Does content marketing work for small businesses and startups?
If you plan correctly and stay consistent… The answer is a resounding yes!
Browse these case studies to find out how startups of different sizes have used quality content to generate leads and accelerate growth.
You don’t need to be a large corporation to make content marketing work.
In fact, content marketing is a tried and true strategy that pulls in leads for startups and all kinds of small businesses.
Here’s a closer look at 10 startups that absolutely crushed their content marketing:
Blue Apron
Industry: Food
Product: Food delivery service
How They Used Content Marketing To Win
Blue Apron faced the challenge of introducing a new type of food delivery service. As a startup, purchasing TV commercials and other traditional media was not an option. How did the company achieve growth to over a million Facebook fans and over $100 million in revenue? Content marketing is a big part of the answer. The company published content about recipes and home cooking to draw traffic to their site and create excitement about their products.
Groove
Industry: B2B software
Product: Customer support and management
How They Used Content Marketing To Win
Social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk has an interesting perspective on content marketing: document, don’t create. In essence, he encourages companies to document their growing pains along the journey to success.
This is exactly how Groove approached its content marketing strategy. In this post, “Behind the Scenes: How We’ve Built a $5M/Year Business in 3 Years With Content Marketing,” Alex Turnbull from Groove explains exactly how they did it. Groove wanted to connect with small business owners, so in order to do that, it shared its development as a small business knowing that it would be appealing and relatable.
HubSpot
Industry: B2B software
Product: Sales and marketing automation for small and medium-sized business
How They Used Content Marketing To Win
HubSpot became a public company with over $500 million in revenue in 2018 but how did it get there? Content marketing (or “inbound marketing” as the HubSpot marketing leaders call it) was a major part of their strategy.
In addition to established content marketing practices such as high-quality blog posts and email lists, HubSpot also built online tools such as the Website Grader. To further spread the message of inbound marketing, HubSpot’s founders published a book: “Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers,” by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.
Mint
Industry: Finance
Product: Financial management software for consumers
How They Used Content Marketing To Win
Most people don’t like to think about their personal finances. Even worse, consumers are worried about interacting with new companies who may not be able to protect sensitive data. To overcome these challenges, Mint employed content marketing.
In the company’s early days, they used content marketing arrangements with leading personal finance websites. How did this content marketing strategy play out? Over 20,000 email signups were gathered over nine months. That amount of early signups helped the company’s growth. Most of those signups came from getting Mint being promoted on several hundred personal finance blogs.
That early launch played an important role in helping the company get acquired for over 100 million dollars by Intuit less than two years after its initial launch.
Design Pickle
Industry: Graphic Design
Product: Graphic design services for a set monthly fee
How They Used Content Marketing To Win
As a service company, obtaining outside funding for growth was not an option for Design Pickle. Instead, the company leveraged content marketing, including guest blog posts. As a result, the company acquired its first 1200 customers through content marketing. After building up that customer base, the company expanded to use additional marketing channels such as attending an InfusionSoft conference.
KISSmetrics
Industry: B2B software
Product: Marketing analytics platform for websites
How They Used Content Marketing To Win
In the marketing analytics software industry, there are many competitors, including Google Analytics. How do you possibly compete against a Google product? For KISSmetrics, content marketing was a big part of the picture. The results have been impressive. According to QuickSprout, “We were able to launch KISSmetrics and get over 100,000 monthly organic visitors in less than a year just through blogging and creating infographics. We didn’t build one link manually… we just spent our time and money on content marketing.”
With 100,000 monthly visitors, imagine if you could convert 1% of those website visitors into customers, you will gain 1,000 customers per month. That kind of growth will change your business forever.
Moz
Industry: B2B software
Product: Marketing analytics and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) software
How They Used Content Marketing To Win
Like HubSpot, Moz has used content-based online marketing to attract leads. In addition to blogging, Moz has distinguished itself as a content marketing leader. The company published a variety of videos including the famous “Whiteboard Friday” series where staff teaches a different concept each week. If you ever hit a brick wall in content marketing, take a page from Moz`s playbook: share advice and lessons with your target market.
Shopify
Industry: Ecommerce
Product: eCommerce platform to facilitate
Content Marketing Win
Amazon is the only game in town when it comes to eCommerce, right? Shopify takes a different approach. This Canadian startup has built a marketing platform for business owners to sell their products online in volume. As of 2018, more than 200 million customers have bought a product through a Shopify store. How did they do it? Content marketing is a significant part of the strategy. Similar to HubSpot, Shopify created resources and tools to help business owners such as the business name generator. In addition to that strategy, Shopify has invested deeply in content creation and publishing, including the Shopify Masters podcast and a blog that has generated over 27 million page views.
Resource: To learn more lessons from Shopify’s growth, check out Sumo’s excellent article: How Shopify Increased Revenue 90% in 365 Days.
CoSchedule
Industry: B2B software
Product: Marketing automation and management
Content Marketing Win
According to Chiefmartec.com, there are more than seven thousand marketing automation tools on the market. Standing out in that industry is a major challenge! To make a name for themselves, CoSchedule embraced content marketing. The company’s Marketing Resource Hub is an excellent example – it has guides, podcasts, videos, and tools designed to help marketers succeed. For example, you might find the whole content marketing process overwhelming. In that case, CoSchedule has a resource for you: “The Most Complete Content Marketing Process Guide You Need to Get Organized.”
Zendesk
Industry: B2B software
Product: Customer service and support management and collaboration
Content Marketing Win
Zendesk has made customer service easier for companies around the world. That’s a serious accomplishment. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t take risks in your content marketing and win. Zendesk’s marketing staff noted that the term “Zendesk alternative” was an important keyword phrase in the search engines. Zendesk knew they wanted to attract people searching for that phrase rather than lose them to a competitor. To stand out, Zendesk created a Zendesk band (i.e., “Zendesk alternative music”). The result? Zendesk has seized more ground in the search engines thanks to an innovative content marketing strategy.
Why You Need To Get Started Today With Content Marketing
Content marketing is like long term investing. If you start now, you will earn excellent returns in the months and years ahead. If you fail to invest, your competitors will develop a major advantage that will become painfully expensive to overcome. Contact us to discuss whether content marketing is a good fit to grow your business.
