Spotlight: The Content Marketing Case Studies You Need to See!

Content can either be done very right, or very wrong, so it’s important to refer to those content marketing case studies that really hit the mark.

There is so much to think about, from video, to social media, to email newsletters, and that’s without the content you publish onto your website such as blogs, articles, and Q&A’s.

Hence why in some instances companies become overwhelmed and as a result, unsure about what to post and when to post it.

Particularly if you’re a small business or a start-up it can be difficult to crack all aspects of content marketing without a dedicated team to oversee every single project or campaign.

However, sometimes all it takes is a simple strategy for your content to gain the attention of your audience and continue to raise awareness.

In this post we will be looking into the top content marketing case studies we have come across over the last few years, exploring why they worked so well and achieved real results such as increased traffic and increased brand awareness.

So, let’s get into it and find out who got it right!

Content Marketing FAQs

But first how about some content marketing FAQs to get to grips with what content marketing is all about!

• What do you mean by Content Marketing?

  Content marketing is a form of engaging audiences through methods such as informative blog posts, social media posts, video content, podcasts, and email marketing. This help to spread brand awareness and often allows you to add personality to your brand whilst staying on topic.

• What is an example of Content Marketing?

  Content marketing includes social media, video, podcasts, newsletters, longform blog content, and eBooks, infographics. However it is not limited to this list!

• What are the main benefits of Content Marketing?

  Content marketing will bring benefits to your business such as:

  • Customer loyalty
  • A trusting audience
  • Visibility thanks to SEO
  • You will generate better leads

  And that’s just us mentioning a few!

Credit to Tech Crunch

Spotify Wrapped

First up we have a company who always gets their content spot on (pardon the pun) but we will be focusing on the annual Spotify Wrapped campaign for this post.

Each year it has become tradition for Spotify to collect user data on the songs and artists they have listened to and pull it all together to create individual personalised round-ups of each user’s year in music.

This is then sent via an email to listeners to unwrap and discover more about their music taste, and in some cases discovering facts about themselves they didn’t know at all!

The reason why this marketing technique works so well is because of how personal the wrapped reel is, and ultimately Spotify users like to see how many times they’ve listened to the same album or rediscover artists they listened to at the start of the year.

Not only this but the Wrapped campaign has become a viral hit on social media platforms, with users taking to Instagram and other platforms to share their most listened to artists and songs.

Therefore, this is a content marketing hit in more ways than one!

Credit to UK Essays

Apple’s “Shot on an iPhone” Campaign

What began as a simple challenge for iPhone users, “Shot on an iPhone” turned into a marketing phenomenon for Apple.

The original task was for users to share their best shots taken on an iPhone onto Twitter and Instagram and a final few would feature on Apple billboards, in retail stores, and online.

However, it quickly became increasingly popular with millions and millions of entries, and the challenge now returns every year but with a new theme.

This campaign has a duality to it by using audience content to promote the latest Apple products, all while using the iPhone to create campaigns for them.

What we mean by this is that Apple is using their product to show its quality and potential by encouraging users to take the best photographs possible featuring anything from a night sky, to a concert.

This is far more effective than simply telling users why they should purchase the latest phone, instead the company has remained able to physically show why iPhones are worth the price year on year.

Credit to Indie Hackers

Warby Parker’s Email Marketing

One form of content marketing is email, whether that be for a newsletter or regular company updates, or to keep audiences in the loop and offer exclusive information on the latest products and services.

Warby Parker is a glasses company that uses email marketing to their advantage and not in an in-your-face type of way.

On their website they encourage you to take the quiz to discover the best frames for your face, then you are asked to input your email to receive your results, and voila just like that you are in their mailing list.

Using a quiz funnel is a highly effective way to show your audience you can tell them something about themselves, and show you care about the choices they make when shopping with you.

Hence why this quiz has consistently worked so well for the Warby Parker team!

Once website visitors are signed up to the email list, the company sends weekly emails focusing on the unique selling point of trying and buying glasses from the comfort of your own home.

Equally, each of Warby Parker’s emails is specific to the relevant season for example pushing sunglasses content out in summer months, and providing aesthetically pleasing content such as model shots and using different colour palettes.

The company sends out regular emails with well placed CTA’s to grab customer attention and direct them off to the relevant platforms such as the website, or social media channels.

It can be hard to create a newsletter or weekly email that is attractive and doesn’t end up in the spam or junk folder before it’s even been opened, so hats off to Warby Parker for this one.

Credit to Digital Editions

AirBnB’s Neighbourhood Guides

Although AirBnb has an array of content marketing campaigns to dive into, we are looking at their content marketing on the whole, with specific emphasis on storytelling.

The company started small but has since grown into a multi-billion dollar business with over 800,000 listings across 200 countries, meaning there is an appeal for travellers and those looking to stay somewhere local.

However, AirBnB aren’t just targeting those looking for somewhere to stay, the company must appeal to those looking to rent out their homes at the same time. Therefore, the use of storytelling is key as it creates a sense of community for all users of the platform.

The Neighbourhood Guides play a huge part in AirBnB’s content strategy, as they offer friendly advice for new visitors from hosts, and encourage them to choose their next place to stay based on the great surrounding community.

The guides contain maps of each of the 12 neighbourhoods currently featured along with testimonials, followed by a cleverly placed CTA asking readers to share their neighbourhood knowledge.

Not only this but photography equally plays a large part in the Neighbourhood guide strategy, as local photographers supply imagery capturing the vibe and community of each neighbourhood giving the audience a real sense for what each destination is like.

This helps to move visitors down the funnel towards making a booking by elevating the appeal of each area and providing a better look at their desired destinations.

Credit to Etsy

The Etsy Blog

We are keeping things simple but effective for this example as Etsy succeeds in creating powerful and insightful blog content that is relevant and interesting to their creative audience.

The Etsy blog contains dozens of blog posts on small businesses, gift giving, and creative DIY inspiration, which certainly appeals to both sellers on the platform as well as website visitors looking for specific content.

This blog is traditional in the sense that it features stunning large imagery of artists’ work, accompanied by smaller chunks of text to create a nice blend of the two.

This was most likely a conscious decision and one that works in the brands favour as the audience is more often than not made up from creatives and people who appreciate the work and talent of smaller artists and businesses.

Therefore, the photography on the site plays a huge part in grabbing website visitors attention initially, and then the informative content helps to keep readers interested.

With topics such as the Etsy Design Awards, the best small businesses across the globe, and personalised gifts for all occasions, the blog helps to give customers and sellers alike inspiration for all aspects of creative living.

Not only this but the blog content they push out is relevant to the audience, relevant to the season, relevant to upcoming events, and therefore is a form of marketing that works for the company all year round.

Credit to HubSpot

HubSpot

There is a reason why HubSpot is considered one of the best when it comes to offering marketing strategy advice across the board, and that’s because their own content is effective and achieves results.

HubSpot is consistent with their content strategy and regularly pushes out different types of content to appeal to their vast audience.

Firstly, the blogs on their website are always specific to what their audience want to know and often include content upgrades such as free ebooks or downloads.

This helps to encourage website visitors to return as they have access to free materials that will enhance their own marketing strategies, and well structured insightful content that is easy to follow.

Equally, HubSpot creates video content for Facebook, and shares each video via the LinkedIn platform that helps to send targeted traffic to their channel, onto the video, and through to their website.

It’s easy to see how HubSpot have built up their reputation as the advice they offer is exactly what they do themselves when it comes to using a wide range of content marketing.

Credit to Marketing Mag

Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke Campaign”

Similarly to the Spotify Wrapped case study, this content marketing example was so popular due to the level of personalisation.

Although a few years ago now, Coca-Cola brought out a campaign encouraging people to buy and share a coke with someone, but not only this, they personalised bottles with over 150 of the most popular names in Australia.

This meant that if you purchased a bottle with the name Simon on it for example, the company would ask you to go and share it with a friend, relative, or even a stranger called Simon.

The Share a Coke campaign took off and spread across the world and millions of people were sharing a coke, or buying a bottle personalised with their name.

This content marketing example was so successful as it tapped into the emotions of a worldwide audience. By using something as simple as bottle personalisation this allowed the company to make all customers feel valued and noticed, and of course resulted in a huge increase in sales.

Marketing and advertising are about showing your audience you know who they are and what they want, and what better way to show you know them than personalising your product with their individual names!

Credit to Rolex Instagram

Website Imagery by Rolex

As we previously mentioned, sometimes it only takes a simple idea for your content marketing to become a huge success, and this can be seen through the way Rolex uses imagery to appeal to their audience.

Although the brand is iconic and in many ways speaks for itself, content is always key if you want to keep your brand fresh in the mind of your audience.

Rolex does this through stunning photography on social media and across their website.

The company uses high quality images and videography of their watches, providing a close up look at each of their products, showing off the craftsmanship and high standard of each timepiece.

The photos themselves do the talking, and little text is needed to accompany each image whether that is on the Rolex website or Instagram feed, and they are a company that proves sometimes, less is more.

This form of content marketing works well for Rolex, as when purchasing a watch, the audience wants to see the product, not just read about it.

However, in this instance the audience can do both, as Rolex equally provides several posts explaining the history of the company as well as the process of making each and every watch.

Credit to iVent

iVent’s Blog Content

iVent offers a bespoke service with their events platform that facilitates both virtual and hybrid events for anything from training, to conferences, to careers fairs.

The team here at Canny worked with iVent to create content that would highlight the brand and the service by creating specific blog content for their website.

For iVent it was key that we populated their site with plenty of content relevant to their audience, so chose keywords in the industry with high search volumes on topics such as virtual event planning, virtual event challenges, and how to run hybrid events effectively.

This helped to increase organic traffic to the website and resulted in iVent website pages ranking quickly for popular keywords.

This is yet another example of using long form blog content to a company’s advantage, as consistent posting of trustworthy relevant information pulls the target audience in closer and increases customer loyalty.

Credit to IA MAG Inspiration

Hootsuite: A Game of Social Thrones

Hootsuite is a social media management platform that allows you to schedule and manage your social media accounts in one place.

So it’s ironic that for their most successful content marketing campaign, they chose to use a video advertisement rather than social media platforms!

Nevertheless, Hootsuite’s A Game of Social Thrones video was an example of content that hopped on a trend and resonated with the audience.

Hootsuite’s marketing team created a video that mimicked the Game of Thrones main title, using the big platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as some of the main cities across the world.

If you haven’t seen the GoT title this might be a tad confusing for you, but if after reading this post you’re intrigued go and watch both videos in tandem and you’ll see for yourself it’s an effective content move!

If you’re a fan of the show then it’ll probably make you chuckle and wonder what Hootsuite is all about, and no doubt do a quick search.

Even if Game of Thrones wasn’t up your street, it’s clear to see from this video that Hootsuite are a company invested in creating quality, engaging content for their audience.

Credit to YouTube

Mayo Clinic: Covid-19 Video Q&A’s

We have mentioned Mayo Clinic in one of our previous blog posts on healthcare branding and marketing, so it’s no surprise they have made it onto our list of great content marketing case studies.

This campaign was focused more specifically on video content marketing during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Healthcare company created and published a Covid-19 Vaccine series onto the company YouTube channel providing expert information backed up with scientific evidence.

Not only did this help to educate the public about the virus, it helped to combat misinformation swirling around the internet at that time.

This form of content marketing was highly useful during a time of uncertainty, providing much needed information on the effects of the virus and regular updates.

What we like about this case study in particular is mixing expert advice with the informal and interactive medium of video, as it creates a sense of reliability as well as comfort.

The audience of Mayo Clinic were receiving advice and guidance throughout the pandemic in a different way that stood out in the sea of Covid-19 articles and blog posts.

This certainly helped Mayo Clinic stand out as a leading healthcare brand.

Spotlight: The Content Marketing Case Studies You Need to See!

So, there we have it, our top content marketing case studies that shone brighter than the rest in terms of quality, reach, and innovation.

Some of our case study examples were putting all of their eggs in one basket and creating a memorable online presence through social media content, and others were building up their brand reputation through consistent longform informative website content.

Some were doing all of the above!

However, these brands stood out to us for building up quality content that connects with their audience time and time again.

At Canny, content is one of our areas of expertise, and our dedicated team works with businesses around the world to create the right content to help achieve your marketing goals.

If you feel your business could benefit from a brand new content strategy, or even just a helping hand with your current one, get in touch with our team today!