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Behind every breakout brand is a breakout marketing strategy.
Because where you see a success story today, there was once a marketing team crafting that story.
But what does it take to succeed among startups or, better yet, compete with companies with decades of success?
Below, we tell the stories of how four companies went from rookies to all-stars in a marketing minute, along with examples of what makes them stand out today. Some used influencers to build engagement, while others tapped LinkedIn to generate site visits.
Interestingly, regardless of whether they’re a DTC company, a health tech company, an apparel brand, or a B2B platform, they all have one thing in common: their content is about connecting to consumers, not connecting to their products.
See what content strategies these brands have used to help them build awareness, create community, and gain a significant following.
Glossier
Glossier is an online skincare and beauty brand that has developed a glowing reputation—not just for its products but also for its marketing. Given how successful Glossier is today, it may surprise you that the brand is still relatively new, having only launched in 2014.
But Glossier came in hot right from the beginning, boasting a community of 18,000 Instagram followers before launching their first product. Just one decade later, Glossier has already amassed three million followers and even inspired a Reddit thread of customers nostalgic over its 2014 launch.
Glossier’s original premise was to bring back the basics of beauty, and its marketing strategy takes a similar approach, focusing on the basics like web design, word-of-mouth, experiential, and content marketing. Their content is particularly consumer-centric, enabling the brand to build the loyal following it’s known for.
It does this by celebrating its community over its products. For example, Glossier’s most popular blog on their editorial site, Into the Gloss, has nothing to do with skincare and instead focuses on how to be a person who has their life together. Their channels also frequently include user-generated content.
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Like your favorite moisturizer, Glossier’s YouTube series of real women getting ready is incredibly refreshing. The series has featured creative directors, magazine editors, stylists, and, yes, celebrities like Olivia Rodrigo.
The trend of “Get Ready With Me” videos is generally seen as comforting, relatable, and mundane. And Glossier’s approach is no exception. Leaning into the social trend works so well for Glossier because it aligns so well with what Glossier is all about, making it feel like a natural extension of the brand.
Beyond consistently high views, how do we know the approach works? The comment section. While many videos—whether on YouTube or TikTok—are often full of negativity, Glossier’s videos teem with “love her!!” and other comments celebrating the people behind the content.
✌️ Related Reading: 7 Cultural Trends for 2024 and Beyond
Strawberry Milk Mob
Strawberry Milk Mob is an apparel company with a simple (but adorable) mission: “cute bikinis for cute prices”. Founded in 2018 by Georgia Costello, Strawberry Milk Mob’s story is a masterclass on building a viral yet personable brand.
The host of the “Creators Are Brands” podcast gives the backstory of when Georgia first used TikTok to promote her swimwear brand. She quickly learned viewers didn’t want to be sold to when her videos weren’t connecting.
So Georgia switched things up. She decided to stop overthinking and let her personality shine, with videos giving obscure peeks into her life and humorous takes on dating. Her new strategy worked. And just like the hit 90s song, her (strawberry) milkshake brought all the followers (and Brad) to the TikTok yard.
But it wasn’t just Georgia (aka strawberrymilkmob) that people came to know and love, but her sisters, too. Meet Georgia’s siblings— Sydney (aka coconutmilkmob) and Sabrina (aka blueberrymilkmob) — who help run the business and are vital parts of the fruity social sensation. Together, the three sisters have nearly three million followers on TikTok alone.
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When looking for best-in-class content examples, Strawberry Milk Mob’s unscripted videos are ripe for the picking. One B2B marketer called Georgia’s approach her Roman Empire. A DTC founder mused that what works so well for Strawberry Milk Mob is that it feels like Georgia, Sydney, and Sabrina simply have fun creating videos.
And we couldn’t agree more! We love how Georgia has built a mega-successful swimwear and equally successful personal brand by doing things as mundane yet lovable as making waffles.
🤪 Related Reading: Marketers: Weird Is Back, Embrace the Absurd
Gong
Gong.io is a revenue intelligence platform founded in 2015 that uses proprietary AI technology to help organizations harness customer interactions. And they use content marketing to get the word out.
Gong is estimated to receive 7.4 million visits/year, over 60% of which comes from direct traffic.
That’s a big deal, especially when industry benchmarks sit at 20.93%.
What Gong has always done well is producing loads of good content. Gong gives site visitors access to a wide array of guides, easy-to-use templates, award opportunities, and a newsletter with data-backed insights. (For anyone who’s read They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer, you’d likely agree Marcus Sheridan would be positively beaming about their approach.)
Gong expertly repurposes content for LinkedIn, which its known for posting more often than most brands (14/week), using formatting techniques like one-liners, all caps, and emojis, and including bright colors to break up the monotony in LinkedIn feeds.
⚡Read more about Gong’s best-in-class marketing.
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LinkedIn is undoubtedly where Gong shines brightest. But what we think Gong performs best on LinkedIn is add humor.
Yes, it provides data-backed insights and insightful guides that are generally helpful to sales leaders. But all of that heavy information is much more palatable when you mix it up with some laughs, like:
Why? Work-related humor makes people feel seen and understood rather than sold to. With posts like this, it’s like Gong truly understands the day-to-day life of their target audience.
Humor is also what most consumers want.
72% of people would choose a humorous brand over the competition.
(No wonder Gong has 259,000+ followers on LinkedIn.)
🎭 Related Reading: Cue the Comedy: 3 Brand Campaigns Making People Laugh in 2024
Hims & Hers
Hims & Hers is a health and wellness platform on a mission to help the world feel great. Its welcoming approach toward brand awareness gets it closer to that mission every day.
Back in 2019 (two years after launching), Hims & Hers former CMO told The Drum that their marketing strategy was “one of pure experimentation” and that experimentation was a pillar of the young startup.
They’d be honored as the D-To-C Brand of the Year by Ad Age just two years later for giving a digitally native generation a new way to support their well-being. And two years after that? Hims & Hers would be at the Super Bowl (a dream for most marketers) with a spot raising awareness on men’s healthcare.
While Hims & Hers has generally adopted a channel-agnostic approach to its content, it has excelled in areas like influencer marketing. By collaborating with diverse influencers and celebrities across various life stages, backgrounds, and follower counts, people can see themselves and their health concerns in their content—even in Jennifer Lopez.
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In a world where 65% of people have used the internet to self-diagnose themselves, and 74% of those who do say searching for their symptoms made them worry more about their health, having a trustworthy space to turn for health questions outside of Google is so needed.
That’s why our favorite content from Hims & Hers is Take Care, a medically-backed blog that answers everyday health questions. Take Care offers a trusted source of information for consumers to answer everything from whether Ozempic affects your period to whether oversleeping is bad.
Psst. Want to dig into more best-in-class marketing? Check out springboard’s Top 50 Content Marketing Brands.
