Content marketing has become more complex as channels and formats have proliferated, particularly for B2B marketers trying to attract attention. The typical reader is likely bombarded with emails, notifications, and social posts, all while scanning their favorite websites. It’s a busy marketplace: In just one quarter in 2022, there were more than 70 million WordPress blog posts each month.
B2B marketers have to work hard to stand out and connect with customers and prospects, meeting them where they are. What really makes a strong content marketing strategy is the willingness to always be working on it, to be innovating, and to create fresh and exciting content often.
There are many ways to get inspired about content marketing, and we’ve gathered some great places to start. Content marketing is different for every business, and since it’s so customizable, you can take inspiration from these examples, even if they’re in a different industry from yours. Look to common principles as you’re building your own content marketing program and strategy. Here are some standout examples to use for inspiration.
Inspire Your Strategy with these Content Marketing Examples
1. The Hubspot Blog
At 15-plus years old and growing, the Hubspot blog library remains a leader in educational, evergreen, SEO-friendly content. Hubspot’s blog universe includes a variety of topical blogs that are consistently useful and high-ranking in search. This type of expert content is a bedrock for any B2B content marketing program, bringing readers free templates, original research, market insights, interactive calculators, and more. It’s estimated Hubspot gets 32 million web visits per month.
Hubspot develops software for customer service, marketing, and sales. Its content marketing is an example of how high-quality content, created consistently, can establish a brand as useful and authoritative — and position it as a market leader in its field.
This approach is doable for most businesses. Start by creating a few pieces per month, then increase over time, making sure you’re providing useful information to any potential customers.
Another key to Hubspot’s success: putting the user first. All of its content is aimed toward educating small businesses on the basics of marketing, sales, and lots more, whether they’re a Hubspot customer or not. Consider what your business is an expert at and what you can teach people. Then, start creating and publishing that content.
Hubspot’s resource library offers free kits, generators, and more.
2. Apple: The 2030 Status Report With Mother Nature
Apple video: 2030 Status | Mother Nature | Apple
Most of us likely only dream of having Apple’s budget and market leadership status. The tech giant’s marketing and brand promise is well-known, but its innovative approach to a routine sustainability report release got a lot of attention in late 2023. Apple hired actor Viola Davis to play Mother Nature as the key stakeholder at its board meeting. The topic: how Apple was progressing toward its climate goals.
The video entertains, educates, and elicits emotion, while strengthening Apple’s brand as a people-first, Earth-first company. The company pledged in 2020 to bring its entire carbon footprint to net zero by 2030, and the video lets the company show off its progress while explaining many of the under-the-hood sustainability details of the consumer supply chain.
Some takeaways for those of us not working at billion-dollar companies: Take a fresh approach to routine or typical information you have to publish, such as a product release, regular newsletter, or annual report. How can you present the content uniquely or promote it in a different way to surprise and delight your audience?
3. McKinsey & Company’s Digital Publications
Business consulting firm McKinsey & Company creates reports, ebooks, and more, and it has impressively digitized the McKinsey Quarterly, the publication founded in 1964. Instead of a static site or PDF, the Quarterly is a digital experience, with flippable pages, and numbers and graphics that take advantage of the online format. In addition to the presentation, the content itself is valuable, containing statistics and data that readers can’t find anywhere else. McKinsey’s gating strategy offers a glimpse at what you’ll get when you purchase or download the content piece, just enough to capture interest.
McKinsey’s reports also stand out: They use website real estate effectively to provide photographs and graphics that illustrate original research, insights, and hard numbers. Hyperlinks and QR codes send readers to other resources on the site, which is a content marketing ecosystem with a lot of depth.
Not all websites are created equal, even though every business today has to have one. Even within the standard templates and website platforms, there’s room for exploration and experimentation. How can you add some interesting features or take full advantage of your site’s real estate? See what’s possible and collaborate with your design colleagues as you’re considering the best ways to present useful information.
4. The Grammarly Blog
Grammarly markets a product that integrates with user workflows to improve writing. Grammarly’s blog focuses on basic English grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other common language questions and topics to serve as a one-stop shop for becoming a better writer. The content is varied, useful, and as basic as answering “what is a meme” — showing the value of marketing to all audiences, from beginners to experts.
Writing well in English is often challenging, and the popularity of Grammarly’s blog posts reflect that. For example, “Affect vs. Effect,” which explains the difference in word usage briefly and thoroughly. The product descriptions on the site align with the blog posts, too; they use real-world examples throughout.
When creating content marketing tactics and writing for your audience, remember those audiences new to your topic areas and bring them into the fold, too. You can educate a wide variety of readers and offer many interesting, relevant entry points via content.
Grammarly’s product demo shows exactly how it works in real time.
5. General Electric’s Original Podcast
General Electric, an industrial company founded in the late 1800s, released a sci-fi podcast called “The Message” several years ago. It’s a fictional series that features a scientist trying to decode a message from extraterrestrial beings…with help from GE technology. The podcast landed at the top of the iTunes podcast chart, and generated at least 5 million downloads — plus a sequel season.
It may not be a gated ebook or other lead-generating activity, but a podcast created for sheer entertainment brings its own kind of value, especially to an old-school company like GE. Whether your business was born on the web or not, you can embrace modern marketing techniques. There are a huge range of channels where you can attract both new audience members and fans of your brand, whether they’re reading, watching, or listening. And consider your company’s current brand perception, and how you’d like that to change — then map out some out-of-the-box ways to get there.
GE took a leap into the 21st century with its two podcast series.
6. Canva’s Learning Content
The best way to attract users to your product might be to show them how to use your product. Canva’s content marketing places a laser focus on learning how to use Canva’s powerhouse design tools, encouraging further use and brand loyalty. Canva’s “Learn” page offers courses, tutorials, blog posts, and online free events to educate and inspire — bringing in 985 million visits in December of 2024, with a site authority score of 100.
Canva’s basic usage is free, so the content it creates helps move users along the path of beginner to expert in design…which in turn moves them along the path of more usage and signups for the advanced features that Canva demonstrates throughout the product. When a product is nicely designed and easy to use, showing that off as much as possible can only help entice more new users and usage.
As Canva shows, if you help your users become experts in your product, you’ll be rewarded with page views, visits, strong site and brand authority, and enduring popularity. Canva was brand new to users when it launched, but it’s become widely used and well-known in large part because of its strong content marketing efforts.
Canva’s site offers lots of learning opportunities.
7. Zendesk’s Original Research
Customer service platform Zendesk creates original research-based articles to educate and build trust with its audience, and the strategy has paid off with top-ranking competitive keywords. It’s all too easy to create content without a lot of depth or breadth, but Zendesk puts the time into research and quality, and the results are clear.
Zendesk, like Hubspot, puts its content marketing focus squarely on its customers and their problems — not on its product. That’s a winning way to both educate prospects and create a ton of authority that builds brand and SEO wins. Zendesk also uses human-centric, clear language in its content, including on its social channels, making it accessible and useful. Its copy and content has personality, using lively language, video, and callout quotes to help it stand out from other B2B sites.
8. Duolingo’s Social Strategy
Duolingo’s unorthodox marketing strategy has helped it get plenty of attention — the language-learning app has 113 million users and counting as of late 2024. A social media manager picked up the brand’s unused TikTok account and created funny, quirky videos that put “Duo,” the green owl mascot, front and center. Duo’s personality, plus his sidekicks, are now known across social media channels and beyond. TikTok success depends on the speed of posting, plus tying content to memes and trends, which Duolingo did with aplomb. Duolingo also creates storylines for Duo, along with more recent sales and giveaways of plush toys at cultural events or on social media. It all adds up to learning that feels fun, so users spend more time on the app and use it regularly.
(Where Duo might roost next, depending on the fate of TikTok, remains to be seen. Duolingo offered one possible outcome, “hope we don’t regret posting this on Monday,” on TikTok itself — referencing the original Saturday, Jan. 18, scheduled shutdown; Jan. 19 service restoration; and Jan. 20 inauguration. You probably have the 75 days of the Trump Executive Order TikTok extension to keep watching.)
Lots of brands want to emulate Duolingo. To think about how you could capture this success, consider where you can inject fun and personality into your brand — or take advantage of a mascot. Can you create a deeper sense of community among your users, whether that’s for software or an entertaining app? Can you create narratives and storylines to set your business apart? People like to connect with authenticity and humor, so think about where that might apply for your business.
Key Takeaways
We’ve covered content marketing examples across a variety of techniques and industries. Here are a few key takeaways you might distill and bring to your own brands:
- Provide value for your audience — give them a reason to give you information in return.
- Like McKinsey or Duolingo’s experiences and social posts, your content doesn’t have to be static.
- Let interactive content be a time for your audience to talk about themselves or participate in something that feels culturally relevant to them.
- There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to content marketing — keep your audience front and center to succeed.
- Think outside the box and create content that may not be directly related to your product, but still relates back, and don’t be afraid to really remove branding.
- There is nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned article. Just ask Hubspot or Zendesk.
- When you’re creating article content, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What types of things do they care about reading? What challenges might they encounter that you can write about?
In a world where people are always online, perpetually busy, and on guard against being sold to, content marketing can’t be about a sales pitch. Good content marketing takes time, but pays off in brand recognition, brand loyalty, search results, website visits, social engagement, and more. Create content that draws people to you, gives them reasons to linger on your pages, and makes potential customers want to keep on coming back for more. And don’t just set it and forget it; continue to create and innovate.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Which company is a good example of content marketing?
These examples are just some of the shining stars of content marketing today; if you’re looking to one in particular as you’re getting started, consider Hubspot’s example. They’ve consistently created useful, completely user-focused content for many years, and it’s paid off in organic search results, web traffic, and brand recognition.
Where can I find more examples of content marketing?
Use a quick Google search or delve into any of the sites or URLs listed in the examples above to explore how effective content marketing works. Search how leaders of your particular industry do it, or take inspiration from content marketing examples you’ve seen and liked and make them work for your business.
Do I need to use an agency for content marketing?
A content agency can help scale up your content marketing program more quickly and can bring in new ideas and brainstorming partners. However, if your budget won’t accommodate agency assistance, it’s entirely possible to build and execute your own content marketing plan with the resources you have available.
