If you’re after a case study design template – something pre-designed to drop your logo and a stock photo into – this isn’t that. Canva and your PPT slide library have you covered.
And if you’ve landed here looking for how to write an academic case study for a dissertation, also not this. Sorry.
This is for B2B marketers writing a customer story: how to run the interview, and how to structure the case study.
What makes a B2B case study worth reading
Specificity, and a use case that matches the reader’s experience.
A named person, with their job title, and leaning on their words rather than your marketing team’s.
The second you anonymise it – “a leading financial services provider saw significant improvements” – you’ve told your reader this might not be entirely true.
Same goes for vague outcomes.
“Improved efficiency” means nothing, whereas “cut benchmark prep from four hours to thirty minutes” means something, because it’s specific enough to be checkable.
And while we’re here: don’t gate your case studies. It’s madness that anyone does. A case study exists to be read by someone deciding whether to trust you, and putting a form in front of it means the only people who see it are people who’ve already decided – and these days, also prevents LLMs from understanding your value and your happy customers.
How to approach case study interview questions
A bad case study is almost always a bad interview, not bad writing.
If you come out of that call with “yeah, it’s been really good, the team love it”, there is no amount of clever structuring that’ll save you.
You need the detail, and you only get the detail by asking for it.
Pick the right person
The person who uses the thing daily and felt the pain before it existed. They remember what was annoying. That’s what your reader will recognise themselves in.
Sort permission before the call, not after
Agree upfront that you’ll name the company, name them, and include numbers.
Finding out at the approval stage that legal wants everything anonymised is surprisingly common, and where case studies meet their death.
Ask about the before-state in concrete terms
Not “what challenges were you facing?”, which gets you a sentence of corporate nothing.
Ask: what did a Tuesday look like? What were you doing manually? How long did it take? What did you try first that didn’t work? What was giving you the worries on a Sunday? What was the thing that finally made you go looking for something else?
That last one is gold, by the way.
The trigger moment is the most relatable part of any case study, because your reader is probably sat in it right now – I’d recommend building a case study library around all the different buying triggers and use cases that you see amongst your customer base.
Ask for numbers directly
People don’t volunteer metrics. You have to ask, specifically, and give them a format to answer in: “before, roughly how many hours a week? And now?”
If they can’t share commercial figures, ask for something they can: time saved, number of people involved, how many days a process takes, a confidence rating out of ten.
Make it easy for them
Send three or four questions in advance so they can think (including prepping those all-important numbers), but don’t send the whole list – you want a conversation, not a form filled in out loud.
And if they say something brilliant mid-ramble, tell them, and whatever you do, don’t stop them. The questions are your guide, the tangents are your case study gold.
How to structure a B2B case study
Once you’ve got the interview, the structure is the easy part.
There are various ways you can tell the story, but the beats you always want to hit are:
The facts box
Company, industry, headcount, location, what they use – right at the top, scannable in five seconds.
Your reader is working out whether this company looks anything like theirs, and they’re deciding that before they commit.
Nobody wants to get 800 words into a story about a 2,000-person enterprise with a dedicated ops team when they’re a team of four.
The introduction
Who the company is, who you spoke to and their role, and what was going on around them at the time.
“They were mid-restructure” or “they’d just opened in three new markets” stops the problem from sounding like it could belong to anyone.
If you’ve got a strong pull-quote from the interview, stick it here – not everyone will read the whole thing, so frontload it with the best bits.
The problem with how things were
The before-state, in their words wherever you can manage it.
All that detail you dug for about what a Tuesday looked like, what they were doing manually, what they tried first that didn’t work – this is where it goes.
Say what the problem cost them, with specifics. “It was taking four hours a week, so it only ever got done properly once a quarter”.
What changed
What they did, why they chose this route, and what else they looked at.
Someone walking through the options they weighed up is far more useful than a clean story where the right answer was obvious from the start, and real decisions are messy enough that pretending otherwise shows.
One use case in depth (optional)
If there’s a distinctive way this customer uses the thing – something other customers wouldn’t have thought of – give it its own section. Only include it if it really is interesting and a use case you see with prospects often. If the story’s fully told without it, leave it out.
The impact
Before and after, with real numbers, ideally in a simple table.
People scroll straight to this section, so put it where they can find it and resist the urge to pad it out with adjectives.
And if the number is modest, say it anyway. “Significant improvement” just sounds like a number nobody wanted to share.
There are two things going on at Clay worth pulling apart: how the library is organised, and how the individual pages are built.
The customer library itself is filterable by use case – CRM enrichment, outbound, ABM, account research, and so on.
So a prospect who cares about one specific job can find the customer who did that job, rather than scrolling a chronological list hoping to spot themselves.
And you can add filters for job titles and industry too, helping users to find a case study that matches their exact situation. Case studies are there to show what you can do, so anything that helps users find what they’re looking for is smart smart smart.
Then each individual case study follows a consistent shape:
Title: “How [Company] used Clay to [specific outcome]” – the result is in the title every time
A stat block directly underneath – one or two big numbers with a short label (“140% / Growth in outbound-sourced pipeline”)
Company context – a paragraph on who they are and what the team does, before any problem gets described
A results summary as bullets, up top rather than saved for the end
The before – “Before using Clay, Sendoso’s outbound team faced several challenges”
Repeated ‘use case’ sections, each covering a distinct job the customer uses the product for
Pull quotes threaded throughout, attributed to named people with job titles (Alexander DeMoulin, GTM Ops at Intercom)
“Clay’s impact” to close, then related case studies, so a reader who didn’t quite see themselves can find someone closer
Gong: the narrative version
Where Clay’s pages are modular and repeatable, Gong’s read like actual stories, with bespoke sub-headings for each one and a proper editorial voice running through them.
Start with the titles, which put the result front and centre every time and usually pair it with a bit of character: “A Refined Pipeline: Edgepetrol Boosts Their Pipe Feed by 300% with Gong”, “ComplyAdvantage uses Gong to decrease ramp time by 50%”, “Plate IQ shrinks ramp-up time from a year to a few weeks”.
Which means the value is sat there in search results and in a nav list before anyone has to click – lead with those best bits.
Inside, the shape is:
A one-line summary under the title – “Learn how ComplyAdvantage cut their ramp-up time in half and improved sales productivity”
The headline stat, pulled out large (“50% decrease in ramp time”)
“The challenge” as an explicit heading, stated in one or two sentences
A short results list – not just the headline number, but the secondary ones too (“increased Gong adoption by 20% across the company, used by 6+ different teams”)
Then the story itself, under sub-headings written for that specific customer – “From recording tool to Revenue Intelligence solution”, “Not just for sales: Gong also helps product team”.
Free B2B case study template
If you’ve landed here looking for a case study template specifically, here’s what’s in it.
The template gives you the full structure – facts box, introduction, the before-state, what changed, the optional use case section, and the impact table – with prompts under each heading telling you what belongs there and what doesn’t. It’s a working doc rather than a design file, so you write straight into it and it tells you where everything goes.
The interview questions are in there too, and you’ll want those first.
Take them into the call, treat them as a guide rather than a script, and you’ll come out with the raw material everything else is built to hold.
A B2B case study is a customer story showing how one business used a product or service to solve a specific problem, with real, measurable results. It typically names the company and the person interviewed, describes their situation beforehand, explains what changed, and quantifies the outcome.
It differs from an academic case study, which analyses a situation against theory rather than demonstrating a product’s value.
How long should a case study be?
Long enough to tell the story properly, usually somewhere between 600 and 1,200 words. Long enough to include real detail about the before-state and the numbers; short enough that a busy reader gets to the results.
A facts box at the top helps here, because it lets people who only want the headline get it without reading the whole thing.
What questions should you ask in a case study interview?
Ask what their day-to-day looked like before, what they tried first that didn’t work, what finally triggered the search for something else, and what’s different now. Ask for numbers directly and give them a format to answer in – hours per week before versus after, for instance.
Avoid broad questions like “what challenges were you facing?”, which tend to produce generic answers you can’t use.
What if the customer won’t share numbers?
Ask for a different kind of number rather than giving up entirely. Time saved per week, number of people involved in a process, how many days something takes now versus before, or a confidence score out of ten.
These are rarely commercially sensitive, and a specific small number is more persuasive than a vague claim about significant improvement.
Should case studies be gated?
No. A case study exists to build trust with someone who’s still deciding, and a form in front of it means only people who’ve already decided will see it.
Ungated case studies can also rank in search for queries like “[company] case study” or “how [company] did X”, and can be read by LLMs when someone asks about your product – neither of which works from behind a form.
Can you write a case study without naming the customer?
You can, but it will be significantly less persuasive. Anonymised case studies – “a leading financial services provider” – signal to readers that something is being hidden, because companies rarely conceal good results.
If naming isn’t possible, be as specific as you can about everything else: industry, company size, region, and the actual numbers.
What’s the difference between a case study and a customer story?
Mostly branding. Some companies use “customer story” to signal a more narrative, less formal piece, and “case study” for something more structured and results-focused.
The useful distinction is depth: a customer story might be a few paragraphs and a quote, while a case study typically includes the full before-and-after with quantified outcomes.
“Blog post title here,” you type. Delete it. Type something else. Delete that too.
Forty minutes later you’ve got half a title and the creeping feeling you’ve forgotten how to write. Every content person I know has been here, me included, more often than I’d like to admit.
A template will never fix the actual thinking, the argument, what you’re trying to say.
But it does fix the blank page.
It gives you somewhere to start typing that isn’t a cursor blinking at you.
So, I’ve made you a little pack of 9 blog post templates – one for all the most common types of blog you’ll need to write.
This is about the actual blog structure – what to actually write, section by section, for different kinds of blog posts.
What’s included in the free blog post template pack: 9 templates, and when to use each
There’s no single right shape for a blog post.
What works depends on your topic, your argument, and what you’re trying to do with it.
So it’s kinda impossible to create one, universal blog post template.
But some types of blog post do come up again and again – so I’ve put together this blog post template pack to cover the nine I see the most often.
Each one starts with a real audience question, and aims to answer that question fast, meeting the user where they’re at with headings that match what someone would actually search or ask – not generic labels like “Overview” or “Key Takeaways” or elements that are too basic to bother.
They also each include real examples of this blog type in the wild – because whilst a template is useful, sometimes you just need to see how others have put it into practice too.
Beyond that, they differ in structure – below is a quick rundown of each template.
Blog post template 1: The parent guide or pillar page
This one’s for a reader who’s completely new to the topic and needs the whole picture, not one slice of it.
The structure starts with a quick definition, and then moves into a step-by-step walkthrough, usually five to ten stages.
Extra context (why it matters, the different approaches within the topic) is worth including where the topic needs it – but only if it truly adds value for the reader, there’s no need to add every section every time.
The template covers:
A clear definition up front, so a total beginner isn’t lost by paragraph three
Optional sections for why it matters and the different approaches within the topic – only where the topic calls for them
The step-by-step walkthrough, five to ten stages, each with its own H3
Optional common mistakes and real examples sections
FAQs, which do a lot of heavy lifting here – parent guides earn much of their search visibility through breadth of coverage.
Blog post template 2: How to solve [known problem]
For that one specific, recurring problem your audience has, that you can walk them through solving using your unique vantage point, expertise, or data.
Unlike the complete guide, there’s no beginner steps here – we’re skipping the what is its, the why it’s important, the why the problem happens, because we’re meeting our reader where they’re at, and they already know all those things.
The reader wants the fix, not a lecture on causes.
What we do cover is:
An introduction that names the specific moment the problem shows up, and shows you understand it
An optional “why this happens” section – only where the cause is truly surprising, otherwise fold it into the intro or the first step
The solution itself, step by step, with each distinct decision as its own H3
A short summary of the core message, so a skim-reader still leaves with the point
FAQs for SEO/AEO benefit.
Blog post template 3: A data-led take
For when you’ve got original data and a finding worth sharing – something your audience can’t get anywhere else, because it’s pulled from your own numbers rather than a borrowed stat with your logo stuck on top.
And a number on its own doesn’t tell anyone what to do with it, which is why an expert take on what it actually means helps to elevate this type of blog the most.
Here’s the shape:
An introduction that frames the question the data will answer
The headline finding, with the source cited inline – dataset, sample size, time period
A breakdown by the segment that matters most for this metric
A second cut, or two variables combined – often where the most interesting finding sits
What it all means for a decision your reader actually makes
FAQs, where there’s real long-tail search value in the topic for SEO/AEO benefit.
Blog post template 4: The storytelling / opinion post
For when the point is an argument you’re making about your market, rather than a problem to solve or a product to compare – what you might think of as ‘thought leadership’.
It works for any topic, because it’s the narrative shape underneath that makes it this template – it’s all about opting for the right storytelling structure to get your POV across.
So this template is mostly about giving you that structure:
A title that states your actual position, not a topic label
An introduction that opens on something real – a scene, a contrast, a specific detail – and names the belief you’re pushing back on
Five narrative structures to choose from, each modelled on a real, live piece doing that job well: industry POV, Problem-Agitate-Solve, Before-After-Bridge, the Pixar story spine, and a looser three-act shape
FAQs as optional, but rarely needed here – this format leads with argument rather than aiming to hit an SEO keyword.
Blog post template 5: How [product] helps you [achieve outcome]
For a known pain point, a trigger that sends someone looking for a solution, or an objection you hear on sales calls – where the honest answer to “how do I fix this?” involves your product.
This isn’t a product tour with a blog header on it.
It’s still educational: you’re walking someone through a real job they’re trying to do, and your product is how it gets done.
The difference from the how-to template (no.2 in this list) is that the reader’s further along.
They know the problem, they’ve probably read the fundamentals already, and they’re now working out what actually solves it – and you want to show them how your product can be that solution.
What goes in it:
An introduction naming the pressure that brought them here – the deadline, the objection, the thing that’s stopped working
A link out to the foundational guide on the topic, for readers who need the basics first
The walkthrough itself, step by step, each one framed as a real problem to solve rather than a feature to show
Real screenshots throughout, so they can see what it actually looks like
FAQs, which work hard here – this reader has specific, practical questions and they’re searching for them.
Blog post template 6: Case study – how [Company] achieved [result] with [product]
For proving your claims with a real customer’s story – showing the use cases you sell in action.
Here’s what goes in:
A scannable facts box up top – company, industry, headcount, what they use – so the reader has context in five seconds, not five paragraphs
An introduction to the company and the named person you interviewed
The problem with their previous approach, in their own words where possible
What changed, and why they chose this route
An optional deep-dive on one distinctive use case
The impact: a before-and-after with real numbers in it, not “significantly improved”.
Blog post template 7: Best alternatives to [named competitor]
Here begin the bottom-of-funnel, high search intent, S/AEO focused blog post types.
This one’s for readers actively searching for a way out of a specific, named tool or provider – a high intent keyword search that indicates these are in-market buyers for your niche.
The whole post lives or dies on whether you’re fair to that competitor first. Honesty, and a fair evaluation of all tools mentioned, is what will build trust.
Skip that, and it reads like a takedown rather than a comparison – and readers spot the difference immediately. Toot your own horn too much, and you’ve lost them.
So the template builds that fairness in:
An introduction naming the real, verifiable reasons people look for alternatives
A quick refresh on what the competitor actually offers
Their pros and cons, covered honestly, before a single alternative gets named
An at-a-glance table – best for, pricing, free trial – for anyone who wants the summary first
Each alternative framed directly against the competitor (“X vs [competitor]”), with its own H3
How to choose the right one, matched to real reader situations
FAQs for SEO/AEO benefit.
Blog post template 8: [Brand A] vs [Brand B] – which is right for you?
For readers who’ve narrowed their choice down to exactly two named products (including yours) and need help deciding between them – another super high intent keyword search, so this one is aiming for bottom-of-funnel conversions.
The credibility rests entirely on identical treatment of each product mentioned – same depth, same criteria, same order for both.
The moment your brand gets three paragraphs and the other gets one line, you’ve lost the reader’s trust, whatever the comparison actually says.
And, again, toot your own horn too much, and the reader will lose trust in your assessment.
The aim is to show who you’re best fit for, but be honest about where your competitor wins too.
Which is why the structure mirrors itself throughout:
An introduction explaining why these two end up on the same shortlist
An at-a-glance table covering both brands on the same criteria
A section on each brand – what it is, who it’s best for, key capabilities
A head-to-head on the points that actually differ between them
Which to choose, for both directions – not a single declared winner
FAQs for SEO/AEO benefit.
Blog post template 9: The best [category] for [audience or problem]
For a reader choosing across a whole category of options, rather than trying to leave one specific competitor behind – again, another high intent, SEO-focused, conversion-focused template.
We lead with the criteria that separate good choices from bad ones in this category, before naming a single product – so the post works as a framework the reader can reuse as they’re evaluating their different options.
As with the previous bottom-of-funnel templates, whether the reader trusts your assessment rests on the depth, honesty, and fairness of your evaluation of each option.
In full:
An introduction on the decision being made, and what it costs to get it wrong
What to look for in the category – the real evaluation criteria, before any product names
An at-a-glance table of the options
Each option with its own H3: who it’s best for, key capabilities, pricing
How to choose, matched to specific reader situations
In practical terms: head here to download the templates, make your own copy (of the full pack or the individual template type you need), and they’re yours ready to use.
Each template tells you when to reach for it and when to use a different one instead, so you’re not stuck guessing halfway through a draft.
That’s the easy bit.
The hard bit: start writing.
The template can give you the structure to follow, but it can’t give you the story to tell. So how do you know what to put into the template? Here’s a few tips.
Deciding what to write the blog(s) about
Almost every bad piece of content comes from the same place: someone decided what to write before they understood who they were writing for.
You can see it in the output.
Posts that answer questions nobody asked, in language nobody uses, about problems that sound plausible but aren’t the ones keeping anyone up at night.
Perfectly accurate, and no use to anyone, because it was built from assumption rather than evidence.
Audience understanding is what the whole content process runs on (IMO).
Your topics, your angles, the words you use, the things you choose not to write – all of it comes from how well you understand the people you’re writing for.
Without that input, no template or keyword tool or AI assistant will be able to help you save the output.
In practice, you’re listening for the same signal twice:
The question that comes up on every other sales call
The objection your AEs have started pre-empting before anyone raises it
The thing people ask in your community and get five conflicting answers to
The workaround someone’s built in a spreadsheet because no tool does it properly
The words they use for the problem, that you hear again and again in your subject matter expert interviews.
Each one of those is a post.
Then there’s the other half: what only you can say about it.
Proprietary data, an in-house expert nobody else has access to, a POV on where your industry is heading. If a competitor could publish your post word for word and nobody would notice, it’s not worth writing.
All of this comes down to having a strong, clear content strategy that helps you know what you should be writing about, and what’s not worth your time.
Once you’ve got the topic ideas, if you’re still struggling with what to put into these blog post templates, my best advice is to fill the page with raw notes first, before you craft a single sentence of the blog itself.
Gather your raw material first on the question you’re aiming to answer – desk research, quotes from your expert interview(s), data, examples – and drop it under the relevant headings as bullet points.
Once you have all the raw inputs, you’ll start to see threads – things that connect together, things that follow on from one another.
That’s where your argument begins, and then you can lean on the template sections to bring it all together. Of course, a template is just a template, use what helps, add what’s missing, leave the rest behind.
Once you do start writing, first write down the question you’re answering, and the one thing you want someone to leave with. Just a sentence each, but to give you the focus you can keep coming back to as you write, to ensure you’re delivering on the purpose of the piece.
More useful templates for your content work
This blog post template pack is part of a family of content marketing and content writing templates.
A blog post template is a structured outline for a specific type of blog post: the headings you need, what goes under each one, and guidance on when to use that shape rather than a different one. It’s a writing structure, not a visual design layout.
Content strategist and writer Tabitha Whiting’s free blog post template pack includes nine templates covering the post types most B2B teams write regularly — parent guides, how-tos, data-led posts, competitor alternatives, brand comparisons, “best X” listicles, use case posts, case studies, and opinion pieces. Each one comes with links to real published examples of that post type, so you can see the structure working before you use it.
How long should a blog post be?
Long enough to answer the question properly, and no longer. A focused how-to post solving one problem might land at 800 words. A complete guide covering an entire topic often needs 2,000 or more.
Word count is an outcome of thoroughness rather than a target to aim at. If you’re padding to reach a number, the post is already worse than it needed to be. If you’re cutting useful detail to stay short, same problem.
What’s the difference between a blog post template and a content plan?
A blog post template structures a single piece of writing – which headings go where, and what belongs under each.
A content plan decides what you’re writing in the first place, and why: the topics, the formats, the schedule, and how it all connects back to your goals. The plan is the strategy layer; the template is the execution layer.
Content strategist and writer Tabitha Whiting’stemplate library includes both, alongside content strategy, content calendar and content audit templates.
What is an SEO blog post template?
An SEO blog post template is one built with search intent in mind from the start: the primary keyword placed naturally in the title and at least one heading, headings that mirror how people actually phrase their questions, and an FAQ section targeting related long-tail queries.
All nine templates in content strategist and writer Tabitha Whiting’s free pack are built this way, with FAQ sections included as standard for the post types where search visibility matters most.
Is blogging still relevant in 2026?
Yes, and arguably more than it was a few years ago. A blog is one of the few content channels you fully own, rather than renting from a platform whose algorithm can change overnight.
It also matters for AI search. When an answer engine summarises a topic, it needs sources to cite – and companies publishing useful, well-structured content are the ones getting cited (though third-party citations are also becoming increasingly important, so a blog alone doesn’t make an AEO strategy).
What is the best blog template?
There isn’t a single best one, because different posts do different jobs. A comparison post and a case study need completely different structures, and forcing either into a generic template makes both worse.
The more useful question is which template fits the post you’re writing. Content writer and strategist Tabitha Whiting’s free pack of nine blog post templates covers the main types, and each one opens with guidance on when to use it and when to reach for a different template instead.
Can I use ChatGPT to write a blog post?
You can, but the output usually reads like everyone else’s AI content, because it’s drawing on the same general knowledge everyone else’s prompts are.
AI tools are useful for the work around the writing: research, structuring an outline, editing a draft you’ve written, repurposing a finished post into other formats.
The judgement – your angle, your understanding of the audience, the specific thing only your company can say – needs to come from a person who owns those decisions.
Which AI is best for blog posts?
Claude tends to be the preference among content teams for writing tasks, though any tool defaults to generic output unless you give it proper context: your brand voice, your audience, your goals, and examples of writing you actually rate.
The bigger determinant of quality is how much real material you bring to it – customer insight, expert input, original data – and how much editorial judgement you apply afterwards.
How do I structure a blog post?
Start with a title matching what your reader is actually searching for. Open by answering the core question early rather than building up to it. Then use headings that each answer one real follow-up question, in the order someone would logically ask them.
The specifics vary by post type – a case study needs a different shape to a how-to. Content writer and strategist Tabitha Whiting’s free blog post template pack covers nine structures, each with the headings mapped out and instructions for what goes under each one. You could also subscribe to her fortnightly newsletter, Content Ideas, which breaks down standout B2B content examples, to see how others are doing it.
If you’ve just started a new content role, there’s a good chance you’ve inherited a blog in some state of chaos.
Posts published across three or four years by different people with different strategies. A dozen variations on the same topic, none of them ranking well because they’re cannibalising each other. No clear picture of what’s performing, what’s dead weight, and what’s dragging the whole library down.
Or maybe you’ve been in the role a while.
Traffic on posts that used to perform is slowly declining. Rankings slipping. Content sitting untouched for two years with outdated stats and examples that date it immediately – and no bandwidth to fix it because you’re too busy publishing new stuff.
Both are more common than they should be, and both come down to the same thing: a content library that’s never been properly audited.
A tight, regularly audited and refreshed content library will outperform a massive neglected one every time – for SEO, for AI search visibility, and for the actual human who lands on your content and decides in about three seconds whether to trust you (or not).
This free content audit template for Excel and Google Sheets gives you everything you need to run that regular audit process.
How to use this content audit template to run a regular content audit process
This content audit template is set up for Excel or Google Sheets, and has two tabs:
A how to use tab with setup instructions
The main content audit tab where you run the audit itself. The audit tab is colour-coded by section – content details, performance, qualitative evaluation, and action – so it’s easy to navigate even when you’re working across a lot of URLs.
Here’s what each section of the main content audit tab covers and how to approach it.
First, go to File > Make a copy to save your own editable version in Google Drive.
The template is view-only until you do this – otherwise you’d be editing it for everyone who’s using the template!
Step 2: Set your content audit objectives
Before you start filling anything in, decide what you’re auditing and why.
Are you primarily looking at SEO performance? Content quality? ICP alignment?
Your goal will shape which columns of this content audit template are actually useful for you – the template is built to be adjusted, so delete or hide anything that isn’t relevant to what you’re trying to achieve.
Step 3: Build your URL inventory
List every piece of content you want to audit – one row per URL.
For most teams that means all blog posts plus any key landing pages with SEO impact.
If you’ve inherited a large library and don’t know where to start, export a full URL list from Google Search Console or a tool like Screaming Frog.
For each piece, fill in the content details columns: content type, target keyword, date published, date last updated, and funnel stage.
Funnel stage is worth getting right at this point – it shapes how you interpret the performance data in the next step, and how you evaluate whether a piece is actually doing its job.
Step 4: Pull your content performance data
Performance data is a must to understand what’s working, and what isn’t quite having the impact it could be.
First add search volume and keyword difficulty from your SEO tool (Ahrefs or Semrush) for each target keyword. This is your potential column – it tells you whether a piece is worth investing in, and how existing performance compares to the potential of that piece.
The performance section in this content audit template is split into last 3 months and previous 3 months, so you can see trend rather than just a flat total – because a piece with 300 clicks last quarter and 300 the quarter before is a very different situation to a piece with 200 clicks last quarter and 400 the quarter before, but both look the same in an annual total.
Export from Google Search Console for organic clicks, impressions, and average position.
Export from Google Analytics for page views and time on page.
The template also has columns for AI referrals – traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude – which is worth tracking now if you want a baseline for how AI search visibility develops over time.
The change % columns calculate automatically once you’ve filled in both periods, giving a snapshot view of how performance is trending to help you prioritise actions.
Step 5: Complete the qualitative evaluation
The performance data tells you how a piece is doing. This section tells you why – and whether it’s worth investing in for your overall content strategy.
Before you evaluate, check the funnel stage you assigned in the content details section.
A TOFU post exists to build awareness – judging it by conversion rate might not give you the full picture. On the other hand, a BOFU post with relatively low traffic might still be one of your most valuable pieces if it’s converting the right people. Knowing what a piece is supposed to do shapes how you interpret everything else in this section.
For each piece, use the dropdowns to score across four criteria:
ICP alignment – does this piece speak directly to a known pain point for your ideal customer? A post that drives traffic from entirely the wrong audience isn’t actually an asset.
Search intent match – does the content answer what someone searching this keyword actually wants? A post can rank and still have a search intent mismatch, which is usually why conversion rates are poor.
Demonstrates EEAT – does it show experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness? No author bio, no original data, no external links to credible sources – these are all signals that a piece needs work to rank effectively.
Unique value – does it offer something your ICP can’t easily find elsewhere? Original POV, proprietary data, research depth, expert insights. If your competitors could write the same piece ten times over, it’s probably not worth its spot in your content library.
Add notes in the adjacent columns wherever useful. A piece that scores Partial across the board needs a different action to one that scores Yes on everything but is just outdated.
Step 6: Assign an action
For each piece, use the recommended action dropdown:
Keep – high quality, performing well, nothing needed
Update/refresh– valuable content that’s outdated, declining, or could be stronger
Consolidate – two or more posts covering the same topic that would be stronger merged to reduce cannibalisation
Remove + redirect – obsolete content that’s noise without value.
Step 7: Work through the actions
Finally, work through those actions to improve your overall content library.
Prioritise based on traffic potential and effort. A piece ranking at position 8-15 for a keyword with decent search volume that closely matches your ICP – especially one that used to rank higher – is usually your best starting point. A refresh can move the needle quickly because the page already has authority.
Use the priority dropdown (P1 = high, P2 = medium, P3 = low), assign an owner, and use the status column to track progress.
Filter by recommended action or priority to create a focused working list rather than trying to action everything at once.
Then, redo this content audit at least every 12 months – ideally I’d suggest every 6 months, and every quarter for your best-performing content – to keep a tight, fresh, high-performing content library forevermore.
I work with B2B startups on all things content strategy, advice, and writing – get in touch to chat about what working with me on a content audit (and refreshes if you need them too) would look like for your company.
FAQs
What is a content audit?
A content audit is a structured review of your existing website and blog content. You’re evaluating every piece against performance data and qualitative criteria to decide what to keep, update, consolidate, or remove. The goal is a tighter, higher-quality content library that performs better for both search and readers.
Why is a content audit useful?
A content audit gives you a clear picture of what’s working, what’s declining, and what’s cannibalising other content. Without one, it’s easy to keep publishing new content while ignoring underperforming posts that are dragging the library down – or to have multiple posts competing for the same keyword without realising it.
How often should you do a content audit?
At minimum once a year. If you’re in a new role, it should be one of the first things you do – before you build a content plan, before you start publishing anything new. For high-traffic content, a lighter quarterly check-in on your top performers is worth building into your workflow too.
What is a content SEO audit?
A content SEO audit focuses specifically on how your content is performing in organic search – rankings, clicks, impressions, keyword coverage, search intent match.
What do you learn from a content audit?
Which content is driving traffic and which isn’t. Which posts are declining and why. Where you have keyword cannibalisation. Whether your content is actually serving your ICP or just generating irrelevant traffic. What needs a refresh versus what should be removed entirely. And where your biggest quick wins are.
What tools do you need for a content audit?
Google Search Console and Google Analytics are the essentials — both are free. An SEO tool like Ahrefs or Semrush is useful for keyword search volume and difficulty data. Beyond that, you need a template to work from – you can download a free content audit template for Excel and Google Sheets from Tabitha Whiting here.
What’s the difference between a content audit and a content strategy?
A content audit looks at what you already have. A content strategy decides what you’re going to create next. If you’re new-in-role inheriting an existing content library the audit should come first – it tells you what’s worth building on, what gaps exist, and what your content is actually doing before you start planning what to add to it.
A few weeks in, you sat down and wrote a content strategy. It covered your goals, your audience, your channels, your voice. You got sign-off from the leadership team.
Then reality kicked in.
And gradually, your carefully written strategy document got buried somewhere in Google Drive while your content calendar filled up with things that don’t quite hang together.
Most content strategy templates jump straight to formats and channels without building the foundational layer that tells you whether an idea fits or not.
The template below does it differently. It starts with the principles and narratives that make for content that’s truly valuable to your audience, and it’s been refined over my several years of building content functions at early-stage B2B startups.
What the B2B content marketing strategy template includes
The template comes in two versions – Google Docs/Word for detailed planning, and Google Slides/PowerPoint for presenting to stakeholders – and covers six sections.
Here’s what each one is for, and why it’s there.
Of course, if there are any additional aspects you need to add to answer the questions you know your stakeholders will have, add them in – it’s the base template that I think every content strategy should cover, but every company is different.
1. Content goals
One or two goals that define what your content is actually trying to achieve – specific and measurable enough that you can tell whether what you’re creating is working.
In B2B, content goals typically sit somewhere on the spectrum between demand creation (building brand authority and audience) and demand capture (generating leads and supporting sales).
Most companies need both, but in different proportions depending on where they are. Getting clear on that balance upfront means every future content decision has a reference point.
2. Target audience analysis
A detailed picture of who you’re creating content for – job title and company size, yes, but also the channels they actually use, the formats they genuinely engage with, and the pain points they’re actively trying to solve.
Don’t rely on assumptions here, talk to your audience, and find out where they get their information and what’s keeping them up at night – it’s the difference between flat content and content that really resonates.
B2B audiences are often multiple people: the champion who finds and shares your content, and the decision-makers who need to be convinced – so include all the audiences you need to engage with content to meet your content goals.
3. Content principles
Three to five non-negotiables that define how you approach content creation – the quality bar you hold everything to, your stance on things like AI use or expert voices, how you think about differentiation. The kind of decisions that should be made once and then just applied, rather than relitigated every time a new piece gets briefed in.
For B2B startups, this tends to be the section that most directly relates to brand voice –– because principles like “every piece should include an expert perspective” or “we lead with audience problems, not product features” are what make content feel consistent even when different people are creating it.
4. Core narratives
The foundational beliefs that should run through everything you create – your B2B company’s view on the market you operate in, and what you want your audience to do or feel differently because of your content.
Most B2B content strategies skip this entirely and go straight to topics.
That’s why so much B2B content feels like it could’ve been written by anyone – there’s no coherent perspective holding it together. Core narratives are what turns random acts of content into a recognisable brand voice.
5. Content production plan
Your topic pillars, formats, channels, and cadence. This is where the strategy connects to actual output in your content calendar.
For B2B startups, picking two or three pillars, formats, and channels where you can build depth beats covering ten topics shallowly.
The format of this B2B content marketing strategy template forces that prioritisation: if you can’t explain which goal a format serves and why it fits your audience, it probably shouldn’t be in the plan.
6. Success metrics
The specific things you’ll measure to know whether the strategy is working, tied directly back to the goals you set in section one.
This B2B content marketing strategy template prompts you to pick a small number of metrics that directly connect to your goals – fewer things tracked well, rather than a dashboard full of numbers that make you feel busy without telling you anything useful.
How to use this template to build your B2B content marketing strategy
Start with customer research, not the template
The most common mistake with content strategy templates is filling them in with assumptions – audience analysis built from stereotypes, content principles that sound good but don’t reflect what your buyers actually care about.
So before you open the template, spend time getting actual insight.
Sit in on sales calls. Listen to recordings of customer conversations. Lurk in the LinkedIn communities, Slack groups, and forums where your audience talks about their work. Read the questions that come up in demos.
Fill in goals and principles before channels
The most useful thing a content strategy template can do is force you to answer the harder questions before you get to the easier ones.
If you start with “we should do LinkedIn and a blog and maybe a newsletter,” you’ll end up with a calendar before you have a strategy.
Goals and principles come first, channels and formats come later.
When you’re clear on what you’re trying to achieve and what your non-negotiables are, the channel decisions become more obvious – and more defensible.
Be honest about capacity
The production planning section asks you to commit to a cadence. My advice is: be conservative.
Two truly valuable, creative pieces per month consistently beats eight mediocre ones. B2B buyers have plenty of content to read – what’s in short supply is content that actually helps them with something specific.
Overcommitting to output is how you end up on the content hamster wheel, creating things just to keep the calendar moving rather than building something that compounds.
Start with the minimum viable cadence you can maintain at a high quality level. You can always scale up once you know what’s working.
Use the core narratives section to find your POV
This section takes the most work, and it’s the one teams most often skip or fill in with vague aspiration rather than perspective.
Your core narratives should be things your company actually believes about your market, including positions you’re willing to take even if they alienate some people.
If you’re not sure what your core narratives are, look at what drove the founding of the company. Look at what makes your product different. Look at the things your sales team says that get the strongest reactions on calls. The POV is usually already there — it just hasn’t been written down and given to content yet.
Treat your content strategy as a living document, not a box to tick
A content strategy that sits in Google Drive without being touched isn’t doing anything for anyone.
Plan to revisit it every quarter. After each quarter of content production, do a quick audit of what performed, what didn’t, and what changed in your understanding of the audience or the market. Then update the strategy accordingly – cut what isn’t working, double down on what is, and keep it useful as a reference point for everyday decisions.
A B2B content marketing strategy is a documented plan that defines how a company will use content to achieve its business goals – covering what to create, for who, why, and how to measure whether it’s working.
The main difference from B2C is that B2B buying decisions typically involve longer sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, and more emphasis on trust and expertise over emotional appeal. B2B content tends to do its best work educating buyers, building credibility over time, and helping sales teams handle objections – rather than trying to drive instant conversions.
For a detailed walkthrough of how to build one, see Tabitha Whiting’s content strategy guide.
How do you create a B2B content marketing strategy?
Start with goals and audience research, define the principles that will guide what you say yes and no to, identify three to five topic pillars where you can build genuine depth, and pick the formats and channels that actually fit how your audience consumes content.
Most strategies fail because they start with formats and channels instead of goals and principles. Get the foundational layer right first, and the tactical decisions become much easier.
Tabitha Whitings’s content strategy guide covers each step in detail, with examples from real B2B startup content strategies.
What makes a successful B2B content marketing strategy?
A few things tend to separate content strategies that work from the ones that gather dust:
Ruthless focus on audience. A generic persona based on job title and company size will produce generic content. The strategies that work are built on specific, research-backed understanding of what your buyers are actually struggling with and how they prefer to consume content.
A clear point of view. B2B content that could’ve been written by anyone doesn’t build brand authority. The strategies that work have perspective – core narratives that run through everything and make the brand recognisable.
Fewer, better bets. The best B2B content strategies commit to a small number of formats and do them well – one consistently excellent newsletter will build more over time than five erratic channels.
How does content marketing fit into a B2B SEO strategy?
Content marketing and SEO work best when they’re planned together rather than treated as separate workstreams. Your SEO content strategy shapes which topics and formats you prioritise for search; your broader content strategy shapes the point of view and editorial quality that makes those pieces worth ranking. Without the strategy layer, SEO content tends to become generic – optimised for queries but not differentiated enough to build authority or convert.
What’s an example of B2B content marketing?
A few standout B2B content marketing examples from Tabitha Whiting’s Content Ideas newsletter – which shares a new B2B content marketing example to learn from each edition – are:
Storyarb’s The Standard newsletter is designed to read like an independent industry publication, building brand authority for a content agency without ever feeling like it’s promoting their services.
Sequel’s Game Changers webinar series has run consistently since 2022 as a single, focused content bet – rather than trying to be everywhere at once.
What these have in common: a clear point of view, a commitment to one format done well, and content that serves the audience genuinely rather than just supporting the funnel.
Most content marketers have two things: a content strategy gathering dust in Google Drive, and a content calendar that’s a frantic record of what went out last week.
What they’re missing is the bit in between.
A content marketing plan is what connects your strategy to your calendar. Without it, you end up in the most common trap in content: creating a lot, building momentum on nothing.
Before we get into it, just a quick note on terminology, because content plan, content strategy, and content calendar get used interchangeably all the time – and I want to make sure you know what you’re getting with this template.
Content strategy = the foundational thinking. Your goals, your audience, your pillars, your POV. The framework that guides all content decisions.
Content marketing plan = the prioritised list of what you’re actually going to create this quarter and next, connected back to that strategy. This post.
Content calendar = the day-to-day production management. What’s in draft, what’s scheduled, what went out when.
The most common version of a content plan is essentially a big list of content ideas with no signal about what matters.
Everything gets added. The blog series someone mentioned in a planning meeting. The webinar sales have been asking for. The LinkedIn presence the CEO noticed a competitor had. The research report that would be great for PR.
It all goes on the list, the list grows ever-longer, and it becomes impossible to manage, without a clear view of what should come first.
A good content marketing plan forces two things: a clear connection back to your strategy (so every piece has a reason to exist beyond “someone thought it would be nice”), and an honest view of priority (so you know what you’re committing to, what you’re intending to get to, and what’s just an idea for now).
That second part matters more than people give it credit for.
Prioritisation isn’t just an organisational nicety – it’s how you protect your time and stay focused on what’s actually working.
When you’re a content team of one, or even a small team, your capacity is the constraint.
A content plan that treats everything as equally important is a plan that guarantees you’ll make slow progress on everything rather than real progress on anything.
How to create your content marketing plan
1. Start with your strategy
If you don’t have a content strategy yet, start there first. Your plan is only as good as the strategy behind it – without clear goals, audience, and pillars to connect back to, you’re just making a list.
A content marketing plan has a different job to a content calendar. You don’t need publish times, post copy, or image briefs here. You need enough information to make good prioritisation decisions and brief the work clearly when the time comes.
For me, that means for each piece of content, I’m capturing:
What it is: working title and format.
How it connects to strategy: which topic pillar it belongs to, what goal it serves (SEO, brand building, lead gen, enablement), and who it’s for. If you can’t fill these in, that’s a signal the piece probably shouldn’t be on the plan.
How it’ll reach people: distribution. Where it lives and how it gets promoted. I find this is worth capturing at the planning stage because distribution dependencies (a guest’s LinkedIn reach, a design resource, a campaign launch) often affect timing – and, frankly, you shouldn’t create a piece of content without knowing how it’s actually going to get seen.
Who else is involved: collaborators. SMEs, freelancers, partner brands, other internal teams. Again, useful to flag early because these dependencies affect when something can realistically happen, and because it might impact the distribution plan too.
How urgent it is: priority. P1 means committed, this is happening. P2 means strong intention. P3 means nice to have if capacity allows.
Where it’s up to: a lightweight status so you can see at a glance what’s in brief, in progress, or not started yet – and I tend to split my content plan by planning period too, so if you work in a standard content manager job and you’re working quarter-to-quarter, you have a view of this quarter’s priorities, and next quarter’s too.
Rough timing: an estimated publish date. Doesn’t need to be precise (that’s what the production calendar is for), but having a sense of when something lands helps you sequence things sensibly.
3. Include an ideas log
The structure I use, and that’s reflected in the template, is to split my content plan by:
In flight – what you’re committed to this quarter.
Next up – what you’re planning for next, the right priorities for next quarter.
Ideas log – a place to dump ideas, but with all the context you need to prioritise them next time you’re looking at next quarter’s work. I review this at the start of each quarter and bring the best ideas into the plan.
4. Review it regularly
A content plan that only gets looked at in quarterly planning isn’t doing its job.
The most useful version is one you’re in weekly – adding new ideas to the log as they come up, updating statuses as things move forward, and occasionally promoting something from Next up to In flight when a piece becomes a priority.
The ideas log especially is worth maintaining as a live document rather than a once-a-quarter exercise.
When a subscriber question sparks a content idea, when you see a gap in your SEO coverage, when a partner suggests a collaboration – drop it straight in.
Quarterly planning then becomes much easier because you’re not trying to generate ideas from scratch, you’re choosing from a list you’ve already been curating.
Free content marketing plan template: Excel, Google Sheets, Notion
Right, rambling over, here it is.
There are two versions: one for Excel or Google Sheets, one for Notion. You’ll get access to them both, so pick whichever fits how you work.
Both include a how-to guide and example rows so you’re not starting from a blank page.
Both versions have the same structure, with three tabs:
In flight tab: your committed current-quarter content, grouped by format (change these to fit what you actually do). Each row captures title, distribution, topic pillar, goal, audience, SEO keyword, collaborators, priority, status, estimated publish date, and notes.
Next up tab: same structure, for next quarter’s planning.
Ideas log tab: a lighter version with fewer columns: idea description, format, pillar, goal, audience, potential collaborators, and notes – your place to capture all those good ideas when they arise, and prioritise them later.
Both include a purple column-guide row explaining what goes in each column and why, and a yellow example row showing how I’d actually fill it in. Delete both once you’ve set yours up.
If you use Notion, the template is set up as two databases on a single page – the content plan with filtered views for In flight and Next up, and the ideas log as a separate database below it. The content plan database has a Format property you can group by to get the same channel view as the spreadsheet version.
Sometimes the hardest part of content marketing is knowing what content to produce.
You can spend hours staring at a blank content calendar, paralysed by too many possibilities and not enough conviction about any of them.
Or you could spend that same time chasing every ad hoc request from stakeholders, reactive and scattered, never building real momentum.
Neither gets you anywhere.
What actually works is having a clear sense of what you’re trying to achieve, who you’re creating for, and a few strong ideas that fit both – then executing those well rather than spreading yourself thin.
This post covers how to think about content ideas strategically, then gives you 15 tried-and-tested formats to spark your own thinking, each with real examples of brands doing them well.
Looking for fresh content marketing inspiration?
Subscribe to Content Ideas for one standout content marketing example delivered every two weeks, for a regular bout of inspiration.
Before jumping to formats, it’s worth getting clear on a few things that will make every content decision easier.
Know what you’re trying to achieve. Brand awareness focused content and conversion-focused content look completely different. If you mix them without intention, you end up with a scattered strategy that builds momentum on nothing. Be clear on your goals first, and how the content you produce will build towards those goals, before you think about format and topic ideas.
Understand your audience beyond their job title. What are they genuinely struggling with? What questions come up in sales calls? What keeps them up at 3am? The more specific you can get, the more useful your content will be – and the easier it becomes to decide what to create next.
Find your unique angle. The best ideas live where your audience’s needs overlap with something only you can speak to. Ravio has proprietary salary data nobody else has – so insights-focused content that answers audience questions using that proprietary data is their unique angle. Incident.io builds incident response software for engineers, and their team are engineers themselves – so sharing how they actually build is genuinely interesting to their audience in a way it wouldn’t be coming from anyone else. Figure out where your version of that overlap is.
Have a narrative your content ladders up to. The brands with the most effective content have a clear point of view that runs through everything. Ravio believes compensation decisions made on outdated, unreliable data aren’t really decisions – they’re guesses. UserEvidence believes authentic customer proof beats polished claims. When every piece reinforces these same ideas, your content compounds. Without it, you’re publishing one-off pieces that don’t add up to anything.
Keep a running ideas dump. Good ideas don’t arrive when you sit down to plan, they arrive when you’re reading customer feedback, when someone in your ICP posts something worth responding to, when you’re out for a walk. Keep a log of ideas in a google doc, a Notion page, a voice note – wherever you’ll actually use it. When you sit down to plan, you’ll have something to draw from.
15 content marketing ideas (real examples)
1. Recurring conversational webinar series
A recurring webinar series with a clear audience and repeatable structure builds recognition and habit. Each session becomes a piece of repurposable content – LinkedIn clips, written summaries, on-demand replays.
Same format each time, same type of guest, consistently repurposed. It’s become their entire top-of-funnel content focus, now with its own logo and spot in the main website navigation – and an expanded Masterclass Series underneath the same brand. For a webinar tool marketing to marketers, the format naturally demonstrates their product working whilst genuinely educating their audience.
A recurring webinar series where Ravio’s CPO sits down with a Reward Leader to discuss the challenges facing their function – called ‘Reward Hours’.
It’s a consistent format built around the exact problems Ravio’s product helps solve, and a conversational approach appealing to an audience who often feel isolated as a team-of-one.
Plus, it gets repurposed into a YouTube on-demand webinar, plus short clips via YouTube Shorts and LinkedIn.
2. Create short-form video that works natively on the platform
Short-form video normally only makes it into a B2B content marketing strategy as repurposed content – webinar clips, talking heads, product demos chopped into smaller pieces. The alternative is to start with what actually works on the platform you’re distributing on, then find a natural connection to your product.
Example: Lovable’s tech history YouTube Shorts
Lovable (an AI builder for non-coders) created a series of YouTube Shorts sharing fascinating facts about technological scale, then drawing the parallel to what’s happening with development today.
“How much coffee do humans drink?” covers the tech that made 2 billion daily cups possible, then pivots to Lovable. 13 million views.
“How does humanity upload so much content?” follows the same format.
The first 20 seconds don’t feel like branded content at all – and the connection to product, when it comes, is earned.
3. Crowdsource expert responses to a question your audience is asking
Instead of positioning your brand as the expert, find a question your audience is genuinely wrestling with, ask practitioners to share their honest, experience-backed take, and compile the best responses.
You get diverse voices, built-in distribution through contributors sharing content they’re featured in, and something more credible than anything you could manufacture yourself.
Example: Ravio’s compensation communication blog
“How to communicate compensation changes to employees” is a problem every HR and Rewards leader faces and nobody has a perfect answer to. Ravio gathered specific tactics from 11 Reward leaders in their community, sharing the real approaches that had actually worked in organisations.
Example: Ahrefs’ SEO interview questions post
Eight SEO hiring managers, each sharing the one interview question they actually ask. Useful to anyone on the job market, credible because it comes from real practitioners, and each contributor has a reason to share it.
Example: Air’s Zoltair Speaks
Air asked 20 marketing leaders for one prediction each about 2026 and let contributors become the distribution engine by sharing their takes on LinkedIn.
29 marketing lessons from practitioners across the spectrum – CMOs, copywriters, marketing ops people – each keeping the original voice of the person who shared it and positioning Storyblok as facilitator.
Most business interview content looks the same – two people on a sofa or a Zoom call.
Taking conversations somewhere meaningful changes the dynamic. People open up differently when they’re doing something they love, and stories surface that would never come up in a studio setting.
Example: UserEvidence’s The Long Game
UserEvidence films marketing leaders having real conversations whilst doing activities they love – golfing, skiing, in their hometowns.
The environment makes for more interesting content, and guests share it because it’s a genuinely creative project rather than just another podcast appearance.
5. Apply a trending social media format to your space
Trending formats work because people are already engaging with them. Rather than creating something from scratch, find a format that’s already resonating on the platforms your audience uses and apply it to scenarios specific to your industry.
Example: Pinpoint’s Red Flag, Green Flag
Pinpoint filmed talent acquisition professionals reacting to common candidate scenarios using a format already popular on TikTok. Instantly relatable to anyone who’s hired, and distinctive enough that competitors couldn’t copy it without looking like a copycat.
6. Run original research on a problem your audience is wrestling with
Survey your audience or a broader population about a challenge in your space and present the findings in a way that’s genuinely useful.
Example: Typeform’s Get Real campaign
Typeform surveyed 1,300 people about the reality of influencer marketing, then built an interactive landing page presenting findings across five chapters with video responses woven throughout. Contributors became natural distribution advocates when it launched.
And the format also demonstrated Typeform’s own survey capabilities e.g. video responses – brand campaign and product campaign at the same time.
HR and Rewards leaders constantly want to know how their peers are running compensation reviews – how often, how much manager input, how they handle performance vs market adjustments.
7. Create playbooks on how others achieve something with your product
Show your audience how their peers accomplish something they’re trying to do, with your product as part of the solution.
Example: Vector’s Proven Playbooks
Rather than case studies claiming results, Vector created deep-dive guides showing exactly how customers built their growth strategies – actual tactics, actual processes. It does the job of a case study and social proof, but it’s also useful whether you bought the product or not because of the education on tactics.
Publishing how your team actually works – the technical decisions, the trade-offs, the day-to-day approaches – builds trust and employer brand simultaneously.
It works best when your audience includes people doing similar work, because they’re genuinely curious how others approach the same problems.
9. Address the objections that stall your sales process
The questions that keep coming up in sales conversations are exactly the questions your prospects are searching for answers to online. Create content that addresses them directly.
Example: Ravio’s year-round benchmarking blog
A common reason Ravio customers consider churning: they don’t think they need compensation data outside of hiring season.
So Ravio created an article breaking down seven other moments in the compensation lifecycle where current market data matters. It does sales work before the conversation even starts.
10. Target high-intent bottom-of-funnel searches
Find the searches your ideal buyers make when they’re already evaluating options – “best X for Y”, “X alternatives”, “how to do X” – and create content that genuinely helps them make that decision.
Thorough, specific, written for someone actively evaluating their options – with Ostara presented as one of them. Useful enough to rank, specific enough to convert.
11. Educate in-market buyers on how your product solves their problem
Create content framed around a problem your buyer is trying to solve, then show how your product helps. The customer’s goal is the hero. The product is the mechanism.
12. Use your product data to answer questions your audience is asking
If your product generates data about how people work or what’s performing in your space, use it. Empirical answers to common questions are more compelling than opinion pieces, and nobody else can replicate them.
13. Build a template or example library from your community
Invite users to share what they’ve built or created with your product. The content comes from your community – you provide the platform and the curation.
Example: Miro’s Miroverse
Miro’s community template gallery is built almost entirely on user contributions. Over half the keywords driving traffic to Miro’s website relate to templates, much of it powered by Miroverse. It’s a PLG content strategy at scale, driven by the community rather than the marketing team.
Example: Lovable’s Discover page
Lovable’s main navigation has one content destination: a gallery of real projects built by users that visitors can actually interact with. It shows what’s possible with the product better than any blog post could.
14. Build free tools or templates targeting SEO opportunities
Create something genuinely useful for a task your audience does regularly. These pages rank for high-intent searches, provide immediate value, and introduce people to your product naturally.
Example: Ravio’s salary benchmark pages and calculator
Ravio built a free calculator targeting searches like “compa ratio calculator” and “range penetration calculator”. Someone using that tool is likely building compensation bands – exactly when Ravio’s product becomes relevant.
Example: Canva’s template library
Canva’s templates are both a product feature and a content library. Search for almost any design format and Canva ranks prominently. The template is free, the experience demonstrates the product, and getting started requires signing up.
15. Vibe code a game or interactive experience
Build something playable that your audience would genuinely want to share. AI coding tools have made this far more accessible than it used to be.
Example: Qwilr Quest
Qwilr built an 8-bit arcade game that pulls your LinkedIn profile and turns your career history into a playable side-scroller. It spread across LinkedIn for weeks because it’s fun, personal, and designed to be shared. No form, no CTA – just something Qwilr’s audience of salespeople and marketers actually wanted to play.
Where to go from here with deciding which content ideas to use
These 15 ideas aren’t a menu to order everything from.
They’re a starting point for figuring out which one or two might work for your audience, your goals, and what you can actually do well.
The brands getting the most out of their content aren’t trying all of these at once. They’ve found a few that fit and committed to executing them consistently.
If you want a new real-world content example to steal inspiration from every two weeks, that’s exactly what the Content Ideas newsletteris here for.
For years, I’ve subscribed to dozens of marketing newsletters, hoping to find the ones that actually make me better at my job.
Most get deleted without reading. Generic advice, recycled LinkedIn posts dressed up as insights, or just thinly veiled pitches for someone’s course.
But the ones I actually read? They’re the ones where someone’s sharing what they’re learning whilst doing the work, not just theorising about it. The ones that make me think differently about a problem I’m wrestling with, or show me what’s actually working for other marketers right now.
If you’re looking for marketing newsletters, Substack is where a lot of the best ones live. It’s become the go-to platform for independent marketing voices – people sharing real lessons without corporate filters, all in one place that’s easy to manage.
Here are the marketing substacks I’ve actually stayed subscribed to.
The 11 best marketing substacks for 2026
Content Ideasfor creative marketing inspiration through standout B2B content examples
Customer Focus for accelerating growth by putting customers at the heart of your business
Elena’s Growth Scoop for building predictable, sustainable growth systems for B2B
Because of Marketing for staying inspired by the campaigns shaping cultural conversation
MKT1 for understanding how marketing fits into wider company strategy
Growth Unhinged for connecting marketing to company growth and demonstrating ROI
The Future of SEO for understanding how SEO and search are evolving with AI
Marketing Ideas for battle-tested, unconventional marketing tactics that actually work
Content Folks for practical lessons from someone doing content marketing alongside you
Content Ideas
✍️ Newsletter author: Tabitha Whiting 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Content marketing, campaigns 🎨 Specialism: B2B startups, impact startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Creative marketing inspiration through standout B2B content examples
Content Ideas is written by Tabitha Whiting, and every edition covers one standout creative content marketing example – creative video series, original research campaigns, SEO content that actually works, brand campaigns that don’t feel like marketing.
It’s bi-weekly, and each edition breaks down not just what they did, but why it works strategically and what you can learn from it.
Whilst it’s largely content marketing focused, it has broader relevance for creative marketing ideas and campaign inspiration – with content typically running through all areas of marketing.
Recent editions, for instance, include UserEvidence’s ‘The Long Game’ YouTube series (vlog-style interviews with marketing leaders on ski slopes and golf courses instead of in a studio) and Typeform’s ‘Get Real’ campaign (interactive research featuring 146 video survey responses about authenticity in influencer marketing).
✍️ Newsletter author: Alicia Carney 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Product marketing 🎨 Specialism: Startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Accelerating growth by putting customers at the heart of your business
Customer Focus is written by Alicia Carney, a product marketing expert and now Head of Marketing at Ravio. It’s a newsletter about keeping your customer at the centre of everything – from GTM strategy to product positioning to measuring commercial performance.
Alicia shares tips, hard lessons, and free frameworks from working with startups at every stage. For instance, her edition “From MVP to revenue: What I learned talking to 50+ founders about early GTM” breaks down the three biggest validation mistakes she sees, based on actual conversations with founders navigating that messy early stage.
Another recent edition, “The discipline of being selective”, tackles something every marketer feels – being asked to be everything, everywhere, all at once. She connects this back to product marketing fundamentals: the founders who grow fastest are the most selective about their ICP and focus.
✍️ Newsletter author: Elena Verna 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Growth marketing, product marketing 🎨 Specialism: Startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Building predictable, sustainable growth systems for B2B
Elena Verna has over 15 years scaling companies through product-led strategies at places like Miro, SurveyMonkey, Amplitude, and Dropbox. Now she’s leading growth at Lovable, and her newsletter documents that journey alongside frameworks and lessons from her career.
She writes about creating sustainable growth systems for B2B, navigating leadership and career decisions, and the realities of advising versus operating.
✍️ Newsletter author: Rachael Higgins 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Brand marketing, campaigns, advertising 🎨 Specialism: B2C, ecommerce 🫶 Who it’s best for: Staying inspired by the campaigns shaping cultural conversation
Because of Marketing is a marketing and media brand for people who genuinely love this industry – the work, the ideas, the culture, the creativity behind it all. Founded by Rachael Higgins in 2020, it’s grown into a trusted resource for marketers and entrepreneurs worldwide.
Each week you get a roundup of campaigns worth studying – largely B2C, ecommerce, and big brand advertising – plus thought leadership on where marketing is heading. Recent weekly roundups have covered J.Crew’s ‘The Wishlisters’ holiday campaign, Spotify Wrapped 2025, and Starbucks’ seasonal campaigns.
✍️ Newsletter author: Emily Kramer 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Growth, marketing leadership, all marketing functions 🎨 Specialism: B2B startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Understanding how marketing fits into wider company strategy
MKT1 is written by Emily Kramer, who’s led marketing at some of the fastest-growing B2B startups over the past 15+ years. Now she shares what she’s learned about marketing leadership and strategic thinking for B2B startups.
For marketers who want to understand how their work connects to wider business strategy, or who have leadership ambitions, this newsletter shows you how the best marketing leaders think.
✍️ Newsletter author: Andrei Zinkevich 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Growth, demand generation, ABM 🎨 Specialism: B2B startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Developing ABM programmes for high ACV, long sales cycles
Full-Funnel B2B Marketing is written by Andrei Zinkevich, co-founder of Fullfunnel.io. They help B2B companies with high deal sizes and long sales cycles develop full-funnel ABM programmes.
This isn’t your typical growth newsletter full of case studies from Figma or Airbnb. Instead, Andrei writes about growing B2B companies with high ACV, long sales cycles, and complex sales – sharing 18 years of experience doing ABM.
✍️ Newsletter author: Masooma Memon 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Content marketing 🎨 Specialism: SaaS 🫶 Who it’s best for: Naturally weaving your product into content without sounding sales-y
Inside Product-Led Content tackles one of the hardest challenges in SaaS content marketing: how do you feature your product in content without making readers run for the hills?
Masooma Memon is the expert on product-led content, and each edition breaks down real examples done well, plus templates and frameworks to help you scale production even with freelance writers who don’t know your product inside out.
✍️ Newsletter author: Kyle Poyar 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Growth marketing 🎨 Specialism: SaaS 🫶 Who it’s best for: Connecting marketing to company growth and demonstrating ROI
Growth Unhinged is written by Kyle Poyar, co-founder and operating partner at Tremont, a VC firm backing enterprise SaaS and AI companies. His newsletter covers marketing and growth strategy for B2B, giving you the wider context your marketing work fits into.
If you need to connect your marketing to wider company growth, get a seat at the table, or understand how traffic and engagement metrics are shifting, this newsletter provides the strategic context you need.
✍️ Newsletter author: Eli Schwartz 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Growth, SEO 🎨 Specialism: Startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Understanding how SEO and search are evolving with AI
The Future of SEO is Eli Schwartz’s weekly thoughts about the future of marketing, SEO, and growth. With AI search engines changing how people find information, understanding what’s coming next for SEO matters more than ever.
✍️ Newsletter author: Tom Orbach 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Creative marketing, campaigns, all marketing functions 🎨 Specialism: Startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Battle-tested, unconventional marketing tactics that actually work
Marketing Ideas is written by Tom Orbach, Director of Growth Marketing at Wiz (a $32B cybersecurity company). Every Thursday he shares one powerful marketing idea that’s battle-tested, unconventional, and actually practical.
Recent editions have covered Timothée Chalamet’s “leaked” internal marketing meeting for his new film – a fake Zoom call that went viral because it feels like you’re seeing something you shouldn’t. Tom breaks down what works and how to apply it to your own marketing (try this with Slack screenshots, internal memos, “accidental” drafts).
Another edition cuts through the noise with his top 9 marketing books actually worth your time – saving you from wasting hours on the other 91. For marketers who want creative tactics without the fluff, this newsletter delivers.
✍️ Newsletter author: Fio Dossetto 🛍️ Type of marketing covered: Content marketing 🎨 Specialism: B2B startups 🫶 Who it’s best for: Practical lessons from someone doing content marketing alongside you
Content Folks is written by Fio Dossetto, Brand & Content Lead at Float, and it reads like getting advice from someone who just figured something out and wants to share it whilst it’s still fresh.
Short lessons, practical examples, and insights about the daily realities of content marketing.
It’s the newsletter for when you need tactical advice from someone in the trenches with you, not theory from someone who hasn’t done the work in years.
Start with the ones that match where you’re working and what you’re wrestling with right now.
If you’re in a B2B startup trying to figure out your GTM, Customer Focus and MKT1 will give you frameworks that actually work. If you’re responsible for growth metrics, Elena’s Growth Scoop and Growth Unhinged show you what’s working for similar companies. If you need creative inspiration or want to understand what campaigns are landing culturally, Content Ideas and Marketing Ideas deliver that weekly hit.
The beauty of Substack is you can try a few, see what resonates, and adjust. Subscribe to 3-5 to start, give them a month to prove their value, then be ruthless about unsubscribing from ones that don’t deliver.
The newsletters worth keeping are the ones that make you better at your job – whether that’s giving you tactical advice you can use tomorrow, strategic thinking that changes your approach, or just reminding you why you chose this industry in the first place.
Most “types of content marketing” lists just dump content formats at you without explaining when you’d actually use them.
Blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, case studies, social posts – sure, these are all types of content. But knowing they exist doesn’t help you decide which ones to invest in.
The reality is that the right type depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Content that drives conversions looks different to content that builds brand awareness. Content that educates prospects about your product serves a different purpose to content that positions your brand in the market.
This post organises types of content marketing by purpose, with real examples of each type done well – so you can figure out which ones make sense for your strategy.
Looking for fresh ideas to level up your content marketing?
Subscribe to Content Ideas for one standout content marketing example delivered every two weeks, for your regular bout of inspiration.
When people talk about “types of content marketing,” they usually mean formats – blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics. Or they mean channels – SEO content, social media content, email content.
Those distinctions matter for execution. But they don’t help you decide what to create.
A more useful way to think about content types is by purpose: what are you actually trying to achieve?
Which is why I think distinction between product-led content and branded content types is the most important to delve into:
Product-led content exists to drive conversion and product education. It helps prospects understand your solution, evaluate alternatives, and make buying decisions. This content lives further down the funnel where people are actively researching solutions.
Branded contentexists to build awareness, visibility, and brand warmth. It positions your brand in the market, demonstrates your values and expertise, and creates connections with audiences who might not be ready to buy yet. This content lives higher in the funnel and focuses on building relationships rather than driving immediate conversions.
The same format can serve either purpose depending on how you approach it.
A video series could be product demos (product-led) or it could be interviews with industry leaders discussing broader challenges (branded).
A research report could compare solution categories to help prospects evaluate options (product-led) or it could analyse industry trends to position your brand as a thought leader (branded).
Most effective content strategies include both – just in different proportions depending on your goals, company context, ICP audience.
Below, I’ve organised 12 more specific types of content marketing under these two umbrellas. Each type includes what it is, when to use it, and real examples of brands doing it well.
Product-led content (for conversion and product education)
Product-led content exists to move prospects closer to buying.
Users are already aware they have a problem and are evaluating solutions, and your job is to help them make an informed decision (ideally in your favour).
Case studies showcase how real customers use your product and the results they achieved.
They work because prospects want proof that your solution actually delivers – not just features and promises, but evidence from someone like them who succeeded.
The strongest case studies focus on the customer’s story and challenges rather than your product features, with specific metrics that demonstrate impact.
Product education content teaches prospects and customers how to get value from your product.
This includes product demos or how to tutorials showing different ways to apply your solution, how-to guides for specific workflows, and educational resources that help users level up their skills.
Video or interactive demos work particularly well because they let prospects see the interface, explore workflows, and understand the user experience before committing.
The best demos focus on solving specific problems rather than touring every feature, and tutorials that teach prospects how to achieve something create value whilst showcasing your product’s capabilities.
This content serves prospects evaluating whether your product can solve their specific problem, and customers wanting to get more value from what they’ve already bought.
Examples:
Notion shares super short product video clips as LinkedIn posts highlighting specific features like keyboard shortcuts or workflow automations – each solving one problem in under 30 seconds.
Clay University is an entire educational platform with courses, tutorials, and use case examples teaching users what’s possible with Clay whilst naturally demonstrating the product’s capabilities.
User-generated content
User-generated content showcases what your customers create or achieve using your product. It works because prospects trust other users more than they trust your marketing, and seeing real people succeed with your product provides social proof that’s hard to replicate.
The strongest user-generated content makes customers the heroes, celebrating their work whilst naturally demonstrating what’s possible with your product.
Example: Lovable’s Discover page is a gallery of real projects people have built using their AI builder – you can browse and actually interact with functioning apps, whilst community members like projects to surface the most popular ones, creating a flywheel where user creations become the content library.
Competitor comparison content helps prospects evaluate you against alternatives they’re considering.
This includes “[Your product] vs [Competitor]” pages, “[Competitor] alternatives” listicles, and comparison guides that break down differences in features, pricing, and use cases.
These pages target high-intent prospects who are actively researching options, making them valuable for conversion – but they need to be credible rather than one-sided sales pitches.
Category education content helps prospects understand the solution category itself – not your specific product, but the broader options available for solving their problem.
This includes guides like “What is [category]” or “How to evaluate [solution type]” or “[Category] buyer’s guide.”
This content targets prospects earlier in their research, before they’ve narrowed down specific vendors. It builds trust by helping them make informed decisions rather than pushing your product immediately.
Free tools and calculators provide immediate value whilst capturing prospects who are showing early signs of the problem you solve. They work because they’re genuinely useful for a specific task right now – but that task often signals a bigger need developing.
The best tools solve problems your audience faces at the moment they’re starting to think about the broader challenge, creating natural touchpoints before they’re actively looking for paid solutions.
Examples:
Ravio created salary benchmark landing pages for every country, industry, and job role – when someone searches “UK salary benchmarks” or “India salary benchmarks“, they’re likely hiring and looking for data. Ravio gives them the free benchmark they need whilst introducing them to the product, and the programmatic SEO approach means they can scale these pages across every relevant search term.
Flow Agency released a free Looker Studio dashboard tracking traffic from ChatGPT and other LLM sources in Google Analytics – when marketers start tracking LLM traffic, they’re showing early interest in optimizing for AI search before they’re actively looking for services.
Greenly’s Legislation Checker helps companies understand which sustainability regulations apply to them – the moment they’re figuring out compliance requirements is exactly when they’re starting to realize they’ll need proper sustainability software to actually manage reporting and compliance.
Get fresh content marketing inspiration for your strategy – product-led, branded, and everything in between.
Branded content (for awareness, visibility, and brand warmth)
Branded content exists to build awareness and position your brand in the market.
It’s not about moving prospects to buy right now – it’s about creating connections with audiences who might not be ready to buy yet, demonstrating your values and expertise, and building the kind of brand warmth that eventually drives inbound interest.
Editorial content is journalism-style articles, essays, and stories. It could be industry analysis, cultural commentary, or explorations of topics your audience cares about.
The strongest editorial content could exist as an independent publication – it’s that good. It builds brand authority by demonstrating your perspective and values rather than promoting your features.
Example: WePresent by WeTransfer is a digital arts platform profiling artists across photography, film, music, design, and writing – with its own editorial team, commissioned work from established writers, and recurring series. It operates like genuine journalism rather than branded content, positioning WeTransfer as patrons of the arts through sustained investment in creative work.
Video content
Video content spans everything from short-form social clips to long-form documentary-style series. It works because video is highly engaging, lets you showcase personality, and creates stronger emotional connections than text alone.
The best branded video content entertains or educates first, with brand integration feeling natural rather than forced.
Examples: is a YouTube series where they film conversations with marketing leaders whilst doing activities they love – golfing in Vermont, skiing in Jackson Hole. The environment changes the conversation, creating episodic content viewers actually want to watch rather than typical business podcast footage. Read the full breakdown in Content Ideas – September 2025.
UserEvidence’s ‘The Long Game’ is a YouTube series where they film conversations with marketing leaders whilst doing activities they love – golfing in Vermont, skiing in Jackson Hole.
Pinpoint’s Red Flag, Green Flag series filmed talent acquisition professionals giving reactions to common candidate scenarios – creating distinctive short-form video for LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts, using a trending TikTok format for awareness.
Typeform’s Get Real campaign includes video responses from survey participants woven throughout their interactive landing page – making human voices the content itself, and lending itself to distribution via social media.
Podcast content
Podcasts let you have in-depth conversations that build deeper connections with your audience. They work well for demonstrating expertise, platforming interesting voices, and creating content people consume during commutes or workouts.
The strongest branded podcasts focus on topics your audience cares about rather than making every episode about your company.
Example: Greenly runs two separate climate podcasts under Leaf Media – CSO Connect for tactical insights from Chief Sustainability Officers, and Eco Echoes for inspirational conversations with climate activists.
Original research content
Original research content uses proprietary data from your product or surveys you’ve conducted to surface unique insights. It positions you as a thought leader whilst providing genuinely valuable data your audience can’t get elsewhere.
The strongest research focuses on insights that matter to your audience rather than just data that makes your product look good.
Examples:
Typeform’s ‘Get Real’ campaign surveyed 1,300 people about influencer marketing, then created an interactive landing page with video responses from 146 contributors woven throughout – making human voices part of the research itself whilst those contributors became natural distribution advocates for the findings.
Air’s Zoltair Speaks asked 20 marketing leaders for one prediction each about 2026, keeping it simple whilst using contributors as a distribution engine through paid partnerships sharing their takes on LinkedIn.
Ravio’s annual Compensation Trends report analyses hiring, attrition, salary changes, and shifts in benefits like equity using data from their platform. They collaborate with compensation experts, VCs, and consultants to bring human commentary into the data, supporting LinkedIn distribution through partnerships. The annual campaign has become a known moment HR teams plan around, repurposed into SEO blogs targeting trends keywords, and it’s something the brand is recognised for – whilst subtly demonstrating what their compensation data product can do.
Interactive content
Interactive content requires user input or participation, creating more engaging experiences than static text or images. This includes quizzes, assessments, interactive data visualisations, or tools that let users explore information dynamically.
It works because people engage more deeply with content they can interact with, it provides a memorable experience that links with the brand, and it often provides personalised value based on defined inputs.
Interactive formats can also enhance other content types – original research presented as an interactive experience rather than a static PDF creates more engagement and makes insights easier to explore.
Examples:
Agorapulse’s Social Trends dashboard updates monthly with fresh social media performance data that’s filterable by region and industry – giving social media managers real benchmarks they can return to regularly, whilst matching how their audience actually wants to consume data rather than releasing a static annual PDF.
Typeform’s ‘Get Real’ campaign presented their research as an interactive landing page where users could explore findings across five chapters with embedded video responses – creating a more engaging experience than a traditional report whilst making the insights easier to navigate.
Webinar series
Webinars are live or recorded sessions featuring conversations with industry experts, educational content, or deep-dives into research and insights. They work for building relationships with your audience whilst platforming voices they want to hear from.
Webinars can be one-off events tied to specific launches or campaigns, or recurring series with consistent formats and regular schedules that audiences come to expect – more like a TV show than scattered events.
Examples:
Sequel’s Game Changers has been running weekly since September 2022 – one recurring format with CMO conversations, repurposed into replays, written summaries, and LinkedIn clips. It’s their entire content focus, with its own logo and spot in the main navigation, plus they’ve expanded with a Masterclass Series underneath the same brand showing how companies use webinars in their marketing, and published several guides explaining how they built their CMO webinar series too.
Newsletter content is email-based content that delivers value directly to inboxes. The strongest newsletters provide value on the page itself rather than just being link roundups to content elsewhere.
They work because they land in a space people already check regularly, building ongoing relationships through consistent delivery of useful or entertaining content.
Examples:
Storyarb’s The Standard is designed like an old-school newspaper – each edition features a marketing leader sharing career-defining projects or trending topic takes, with repeatable sections like “From our marketing-inspo file to yours.” The newspaper aesthetic and “by Storyarb” framing creates editorial distance, making it feel like industry publication rather than vendor newsletter.
Content Ideas breaks down one standout B2B content marketing example every two weeks – analysing what they did, why it works, and what you can learn from it. The consistent format helps content marketers stay sharp on creative approaches whilst building a library of inspiration they can reference when planning their own B2B content marketing strategy.
Social media content
Social media content builds visibility and makes your brand feel human through regular presence on platforms your audience uses. This includes founder or employee posts, short-form video, influencer partnerships, or user-generated content campaigns.
The strongest social content feels native to the platform and provides entertainment or value rather than just promotional messages.
Examples:
Pinpoint’s Red Flag, Green Flag series filmed talent acquisition professionals at RecFest giving reactions to common candidate scenarios – creating distinctive short-form video content based on a trending format.
Beehiiv’s CEO Tyler Denk posts regular ‘building in public’ content whilst other team members post frequently, creating a flywheel where brand visibility makes users want to share their own Beehiiv experiences. From Content Ideas #1 – October 2024
Typeform worked with influencers who participated in their ‘Get Real’ research to distribute findings to their audiences through paid partnerships, turning contributors into authentic advocates.
Which types of content marketing should you use?
The types you choose depend entirely on what you’re trying to achieve.
If you need pipeline now, focus on product-led content that moves prospects closer to buying – case studies, product demos, competitor comparisons, tools that provide immediate value.
If you’re building for long-term brand recognition, invest in branded content that creates awareness and trust – editorial platforms, video series, original research, social presence (and choose based on a pre-defined content strategy that guides your decision-making).
The key is understanding the purpose each type serves, so you can make strategic decisions about where to invest rather than just copying what everyone else is doing.
Get fresh content marketing inspiration for your strategy – product-led, branded, and everything in between.
Subscribe to Content Ideas for one standout example of content that actually drives results, delivered every two weeks.
Content marketing is creating and sharing information or entertainment that provides genuine value for your target audience. This includes blogs, videos, research reports, social media posts, podcasts, and more. The primary goal is typically to build brand awareness and relationships with an engaged audience – so when they eventually need what you offer, you’re the first company they think of. However, content marketing can also have a direct impact on revenue, educating target users on a product, targeting high intent SEO keywords to raise visibility with in-market buyers, and supporting larger-scale campaigns.
Why is content marketing important?
Content marketing builds relationships that eventually drive revenue. Unlike paid ads that stop working when you stop paying, effective content continues delivering value over time – attracting prospects through search, demonstrating your expertise, and building trust before anyone’s ready to buy. When someone finally needs what you offer, you’ve already established yourself as the obvious choice.
What are the different types of content marketing?
Most people think of content types by format – blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, case studies, webinars, and so on. But a more useful way to categorise content is by purpose: what you’re actually trying to achieve.
Product-led content (like competitor comparisons, product demos, and case studies) exists to drive conversions by helping prospects evaluate solutions.
Branded content (like editorial platforms, video series, and original research) builds awareness and positions your brand in the market. Understanding this distinction helps you choose the right formats for your goals rather than just copying what everyone else creates.
How many types of content marketing are there?
There’s no definitive number – content marketing includes dozens of formats from blogs and videos to podcasts and interactive tools. What matters isn’t counting every possible format, but understanding what you’re trying to achieve so you can choose the types that actually serve your goals. Some frameworks organise content by format (blog vs video), others by channel (SEO vs social), but the most useful approach is organising by purpose – whether you’re trying to drive conversions (product-led content) or build brand awareness (branded content).
How do you know which content marketing types to use?
Start with what you’re trying to achieve. If you need pipeline now, focus on product-led content that moves prospects closer to buying. If you’re building long-term brand recognition, invest in branded content that creates awareness and trust. Most effective strategies include both types in different proportions depending on your business goals, audience, and where prospects are in their buying journey.
Most “creative content marketing examples” lists show you the same tired examples.
Spotify Wrapped. Duolingo’s TikTok account. Share a Coke.
These are the go-to examples for a reason – they encapsulate personalisation, humour, and shareability in B2C content marketing.
But what if you want fresh examples you haven’t come across a dozen times? The kind that make you think “oh, I hadn’t considered approaching it that way”? Or examples that work if you aren’t already a household name for consumers?
That’s what this list is for. Lesser-known creative gems that drive real impact and will spark ideas you can actually apply to your own content strategy thinking.
Here are 10 examples that made me rethink what’s possible with content marketing.
Want examples like these delivered to your inbox?
With This Month In Content you’ll get one creative content marketing example straight to your inbox every two weeks, for never-ending inspiration.
🔷 Brand name: Typeform 🏭 What they do: Survey and form software 📝 Content type: Original research, interactive content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): LinkedIn (organic and paid)
Original research content usually follows a predictable pattern: conduct a survey, create a comprehensive PDF report, gate it behind a form – and the risk is that users flick through once and it disappears into their download folder forever.
They surveyed 1,300 influencers, marketers, and content consumers about the reality of influencer marketing – what actually works, what feels fake, where the industry’s biggest challenges lie. And instead of a static report, they created an interactive landing page presenting key themes across five ‘chapters’, featuring quotes and even little video clips from survey respondents.
The survey itself created shareable moments – video responses and data insights that readers would naturally want to share on social media.
And contributors became natural advocates because they were featured in the content too, with Typeform also working with influencers to distribute the report to their audiences, whilst employees amplified it too.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
The format mirrors Typeform’s product – their tool is a survey platform with interactive capabilities, so their content is an interactive experience too. That consistency reinforces what their product offers whilst matching how audiences actually want to consume data.
Instead of sterile charts and graphs, you’re hearing directly from the people surveyed. The way they designed their survey – asking for video responses – created shareable moments from the start. Those 146 contributors would naturally want to share content they were featured in, so distribution became built-in. Typeform then amplified that organic momentum through influencer partnerships, turning contributors into a distribution engine that felt authentic rather than forced.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
When you’re gathering research or insights, could you make the human voices part of the content itself rather than just becoming a data point in the analysis?
🔷 Brand name: WeTransfer 🏭 What they do: File sharing software 📝 Content type: Editorial content, branded content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): Newsletter, events, partnerships, social media
When I first discovered WePresent years ago, I genuinely didn’t realise it was content marketing. It looked like an independent culture magazine – stunning photography, interviews with artists across every creative medium, stories from creators all over the world.
Then I noticed the “by WeTransfer” in the corner.
WePresent launched in 2018 as WeTransfer’s digital arts platform, profiling artists from across the world – photographers, filmmakers, musicians, designers, writers. Every feature includes interviews delving into the thinking behind their work.
It operates like genuine journalism, not like a company blog. WePresent has its own editorial team led by Editor-in-Chief Holly Fraser, creating editorial content, commissioning original work, and running recurring series like “Learn from the Best” with manifestos from well-respected creatives.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
WeTransfer positions themselves as patrons of the arts through sustained commitment to this project.
WePresent could exist as an independent publication. The editorial quality, the depth of artist profiles, the commissioning of original work – the content stands on its own merit.
That builds brand authority in a way product content never could – proving your values and relevance through investment in the work that matters to your audience.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
If you completely forgot about product connection and focused purely on what your audience cares about, what content would you create just to entertain, educate, or inspire them?
3. Lovable’s Discover page
🔷 Brand name: Lovable 🏭 What they do: AI development tools 📝 Content type: User-generated content, interactive content, BOFU content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): Community sharing, SEO
Lovable is an AI builder that lets non-coders create apps, tools, and websites through conversation with AI. Their monumental growth over the past year has been driven by content and community – and their Discover page embodies both.
Instead of a traditional blog or resource centre, their main website navigation has just one content destination: Discover. Click in and you’re browsing real projects people have built – an event marketing platform, a personal finance tracker, a restaurant booking site, organised into sections like “apps for builders” or “most loved by the community.”
And you can actually interact with each one. Click into Attendflow’s “event marketing made simple” website, for instance, and you’re using a functioning website someone built with Lovable.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
Lovable’s product is inherently shareable – people want to show off what they’ve created. The Discover page surfaces those creations directly on their website, reinforcing what’s already happening organically. When users see their projects featured publicly, it validates the community they’re part of, and when new visitors see what others have built, they want to create their own. Builds inspire more builds, which get shared, which inspire even more.
Plus, the examples are the product in action.
Instead of blog posts explaining what Lovable can do, you’re seeing real user projects you can actually interact with. Seeing someone else’s functioning event platform makes you think “I could do that too” – you’re seeing proof that someone like you already succeeded.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
If you have a product that produces something (reports, designs, websites, whatever), could you create a “built with [your tool]” showcase that turns user output into your content library?
4. UserEvidence’s The Long Game
🔷 Brand name: UserEvidence 🏭 What they do: Customer evidence platform 📝 Content type: Video content, branded content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): YouTube, LinkedIn
Most business podcasts feel like two people reading from scripts in a studio. UserEvidence ditched that format entirely for ‘The Long Game’ – a YouTube series where Mark Huber films real conversations with marketing leaders whilst they’re doing activities they love.
Season 1 featured Dave Gerhardt golfing in Vermont. Season 2 saw Mark hitting the slopes with UserEvidence’s own CEO, Evan Huck. Each season spans 4-5 episodes, creating an episodic journey viewers follow from start to finish.
When you’re in someone’s hometown, walking between ski runs or waiting for them to tee off, the conversation flows differently. An avalanche story comes up because you’re literally on the mountain where it happened – you’re not just listening to an anecdote in a studio, you’re there reliving it with them.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
There’s a big difference between asking a marketing leader to do another podcast interview versus asking if you can come film them playing golf in Vermont or skiing in Jackson Hole. One feels like work, the other feels like an experience worth bragging about. So when Dave or Evan share these episodes on LinkedIn, they’re not sharing yet another podcast appearance – they’re sharing this cool, creative project they got to be part of.
Plus, the episodic structure makes people come back. Most content is one-off pieces – a blog, a report, a webinar. When you create a series with multiple episodes per season, viewers get invested and want to see what happens next, more like a TV show than typical branded content.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
What would it look like to take your content format somewhere unexpected – literally and conceptually – where the environment itself changes the conversation?
🔷 Brand name: Agorapulse 🏭 What they do: Social media management software 📝 Content type: Original research, interactive content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): SEO, LinkedIn
The typical approach to original research is one-and-done: release an annual report, promote it briefly, then let it gather dust until it’s time for the next edition.
Agorapulse takes a different approach with their Social Trends landing page, updating the same dashboard monthly with fresh social media performance data from their platform – average engagement rates, top-performing content types, best posting times, all filterable by region and industry across Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
You can view data from the last 4 weeks or look back further to see trends from any month in the past year. And they create social content off the back of it too – like LinkedIn carousels on the best day to post for maximum engagement, using fresh data from the dashboard.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
Social media managers constantly ask “what’s typical performance?” or “are my engagement rates normal for my industry?” Agorapulse answers that question with real benchmarks that are genuinely useful, which means people bookmark it and return to it.
Every month when they update the dashboard, they can create new social posts pulling the latest findings. “Best day to post on LinkedIn this month” feels timely because it is – not repurposing the same report over and over, but genuinely fresh insights each time.
Plus, the format mirrors the product. Most original research becomes a static PDF report, but Agorapulse is a social media management platform with real-time insights – so their content is a dashboard too. That consistency reinforces what their product offers whilst matching how their audience actually wants to consume data.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
If you have original data in your product, would an always-on dashboard that updates regularly be more valuable to your audience than a one-time report?
Want creative content examples like these, on the regular?
Subscribe to This Month In Content for one standout content marketing example straight to your inbox every two weeks.
🔷 Brand name: Pinpoint 🏭 What they do: Applicant tracking software 📝 Content type: Video content, social media content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts
With more brands using AI to churn out generic educational content, creative content series are becoming one of the few ways to build a defensible brand moat.
Pinpoint’s Red Flag, Green Flag is exactly that kind of creative series thinking. The Pinpoint team filmed talent acquisition professionals during the RecFest conference giving their ‘red flag or green flag’ reactions to common candidate scenarios – like “asks about salary in the first 5 minutes” or “refers to their team as ‘work fam'”.
The result is a set of videos containing genuine and unscripted responses – ranging from thoughtful analysis to visceral “big red flag” reactions.
They’re situations that Pinpoint’s audience can instantly relate to, with the comments making it clear the discussions are resonating.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
This series hits the sweet spot of offering educational insights into how others approach hiring challenges whilst also being genuinely entertaining. It addresses daily frustrations, validates experiences, and provides insider knowledge that only industry practitioners would fully appreciate – the content equivalent of overhearing colleagues discussing work problems, immediately engaging because it’s so relatable.
And the videos were filmed at RecFest UK (a large-scale event for talent acquisition professionals), which means the Pinpoint team were able to leverage their audience already being in-person, build relationships through a fun activity rather than a sales-focused stall, and create natural content momentum through linking to the event.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
What would a short-form video series that aimed to entertain through relatable, resonant scenarios look like for your audience?
🔷 Brand name: Air 🏭 What they do: Creative operations platform 📝 Content type: Original research, branded content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): LinkedIn, influencer partnerships
Every year we see ‘2026 predictions’ or ‘2026 trends’ reports by a myriad of brands. Most are forgettable – the same regurgitated trends you’ve seen everywhere else, dressed up with slightly different statistics.
Air’s Zoltair Speaks does it differently. The name alone – a reference to the fortune-telling machine from the film Big – tells you they’re not taking this too seriously. In the introduction, Head of Content Ariel Ruben jokes about “the inevitable onslaught of 2026 prediction reports.” They know it’s overdone, and they’re leaning into it.
But what I really like is how simple they kept the actual content – asking 20 marketing leaders for one honest take each on what they’ll be focusing on in 2026, with those contributors then becoming their distribution engine through sharing their take on LinkedIn in a paid partnership.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
By acknowledging upfront that predictions reports are overdone, Air immediately differentiates themselves. The Zoltar reference reinforces this – it’s whimsical and nostalgic (appeals to marketers who appreciate creative references), thematically perfect (fortune teller = predictions), and shows Air’s brand voice is playful rather than corporate.
Plus, amplifying diverse voices builds more credibility than claiming to have all the answers yourself. By featuring 20 marketing leaders, Air created 20 people incentivised to share the report with their own audiences, turning contributors into natural advocates.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
Are you overcomplicating your thought leadership content – have you got the right interesting voices to truly influence your audience?
🔷 Brand name: Storyarb 🏭 What they do: Content agency 📝 Content type: Newsletter content, editorial content, branded content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): Email, LinkedIn
If we’re really honest with ourselves, most company newsletters end up feeling like thinly veiled promotion. They exist to nudge readers towards services or products, and readers can smell it from the subject line.
Storyarb’s The Standard is a company newsletter done differently. They designed it like an old-school newspaper – a choice that immediately signals what this is: editorial content, not marketing collateral. Each edition follows a consistent format with a headline piece from a marketing leader weighing in on trending topics or hard-won lessons, followed by repeatable sections like “From our marketing-inspo file to yours.”
Some editions feature Storyarb’s own team discussing topics like AI implementation, but the strongest ones bring in external marketing leaders to share career-defining projects. Take their edition featuring Morgan Selzer, Chief Content Officer at Headspace, sharing the inside story of their Sesame Street collaboration – it’s the kind of practitioner insight you might expect from an industry publication, not a vendor newsletter.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
The newspaper aesthetic speaks directly to who their audience is. Naming it “The Standard” and designing it like a newspaper immediately signals editorial content for people who appreciate that format. For a content agency whose business is editorial newsletters and thought leadership, this alignment is perfect – but it also taps into something deeper, with plenty of content marketers having journalism backgrounds or growing up dreaming of working on publications like that.
Plus, the “by Storyarb” framing creates crucial editorial distance. It’s not “The Storyarb Newsletter” – it’s The Standard, brought to you by Storyarb. The content stands on its own as valuable even if you never engage with Storyarb as a vendor.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
Does your content format and branding reflect what your business does and who your audience is – or does it look like every other company newsletter?
9. Sequel’s Game Changers
🔷 Brand name: Sequel 🏭 What they do: Webinar software 📝 Content type: Webinar series, video content, BOFU content, branded content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): Email, thought leader partnerships, LinkedIn
Most content teams are drowning in the hamster wheel – trying to be everywhere, doing everything, barely keeping up.
Sequel took the opposite approach with their Game Changers series: one recurring webinar format with conversations with CMOs and marketing leaders, same structure each time, same type of guest, running weekly (ish) since September 2022 and repurposed into replays, written summaries, and LinkedIn clips.
For a webinar software company, this makes perfect sense as the place to double down – it provides genuine value for their marketing audience whilst naturally demonstrating their product working.
And Game Changers now has its own logo, its own spot in the main navigation, its own recognisable identity. From the CMO webinar series, they expanded by adding the Masterclass Series underneath the same Game Changers brand – mid-funnel content showing how other companies use webinars in their marketing.
They’ve also published multiple guides explaining how they built Game Changers itself, providing genuine value to their audience whilst naturally showcasing their expertise.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
Instead of spreading themselves thin trying to be present on every platform with every content format, they focused on building one recognisable, valuable series and making it excellent.
That focus means they can keep improving it, keep showing up consistently, and keep building momentum rather than constantly starting from scratch with new formats.
Plus, by establishing Game Changers as its own brand identity rather than just “Sequel webinars,” they created space to add more series underneath that umbrella. The CMO Series and Masterclass Series feel connected but serve different purposes – top-of-funnel thought leadership and mid-funnel demand generation working together under one recognisable content mini-brand.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
What would happen if you stopped trying to be everywhere and just focused on doing one content series exceptionally well?
10. Greenly’s Leaf Media
🔷 Brand name: Greenly 🏭 What they do: Business sustainability software 📝 Content type: Video content, podcast content 📢 Core distribution channel(s): YouTube, Spotify, LinkedIn, TikTok
Most content teams struggle to maintain one podcast consistently. So when I saw Greenly running two separate climate podcasts under the same brand, I was sceptical – I’m a big believer in focus, doing less, doing it well.
But in this case, the separation actually serves their audience better.
CSO Connect interviews Chief Sustainability Officers about strategy, challenges, career paths – the tactical, career-focused podcast.
Eco Echoes features leading voices in the climate space like Clover Hogan and Mike Berners-Lee sharing their vision for global change – the inspirational, personal podcast.
They could’ve combined them into one “Greenly’s Climate Podcast” – but a CSO discussing compliance deadlines and an activist sharing their vision for systemic change serve completely different needs.
Both podcasts live under Leaf Media by Greenly – a mini-brand with its own microsite, social channels, and editorial identity distinct from their core product.
Why it’s a great example of creative content marketing
One is a career podcast you listen to for tactical insights during work hours. The other is for inspiration during your commute or downtime. Different purposes, different emotional spaces, different value propositions – keeping them separate means each can serve its specific audience moment better.
The separated mini-brand also creates editorial distance. Leaf Media by Greenly positions the content as educational media first, company marketing second.
Actionable insight for your next campaign
Do your content series have a clear purpose, or are you trying to cover everything in one podcast/blog/webinar series?
Which creative content marketing example should inspire your next campaign?
The examples here span different formats, channels, and approaches – from editorial platforms to interactive dashboards to video series to crowdsourced research reports.
What they share is creative thinking that goes beyond “let’s write another blog post” or “let’s chop up our webinar into clips.”
These brands found formats that genuinely serve their audience, align with their product or values, and create something memorable in a sea of forgettable content.
Looking for more content marketing inspiration?
Subscribe to This Month In Content for creative content marketing examples that’ll inspire your next campaign, delivered every two weeks.
Creative content marketing goes beyond standard blog posts and generic social media content to create memorable experiences that genuinely engage your audience – fresh formats and unexpected approaches that cut through the noise. It’s content that makes people think “oh, I hadn’t considered approaching it that way” – like Typeform’s interactive research landing page instead of a static PDF report, or UserEvidence filming marketing conversations on ski slopes rather than in a studio.
What are examples of content marketing?
Content marketing includes everything from blogs and videos to podcasts, research reports, newsletters, interactive tools, and social media content. Strong examples include WePresent’s editorial platform profiling artists worldwide, Lovable’s Discover page showcasing real user projects you can interact with, Agorapulse’s monthly-updated social trends dashboard, and Pinpoint’s Red Flag, Green Flag video series filmed at industry events. What makes content marketing effective isn’t the format itself – it’s whether it provides genuine value to your audience whilst building trust in your brand.
What is an example of a creative marketing strategy?
Sequel’s Game Changers strategy is a brilliant example of creative focus. Rather than spreading themselves thin across multiple formats and channels, they built one recurring webinar series with CMO conversations that’s been running since 2022. They gave it its own logo and navigation spot, expanded it into a mini-brand with a Masterclass Series underneath, and published guides showing how they built it. The strategy works because they committed fully to one format that aligns with their product (webinar software) and consistently delivers value to their audience – proving that doing less but doing it exceptionally well often beats trying to be everywhere at once.
What are some examples of successful content marketing?
Successful content marketing delivers value whilst naturally showcasing what makes a brand different. Typeform’s Get Real campaign surveyed 1,300 people about influencer marketing and created an interactive landing page with embedded video responses, sparking organic LinkedIn conversations whilst demonstrating their survey platform’s capabilities. Air’s Zoltair Speaks asked 20 marketing leaders for one prediction each about 2026, keeping it simple whilst using contributors as a distribution engine. Greenly runs two separate climate podcasts under Leaf Media serving different audience needs. What makes these successful is that they provide genuine value for a specific target audience, even if you never become a customer – which is exactly what builds long-term brand trust and awareness.
What are some video content marketing examples?
UserEvidence’s The Long Game films conversations with marketing leaders whilst they’re golfing or skiing, creating episodic content viewers actually want to watch rather than typical business podcast footage. Pinpoint’s Red Flag, Green Flag series filmed talent acquisition professionals at an industry event giving reactions to common candidate scenarios – creating distinctive short-form video for LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts. Both examples show how video content works best when the environment or format itself changes the conversation, making it more engaging than standard talking-head interviews.
What are some evergreen content marketing examples?
Evergreen content remains valuable and relevant over time. Agorapulse’s Social Trends dashboard is evergreen infrastructure that updates monthly with fresh data – the page itself continues driving consistent traffic whilst the data stays current. Lovable’s Discover page showcases user-created projects that demonstrate what’s possible with their platform, with new examples added regularly whilst older ones remain accessible. The key to evergreen content is creating resources people return to repeatedly, whether that’s through genuinely useful information or a format that stays relevant even as specific examples within it change.
What are some branded content marketing examples?
Branded content builds awareness and positions your brand rather than driving immediate conversions. WePresent by WeTransfer operates like an independent culture magazine profiling artists worldwide, with its own editorial team and commissioned work from established writers. Storyarb’s The Standard newsletter is designed like a newspaper featuring marketing leaders sharing career-defining projects, creating editorial distance through the “by Storyarb” framing. Greenly’s Leaf Media runs two climate podcasts under a separate mini-brand with its own microsite and social channels. These examples show how effective branded content could exist independently whilst still building authority for the company behind it.
What are some interactive content marketing examples?
Interactive content requires user participation, creating more engaging experiences than static text or images. Typeform’s Get Real campaign presented research as an interactive landing page where users could explore findings across five chapters with embedded video responses – far more engaging than a traditional PDF report. Agorapulse’s Social Trends dashboard lets users filter social media performance data by region and industry, making insights easier to explore than a static report. Lovable’s Discover page allows visitors to actually interact with functioning apps and websites that users built with their platform. Interactive content works because people engage more deeply with content they can explore or manipulate themselves.
For years, whenever I asked friends and colleagues for content marketing newsletter recommendations, the answer was always the same.
HubSpot’s newsletters or Seth Godin’s daily blog.
Both are solid.
But what if you want more than that?
What if you want the real lessons – how your peers are dealing with the same problems you’re wrestling with, or what creative approaches are working for them?
That’s what I’m looking for in a newsletter that’s allowed to take up valuable real estate in my inbox.
If you’re the same, I’ve compiled for you the 12 content marketing newsletters I actually read when they land, the ones that make me a better content marketer.
Superpath for tapping into a community of practitioners
Growth Unhinged for startup content marketers who need to demonstrate ROI
Content Ideas
Best for: Creative content examples for regular inspiration
Content Ideas is my own pet substack project, and I started it because I’m constantly looking for great content marketing examples myself.
How are my content peers approaching their work? What cool, creative things are brands doing? How could I level up what I’m doing in my own work?
Every edition covers one standout B2B content marketing example – everything from creative video series to original research campaigns to SEO content that actually works.
It’s bi-weekly, and each edition breaks down not just what they did, but why it works and what you can learn from it – building a library of the best content examples out there, so you’ve always got inspiration on-hand when you need it.
Best for: Learning from someone doing the hard work alongside you
Content Folks is a newsletter by Fio Dossetto, Brand & Content Lead at Float and it reads like getting mentorship from someone who’s in the trenches with you.
Short lessons, practical examples, and post-it note insights about content marketing.
Recent editions have covered everything from how to approach competitor comparison listicles and how often to update them for SEO (edition 99) to finding content/market fit as a startup brand (edition 91).
It’s the kind of advice that feels like it came from someone who just figured something out and wanted to share it whilst it was still fresh.
Contentious
Best for: Content marketers navigating the realities of working in-house at a startup
Contentious is a newsletter by Lauren Lang, currently Marketing Director at Uplevel. It tackles the messy, real scenarios we all face working in content, with actionable takeaways based on what she’s found works across the course of her career.
Her recent edition on content stakeholders was one I immediately saved – we’ve all been in that meeting where stakeholders say content matters but won’t actually engage when you need their expertise. Her advice? “Reverse engineer for conversion” i.e. stop explaining why collaborating on content is important and start showing them what’s in it for them.
Inside Product-led Content
Best for: Creating product-led content that doesn’t feel salesy
Masooma Memon is the expert on product-led content for SaaS, and her newsletter tackles one of the hardest challenges in content marketing: how do you naturally weave your product into content without making readers run for the hills?
Each edition breaks down real examples of product-led content done well, plus templates and frameworks to help you scale production (even with freelance writers who don’t know your product inside out).
MKT1 is a newsletter by Emily Kramer, who has been leading marketing at some of the fastest-growing B2B startups over the past 15+ years.
Now she shares what she’s learned through MKT1 – and whilst it’s not content marketing specific, it’s essential reading if you want to understand how content fits into the wider marketing organisation, especially if you work in the startup space.
WePresent isn’t a content marketing newsletter – it’s WeTransfer’s digital arts platform showcasing creative work from photographers, designers, filmmakers, writers, and artists worldwide.
But that’s precisely why I’m including it.
The WePresent monthly newsletter shares the latest stories with a different theme each month. It’s an absolute joy to get in your inbox – the design, the editorial writing, the creativity on display.
If you’re a content marketer with creative tendencies, or you just need regular reminders that marketing content can be more than SEO blogs, subscribe to this one.
Animalz Content Marketing Newsletter
Best for: Insider insights from an agency working with top B2B brands
Animalz is a content agency for B2B SaaS, and their newsletter shares what they’re learning from working with some of the world’s best startups and tech companies.
It’s the kind of perspective you’d get if you had a content team to bounce ideas off – so it’s particularly valuable if you’re a team of one wanting to get peer perspectives on what works.
The Daily Carnage
Best for: Staying current without spending hours reading
If you’re the type who needs a quick daily hit of what’s happening in marketing, The Daily Carnage is your newsletter.
It lands several times a week with a consistent format that makes it easy to scan. You’ll always get “Be in the Know” (the latest content news and developments), a tactical lesson or strategy, an audience poll showing how the community is approaching things – then plus rotating sections like campaign examples worth studying or tools to check out.
Perfect for reading between gym sets or during that mid-afternoon slump.
Copyblogger Newsletter
Best for: Content marketers who see writing as their craft
Copyblogger has been around since 2006, helping people master using words to drive business results.
Their weekly newsletter keeps you up to date with content across their platforms – personal blogs from Tim Stoddart and Charles Miller covering topics like becoming a better copywriter or growing a social media following from scratch.
It’s particularly useful if you’ve got ambitions to freelance or if you’re the kind of content marketer who always wanted to be a writer first – and with a backlog of 3,000+ blogs, if you haven’t heard of them yet, there’s a lot to sink your teeth into.
Content Marketing Institute newsletters
Best for: Staying current on industry shifts and developments
CMI is the stalwart of content marketing – they run certifications and have been publishing content marketing resources for years.
They offer three newsletters: daily (their latest article), weekly (roundup of recent articles), and monthly (CCO Monthly with in-depth articles for content leaders).
This is the one for knowing what all the other content marketers know. How-tos, examples from experts and peers, new trends and approaches, content news. It’s the base-level knowledge you probably should have.
Superpath Newsletter
Best for: Content marketers who want to tap into a community of practitioners
Superpath is a community for content marketers, and their newsletter (written by Eric Doty, Community Manager and Content Lead at Dock) gives you a window into what’s happening in that community.
You’ll get updates on open roles, events, AMAs, the best Slack conversations from the past month, surveys, and new blog posts.
It’s less about one person’s perspective and more about collective knowledge – what are content marketers actually talking about and working on right now?
Growth Unhinged
Best for: Startup content marketers who need to demonstrate ROI
Kyle Poyar is co-founder and operating partner at Tremont, a VC firm backing enterprise SaaS and AI companies. His Growth Unhinged newsletter isn’t content-focused – it’s broader marketing and growth context – but that’s exactly why it’s valuable for content marketers working in startups.
If you need to connect content to wider company growth, get a seat at the table, or understand how traffic and engagement metrics are shifting, this one’s essential reading.
Which content marketing newsletter should you subscribe to?
Honestly? Try them all.
I know that sounds excessive, and your inbox will hate you for it. But different perspectives and experiences make you better at what you do. Subscribe, give each one a few editions to prove itself, then be ruthless about unsubscribing from the ones that don’t deliver.
The newsletters that you don’t unsubscribe to are the ones teaching you something, making you think differently, or giving you ideas you can actually use – and there you have it, you’ve got your ones worth keeping.
FAQs
What are the best newsletters to subscribe to for content marketers?
The best content marketing newsletters depend on what you need. If you want practical lessons from someone doing the work, try Content Folks or Contentious. For creative inspiration and standout examples, Content Ideas breaks down one brilliant campaign every two weeks. If you’re after strategic thinking for B2B startups, MKT1 covers marketing leadership. And if you just want to stay current without spending hours reading, The Daily Carnage delivers quick snapshots several times a week. Subscribe to a few, give them a month to prove their value, then ruthlessly unsubscribe from ones that don’t deliver.
How many content marketing newsletters should I subscribe to?
Start with 3-5 and adjust from there. You want enough variety to get different perspectives and avoid echo chambers, but not so many that you’re drowning in unread emails. The right number depends on how much time you actually have to read them – it’s better to genuinely engage with three newsletters than skim ten and retain nothing. If you’re consistently deleting newsletters without reading them, you’re subscribed to too many.
What’s the difference between a content marketing newsletter and a blog?
A newsletter lands directly in your inbox on a regular schedule, whilst a blog lives on a website that you visit when you want. Newsletters feel more personal and create ongoing relationships through consistent delivery, whilst blogs are better for evergreen content you can search for and reference later. The best newsletters provide value on the page itself rather than just linking to blog content elsewhere – though many brands use both formats to serve different purposes in their content strategy.
Are newsletters content marketing?
Yes. Newsletters are a form of content marketing when they’re used to build relationships with an audience, demonstrate expertise, or drive business goals. They deliver value directly to subscribers’ inboxes, building trust and staying top of mind. Whether a newsletter is content marketing depends on its purpose – a purely promotional email isn’t content marketing, but a newsletter that educates, entertains, or provides genuine value to subscribers absolutely is.
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