10 Examples of Unique Content Marketing
While there’s nothing wrong with the standard content marketing approach (blogs, emails, social posts, webinars, ebooks, etc.), sometimes only a unique, standout piece of content will really move the needle.
But before we begin, a word of advice. Content for the sake of content will never be truly stand-out. Instead, you’ll want to follow a few tips:
Talk to customers and prospects. Understand the context of their lives, their situations, the environments they find themselves in.
While still talking to customers and prospects, listen for them to describe a few progress statements. Things they wish could be better, that they are trying to improve.
Armed with the above, now think about your product or service. What is one simple way you can help them make better progress? Some call this a value proposition, feel free to use that language if you like. Define a handful of these as you are brainstorming.
Now piece it all together. The value proposition you can deliver, in a format that fits the context or environment of the prospect.
If you follow these steps, you will be well on your way to creating your own unique and stand-out content pieces.
Now onto the inspiration -
10 unique, custom, often long-form, stand-out content pieces
#1 - Custom decks of cards
Card decks do a few things uniquely well - facilitate conversations and engage in a fun way. This particular card deck was completely custom-designed, from the content down to the shape and the packaging.
The content itself was repurposed from a long-form blog post highlighting 100+ statistics about the workplace. Statistics such as these are common content. We wanted to use these statistics as a safe way to approach potentially difficult workplace conversations.
Each card contains a statistic, a conversation prompt and a suggested action item. The cards are broken up into multiple categories (morale, stress, productivity, etc.) and each category has four levels. Start with level one and work up to level four as more trust is established.
These cards worked really well in this context because the software we were selling tied into the value proposition of better conversations. The natural sales follow-up then was, “Can I show you how we're helping organizations have better conversations like these at scale across all their teams?”
Distribution: The physical copies of these cards were distributed as part of an account-based marketing (ABM) initiative. The cards were proactively mailed to target accounts, along with a handwritten note, link to a coffee gift card and tied into a sales email/phone cadence for follow-up.
#2 - co-branded checklists
Oftentimes organizations will have a resident expert on staff or a bulk of past research or materials. The actual content coming from these sources is rich in subject but poor in how dense it can be or non-user friendly.
That was the situation here as well. The home healthcare company specialized in chronic disease care management (diabetes, heart disease, parkinson’s, etc.) and they had some incredible manuals created by a past employee. However, these manuals were dense and lie buried in 3-ring binders.
We took this material, and knowing that the customer point of contact was usually a family member, doing their best to also act as a part-time caregiver, created family caregiver checklists.
Once these were created we took them to the local disease associations and offered a co-branded partnership. In exchange for their logo on the checklist and their distribution network, we would cover all of the printing costs.
Distribution: These were fitted into advertising campaigns, offering a digital copy, plus a follow-up invitation to receive a paper copy mailed to them. Additionally, nurses took these to all potential new client screenings. They were also distributed through referral partnerships in professional services office, clinics, hospitals and disease associations.
#3 - co-authored print and digital books
Establishing credibility is often a top objective for any marketing team, especially in new companies or entering new markets. Co-authored books are a unique way to not only establish credibility but also to form long-term partnerships and tap into some basic influencer marketing.
This was the case for a donation software startup called Pushpay. In 2015, they had few customers and almost very little online presence, including no blog. The co-authored book provided a chance to bypass the need for blog temporarily and gave us an excuse to start to reach out to influencers in the space.
Over the course of a few weeks, we had created a writing prompt, reached out and secured partnerships, brought on a designer and were editing the influencer submissions that had come in. Shortly thereafter we had the book finished and printed. Digital and print copies were delivered to the co-author influencers, as many as they asked for.
Distribution: Each of the influencers were free to lead-gate this content and distribute as they wished. Some of them spoke at conferences, so they would take these books with them. The Pushpay team distributed through paid advertising and also through a fun promotion with a company called Noisetrade. Later on that year, these books were given away as gifts whenever Pushpay would sponsor a booth at an event.
#4 - Refillable referral collateral
As mentioned in the introduction to this article, knowing your customer’s context and also their desired progress is very important to any kind of stand-out content effort.
For Fedelta, a home healthcare company, many of the new client leads came from professional service referrals (estate planners, financial planners, etc.). Typical efforts to increase referrals include things like sponsoring lunches and scheduling presentations with the office teams.
We took a slightly different approach. Knowing that many of these referrals happen in the context of an office and that the professional has concerns to not only protect their client’s interests but also to protect their own reputation, we created refillable collateral.
The collateral was very polished, but with a matte finish so that it didn’t come across as insincere. The founder’s face was front and center with his short personal story. A handwritten business card was tucked in the middle and the rest of the brochure unfolded to walk the professional through the narrative. We tried to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible.
Additionally, there were inserts that would get pulled out and handed to each referral, the rest of the brochure staying with the professional. This gave an excuse for Fedelta sales staff to follow-up with referral sources with refills.
Distribution: Professional service firms and referral partners were given these to hand to their clients whenever appropriate.
#5 - Workbooks
There are few things worse for a marketing team than brand strategy presentations or visual identity guidelines that get created and then sit unused, collecting dust. There is a better way.
When creating the brand, strategy and design for Leadr, a software start-up, we simultaneously wrote and printed a 60+ page workbook. The workbook allowed us to take the brand new tone of voice and design elements and put them immediately into practice.
As a bonus, the workbooks were written to be customer-facing, so embedded into each chapter were “How Leadr can help” sections, featuring screenshots and value proposition copy. If you want brand and design to stretch further, make it accessible and applicable to your sales team.
On a broader note, a workbook such as this is a great way to establish thought leadership in your industry and to become more opinionated in the way you think about your product or service. If it’s a true workbook, there will be sections for the reader to write or take assessments. Make sure the paper and printing can hold up to this use.
Distribution: Initially, copies were printed and sent to early beta customers. Later on the books were printed and sent to a fulfillment center, where they became integrated into an account-based marketing (ABM) initiative.
#6 - Interactive scoring quiz
It’s common, and for good reason, to see quizzes or calculators used in content marketing. It’s rare that these quizzes actually offer prospects with extremely helpful and unique answers upon completion.
Cisco Networking Academy works with colleges and universities all across the world to bring in free IT and Networking curriculum. However, there’s a bit more to it than that. Schools will need to consider and prepare for things such as purchasing equipment, training instructors, getting board or executive level approval, and designing their course pathways.
Unfortunately, this created a somewhat confusing landscape for potential educators to navigate. To assist, we designed a “Readiness Quiz” to help educators understand where they were at in the process, including a downloadable guide at the end walking them step by step through the outstanding items.
The quiz acted as a first step for prospects, giving them clarity, and then pointing them to the next best resources, such as course demos, presentations, equipment lists or an application. The results of the quiz were also fed back into the marketing database, making it easy for sales or field teams to follow-up in a meaningful way with prospects.
Distribution: Because of the significant brand reputation, the Cisco Networking Academy website attracted a high number of visitors. The quiz was primarily distributed on the website and was a cornerstone content piece in the new web design and B2B growth strategy.
#7 - Interactive informational packet
Developed as part of the same B2B growth strategy for Cisco’s Networking Academy team, the informational packet was designed to be an all-in-one place interactive guide for prospects.
Similar to the family caregiver workbooks example, most of the information for this packet existed internally, but it was either outdated, unbranded, dense, or buried in the archives of a digital file cabinet.
Working with internal experts, we mapped out all of the essential information a prospect would need to make a decision, and then found a content software vendor who specialized in interactive PDF’s.
While there is nothing revolutionary about the content itself, the fact that it contained all of the needed information in one place, in an interactive way, and could be tied back into Marketo, made this a stand-out example.
Distribution: Same as above.
#8 - Proprietary rankings and awards
Working with a branding agency, States of Matter, we learned this about our target audience - it was hard for them to quantify the business impact of brand. This disconnect between agency spend and business ROI created challenges during the proposal stage. This content marketing piece was designed to help bridge that gap.
While there are brand metrics such as InterBrand, these typically only track the largest companies. So, we decided to create our own proprietary rankings called the Net Brand Effect.
We created a list of our ideal clients and then identified a handful of competitors. Our internal team then set to work tracking down the needed information (all publicly available) and compiling it into one industry report with a score for each brand. The scores were accompanied by an explanation as well as strengths, weaknesses and recommendations.
Distribution: The PDF of the report was hosted on the States of Matter website using a trackable software. We sent links to the report to each of the executives at the companies we analyzed, with a personal note. Then we also reached out to industry publications for broader distribution.
#9 - Photobooth
Event photography can be a great way for event hosts to help attendees get more out of their experience (think cameras on the Disneyland rides). Setting up a photobooth attracts attention and creates fun content for both the host and the attendees.
However, what about after the event? How could an event host or exhibitor use a photobooth to build an audience and engage post-event?
This was the challenge we worked to solve under a brand called Citizen Sounder. To pull this off we knew we needed a few things:
An engaging booth design
A great location for set-up
Technology support (ideally, someone to provide us tech at little to no cost)
Something memorable that would make attendees want to not only take the picture but also to follow-up with us later
On points 2 and 4, we worked with the Seattle Sounders to secure a premier location on match days and also the ability to borrow the Supporter’s Shield trophy (yep, the actual trophy). On point 3, Microsoft agreed to partner with us, providing us free Surface tablets for the season. And on point 1, we designed the booth with a backdrop just like actual sporting star interviews.
Distribution: Built-in distribution at the events where the photos were taken and then the attendees could either exchange their email in real-time to have the photo sent to them or follow us on social where we would post the photos later.
#10 - spoken-word audio & video content
Podcasts, while still a wide-open frontier, are now fairly common. As well, most podcasts struggle with distribution. The strategy of bringing on popular guests in your industry still works, kind of, but there are also other ways.
Secondarily, while short-form written content is more digestible, long-form content typically wins in the organic search game long-term.
To resolve both of these issues, consider spoken-word audio and video content.
Kingdom Heard is a weekly Substack publication whose content is between 1-2,000 words in length. We worked with a local music producer to create five original ambient music tracks. Then we used Descript to professionally record the author reading the weekly issues out loud. The vocals were mixed and placed on top of the ambient music, creating a spoken-word style effect.
Creating original music with professional recording and then publishing it as a high-quality audio file, allowed us to publish and distribute on a variety of platforms:
Consider this type of content for your own long-form blog content, potentially having your CEO or other rotating members of your team read it in chapters.