According to the Content Marketing Institute, 37% of B2C and 40% of B2B companies have a documented content marketing strategy in 2023. Whether you count yourself among them or plan to create a formal strategy soon, congratulations!
However, creating a documented strategy doesn’t guarantee success. You need a plan aligning with your target audience’s needs, desires, and interests to achieve the desired results. You will need to monitor performance and adapt it to meet changes in the content marketing landscape.
Creating a successful content marketing strategy can be a difficult undertaking, but it isn’t impossible. Many brands find success by leveraging a proven approach, like the one detailed in our Definitive Guide to Planning a New Content Initiative.
Others take their strategic lead from other companies who have proven to be content powerhouses. So today, we’re sharing both! Download our strategy ebook and check out the following examples from four different industries to get you inspired.
Finding Content Marketing Strategy Examples From Your Industry
For obvious reasons, companies don’t usually publish their content marketing strategies. However, you can get a general idea of a brand’s goals and intent by studying the content it publishes.
We recommend you take a deep dive into top-ranking businesses in your industry to learn why their strategies are successful. To give you an idea of what to look for, we’ve pulled together four real-world examples from sectors with little in common.
Let’s check out how these brands crushed it with effective content marketing strategies.
REI Promotes Outdoor Fun for Everyone
The REI Co-op began in 1938 when 23 outdoor adventure lovers formed a member-owned business selling affordable outdoor gear. Today the company boasts 23 million lifetime members and employs more than 16,000 people in 181 locations across 41 states and the District of Columbia.
REI is a great content marketing strategy example for industries experiencing significant change. Though the company maintains its roots in cooperative ownership and the idea that people benefit from outdoor activities, it isn’t afraid to adapt to evolving trends, new perspectives, and increased knowledge and understanding.
Source: REI Blog
The brand’s effort to make the outdoors inclusive and accessible is obvious on the company’s blog page. You can also see that REI values nature as a source of healing, incorporates new technologies, and provides information on where to enjoy the outdoors.
This co-op knows its audience well. The company recognizes changes in the industry and adapts its content to match. REI’s blog clearly focuses on providing helpful content rather than selling its retail products.
Pampers Puts Focus on Supporting New Parents
Source: Pampers.com
Diapers are essential for any baby, but Pampers doesn’t spend their time talking about what they sell. Instead, their content strategy supports soon-to-be and new moms.
Content on their site is curated specially for this audience with due date calculators, parenting guides, and sleeping insights. They even offer free birthing classes.
Pampers understands the needs of expectant and new mothers and caters to this audience. The company is a great content marketing strategy example for its laser focus on the fun and challenges of pregnancy and parenting.
The brand’s content strategy clearly focuses on micro-moments, providing information, tips, and insights on specific issues. The company’s homepage shows that connecting with and educating parents is the priority.
AARP Takes a Broad View
Is AARP too old to understand content marketing? Not by a long shot. While the nonprofit began to support retired persons, you only have to be 50 to join as a full member. Anyone under 50 can sign up, with all benefits except those legally age-restricted.
The brand values empowering people in the aging process and educating them about relevant issues and interests, including:
- Health
- Finances
- Relationships
- Travel
- Technology
The organization is a content marketing strategy example that shows how a company can continually reinvent its content, adding new resources to broaden its reach.
Source: AARP.org
The brand’s content strategy approaches aging from a broad perspective. The company offers a wide range of benefits and an equally diverse content topic menu.
AARP is a nonprofit. The brand demonstrates its mission to serve the over-50 crowd in each piece of content it posts on the website, regardless of membership or not.
Grant Thornton Tells Stories
Taxes and advisory services don’t have to be dry. Many industry organizations have inaccurately determined that they don’t need to tell stories to engage their audience. Grant Thornton takes a different approach.
The brand is an excellent content marketing strategy example because it humanizes its industry, focusing on its audience and the people who work for the company. The first thing website visitors see on the homepage is that the company is interested in a relationship with its audience, demonstrating that the brand focuses on providing value over profits.
Source: Grant Thornton
Additionally, the company created a stories section for employees to share what matters to them, adding a human-centered element to the company itself. Emphasizing the people behind the brand helps build trust and credibility.
Grant Thornton’s strategy exemplifies how a business can shift its attention from the products or services it offers to the people on both sides of the company. It works on developing relationships, a powerful approach that can improve brand loyalty.
Understanding Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Matters
Behind every content marketing plan is a well-developed content strategy, a guiding document that spells out how you’ll execute marketing for your brand. It contains all the “context” you need to craft content that resonates with your audience.
A content strategy should include elements such as:
- Business objectives
- Buyer personas
- Customer journeys
- Content workflows
- Content calendars
- Promotion tactics
- Measurement methodology
- Governance guidelines
It is a fluid document that changes and adapts as your industry, resources, tactics, and customers do. Thus, it needs to be detailed and concise as well as flexible. It’s your bedrock but allows you to be agile if necessary.
By creating and staying aligned with a content marketing strategy, your efforts have a purpose versus just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. Remember, content marketing and its rewards are a long game — it isn’t something you “win” overnight.
In the long game, your content strategy will address your objectives and really speak to your audience about what matters to them and how your brand can solve their issues and answer their questions.
Eliminating the Chaos to Become A Successful Content Marketing Strategy Example
In these examples, we’ve made the connection between strategy and output, but many steps happen in between involving your content plan and how you execute it. Content marketing is a chaotic endeavor for many businesses, but it doesn’t have to be.
DivvyHQ’s platform eliminates content chaos, allowing you to focus on how your business can provide value to its target audience. Our platform keeps you organized and helps you execute each strategic step.
We provide a single platform for all your content marketing needs. By streamlining content operations, your own company can become an all-star content marketing strategy example. Request a demo today to experience efficiency and effectiveness at its best.
