, there is more than one way of measuring success.
Traffic
Traffic refers to how many people visit your page or website. This is going to be particularly crucial for people who run websites whose income comes from Ad Revenue.
Clicks
It’s no use having people visit your website if they aren’t going to stay there. You’re going to want people to use your website.
Using a cookie tracker, you keep on top of how many clicks your website gets, and what pages tend to get the most clicks.
Social Media Data
On social media, likes and follows matter.
By keeping track of them, you can see how successful your marketing campaign has been.
Similarly, you can see how keen people are to show your work to others by keeping track of the number of “shares.”
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Money
And finally, we have financial. How much money you make. Whether that’s from Ad revenue or the number of people buying your products.
The purpose of any company is to make money, isn’t it?

2020 Content Marketing at its Best!
Buffer
One of the best ways to do content marketing is to do blogging. This is a method that makes it feel like you’re just sharing some cool information; it doesn’t even feel like marketing at all.
One company who has managed to do a great job at blogging is Buffer, a social media helping tool. As well as getting people to blog on their website, they’ve also written guest blogs for other websites.
This has enabled them to be more recognised by Google’s algorithm.
GE
Social media is a growing industry. Just 20 years ago, most people hadn’t even heard of Facebook. But today, even the President of America is on Twitter.
One company who has mastered its social media game is GE, a company who makes turbines, jet engines, and trains.
Being a B2B company, many would think of them as dull and boring. But their usage of Instagram has brought the dull to life using influencer marketing. Currently, they have 429k followers on the site.
John Deere
Many think that content marketing only came about with the rise of the internet. And whilst the internet has made it more important, it predates the internet by a long time.
The company John Deere is known for creating machines that help with forestry. One hundred twenty years ago, before even I was born, they started a publication called “the furrow”, a magazine written for people with interest in forestry.
Even today, the magazine is still being written and published. People who enjoy the magazine are more likely to buy from John Deere.
Zomato
As human beings, we are visual creatures, and many of us have a split second where you can grab our attention.
One of the best ways to grab people’s attention is by using humour. This is something that Zomato knows well. In case you don’t know them, Zomato is a restaurant finder.
If you’re in a new area, you can use Zomato to help you to find the best places for you to eat. Because going out to eat should be a fun event, Zomato uses humour to show that even though they know about the best places, they don’t take themselves too seriously.
As a result of their comedy, they currently have 1.3m followers on Twitter.
BlendTec
Because we are visual creatures, many of us would be more likely to watch a video than we are to read an article. But when we watch a video, we don’t want to feel like we’re watching an ad.
BlendTec has overcome this problem by making their ads feel like fun viral videos with their series “Will it blend?”.
In the series, the host places all sorts of random objects into one of BlendTec’s blenders and lets the viewer see what happens. Because of the videos, BlendTec has seen sales rise by 700%.
LinkedIn
For people whose target audience are professionals or people with a keen interest in a particular area, Ebooks can be incredibly useful.
Writing an Ebook shows that you know what you’re talking about, and people will be able to trust you!
One company who’s Ebook has paid off is the social media website LinkedIn. They have written a book called “The secret sauce”, and it’s a free Ebook all about marketing.
Everyone likes a freebie, many of us will even take things we would never pay for, simply because they’re free. And LinkedIn grew their brand by writing a book and then giving it away for free.
Coca-Cola
And finally, we have Coca-cola.
Do you remember when they had that big campaign where they would write random people’s names on bottles? It caused many people to buy a bottle of coke, and post a coke with their name on social media.
It also caused people to complain that they couldn’t find one with their name on, but they could find obscure names that they hadn’t heard about in the past.
Because of this campaign, even people who wouldn’t typically have brought Coca-Cola did because they wanted a bottle with their name on.
Summary
Content marketing is an incredible thing. When you use it properly, you can increase the number of people who buy from you by a lot. And there are many ways that you can do it.
If you want to know how to do content marketing efficiently, check out our other article on how to come up with a strategy plan.
Because as one expert says “What you do after you create content is what truly counts”.
Content marketing is going to be even more significant in the future, which is why it’s best for you to gain an understanding of it now.
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Dec 18, 2020
Content Marketing Tools
The content market landscape is rapidly growing and is estimated to be worth $412.88 billion by 2021. This marks a shocking growth of 217.3 billion from 2016 to 2021. But why are businesses investing in content marketing compared to other forms of marketing? It’s cheaper and produces better results. It costs about 62% less than traditional methods of marketing while producing three times the leads.
While content marketing tools won’t replace a solid content marketing strategy or skilled content marketers, it can make life a lot easier. Software tools can provide insight to produce better content and help make the process more efficient.
With dozens of content marketing apps and software out there, you’ll be able to find a tool to help with anything you’re looking for. Luckily, we’ve compiled a list of the top ten best content tools so that you can add them to your marketing arsenal.
What are Content Marketing Tools?
Content marketing tools are applications or software designed to make your job easier as a content marketer. App developers are becoming more creative and have engineered software to solve your daily content marketing problems.
Content marketing tools allow you to measure and track your progress. Accomplishing your marketing goals isn’t possible without a tool that can track results.
For example, using a tool such as Google Analytics can help you track website visitors and conversion. Or, if you’re looking to accelerate your growth, there are content marketing tools that make life easier. A tool like Clickfunnels allows users to build funnels using a drag-and-drop platform.
But do content management tools make a significant difference in results? The answer is yes. A tool like Hootsuite can outsource all of your social media postings so that you can schedule content in advance.
Another example is software like Hot Jar, which analyzes how traffic visitors interact with your website and allows you to see exactly how users are engaging with your content on each page.
As a marketer, you’ll see immediately what needs improvement. Content strategy tools can turn a failed marketing campaign into a successful one.
Must have tools of the trade in Content Marketing
1. Hubspot
HubSpot offers an array of useful content marketing features such as pop-up tools, chatbots, live chat, a powerful form builder, one of the most powerful CRM’s available today and a WordPress plugin. HubSpot is usually known for its CRM software to help sales teams.
However, it’s quickly turned into a full-service content marketing platform for blog creation, building your SEO, and even social analytics. In addition, this software allows you to send automatic email campaigns to your customers and leads.
Popular companies using Hotspot:
- Subaru
- Suzuki
- University of Southern California
- Trustpilot
- Accenture
2. WordPress
WordPress is the premier tool to host and create a website. Hiring programmers and developers can be incredibly costly. Instead, WordPress has a template system and plugin architecture that enables anybody to design a fully-functional and highly converting website.
Whether you need a website for an online store, portfolio, blog, or contact page, it’s easy to create one using WordPress. It also seamlessly integrates with social media platforms, email marketing tools, and project management apps.
Popular companies using WordPress:
- Target corporation
- GoDaddy
- Toyota
- Staples Canada
- IBM
- Sony Music
- TechCrunch
- The Walt Disney Company
- Microsoft Corporation
- Mozilla Corporation
3. Slack
Every marketer needs a way to communicate and organize their projects. Slack is a collaboration and workplace communication tool that is designed to help teams effectively work together remotely. This collaboration tool allows users to organize chats based on specific projects or categories.
For example, you can organize your team by department. For instance, you may need to create a chat for each of the following categories, content production, content editing, social media growth, blog, email marketing, customer service, etc. You can also create new chats to introduce team members in different departments and monitor chats or for Specific clients and projects.
Popular companies using Slack:
- Airbnb
- Shopify
- Instacart
- Stackshare
- Lyft
- Pinterest
- Robinhood
- Dropbox
- BuzzFeed
- AMC Theaters
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4. SEMRush
One way to achieve your content marketing goals is to analyse your position in the marketplace. Google sends a lot of traffic your way if you’re able to optimize your website for technical compliance and search engine rankings. With SEMrush, content marketers can perform the following:
- Run an SEO audit to determine search engine ranking
- Research keywords for you to dominate in
- Gather content ideas for you to increase your organic traffic
- Create content and retest it with their specific content planner tools
Without SEMRush, you’d be spinning your wheels guessing what your audience is looking for.
Popular companies using SEMRush:
- ENVOL
- Creative Mettle
- Fidelitas Development
- BrainstormForce
- Eminence Organic Skincare
- Deloitte
- Quora
- Forbes
- Boohoo
- eBay
5. MailChimp
Depending on your niche, email marketing can be a critical component of your content marketing strategy. Email marketing enables you to connect with your prospects and create a more exclusive relationship with your prospects or customers.
MailChimp is an email marketing tool that enables users to build, send, and analyze email marketing campaigns. You’re able to create automated sequences based on an action taken. For example, if a visitor subscribed to our email list, we’ll create a sequence of emails to convert them from a cold lead to a loyal customer.
Popular companies using MailChimp:
- Channel.io
- Glovo
- Barogo
- Oxylabs
- TransferWise
- Postmates
- Paralect
- RazorPay
- Standford University
- Boston Globe Media
- Duke University
6. Canva
Hiring graphic designers on your content team can be quite expensive, and learning how to use Adobe Photoshop effectively may take a long time to learn.
Canva makes creating beautiful designs easy without needing to learn graphic design skills or coding. It comes with dozens of available layouts and has templates to fit all types of sizing.
For example, you can size your designs to fit social media posts, blog cover photos, infographics, and more.
This is a must-have for all content creators who don’t have excellent graphic design skills.
Popular companies using Canva:
- Merrimack College
- Ignited LLC
- Sierra Club Corporation
- University of New Orleans
- Canal Barge Company
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Four ways SEO can maximise your social media
7. Hootsuite
Most businesses need to stay on top of more than just one social media platform and social channel. It’s best to engage your audience on the different channels where they are active on a daily basis.
Hootsuite enables brands to manage all of their social media accounts with one platform. Users can schedule their posts in advance to help systematize their posting process.
In addition, users can track all mentions of their brand on social media. You’ll be able to follow competitors and access all of your social media accounts on one platform!
Popular companies using Hootsuite:
- Airbnb
- FreshBooks
- IBM
- HP
- University of Mississippi
8. Grammarly
Even if you’re a native American speaker, everyone needs Grammarly in their life. Grammarly will analyze your writing to ensure it’s grammatically correct and fits your writing style, whether you prefer a casual or professional tone.
It’s still important to hire editors on your team, but everyone makes mistakes. With Grammarly, you’ll never worry about mistakes again. Check all of your team’s copywriting and content writing through Grammarly.
Popular companies using Grammarly:
- University of Denver
- Sunlight Supply Inc
- Flex Jobs
- Zeno Group
- HomeAdvisor
9. BuzzSumo
Never publish content without knowing the competition and demand for it. BuzzSumo is a marketing platform for users to research effective content. With this tool, you can view which content is performing the best and which competitors dominate each topic.
You’ll see data in granular detail such as backlinks, social shares, influencer reports. Never run out of content ideas again!
Popular companies using BuzzSumo:
- Wix
- BuzzFeed
- Warner Music Group
- Hustis Electric Car
- Active Campaign
10. Yoast
Yoast is a plug-in on WordPress that enables users to improve their SEO. It optimizes the content for a particular keyword, previews and edits URL slugs, meta descriptions, and even suggests relevant internal links.
Being ranked high on the search engine requires your content to meet high technical SEO standards. Yoast improves your content readability and ensures your technical content is optimized for the search engine.
Popular companies using Yoast:
- Klaviyo
- Elementor
- WooCommerce
- Voce Communications, Inc
- Preston’s College
Guide to choosing the best content tool for you
Here are several factors to consider when selecting the best content marketing tools for your business.
Budget: How much will it cost for the initial investment and ongoing cost to keep the software running. Softwares will range based on how many features you’ll need.
For example, with email marketing tools, the bigger your email list, the more you’ll need to pay.
Easy to use: The learning curve should be easy enough for your team members to use. For example, Adobe Photoshop gives advanced features for editing content; however, it can be quite difficult to use. In contrast, Canva is ideal for beginners.
Integration: Many platforms should integrate with social media and email marketing tools. For example, WordPress integrates with most apps from social media to project management softwares.
Support: Ideally, you want software that has 24/7 support. Sending email tickets and waiting a few days for a response can be disastrous for your business.
Reporting and analytics: Every tool needs a way to track your progress to gauge whether you’re receiving an ROI on your investment.
In our opinion, one tool isn’t enough. There are so many aspects to content marketing that you’ll need to delegate each task effectively. Your team should utilize different content marketing solutions that specialize in the following:
- Research and content creation
- Project management and collaboration
- Content promotion
- Marketing content management
- Email marketing
- SEO optimisation ideas
- Competitor analysis
- Optimization and Analytics
Check this New Content Marketing Tool
In 2021, many marketing platforms plan to release new features to enhance the user experience. For example, MailChimp releases its AI and smart technology by analyzing the marketplace and providing recommendations to your email marketing.
A few examples include: subject line helper, send-time optimization, product recommendations, and even recommend campaigns to send targeted customers who are more likely to purchase.
A new tool for 2021 that could be on the rise is Plannuh. It’s an organizational tool to help your CMO and CFO work together.
This is an all-in-one software that lets you manage marketing plans, campaigns, goals, budgets, and ROI for full-transparency.
Summary
Doing content marketing manually without any tools is simply inefficient and less productive. The best marketing teams use a data-driven approach to ensure every aspect of their content marketing strategy is tracked and automated. But with dozens of content marketing tools available, which ones are right for your business?
If you’re a business that relies heavily on SEO rankings or wants to improve your search rankings, we’ve written many articles on learning the basics of them.
However, there are tools designed to make SEO tactics more efficient specifically. This includes tools that will audit your website and make suggestions to improve your rankings. We’ve listed five of the best free SEO tools that you can add to your toolbox.