Given the broad range of professionals who rely on Notion for content marketing and other purposes, it’s no surprise that the platform has become quite popular. This case study examines how Notion’s content marketing strategy has helped it to gain such a large and diverse following.
About Notion
Notion is a productivity and collaboration workspace that offers a variety of tools for both teams and individuals. Notion was created to minimize the need to have multiple tabs and tools open at once, and to provide a central place for all aspects of project management. This is similar to what Narrato does as a content workflow tool for content teams.
Notion has built a strong brand and foundation for itself in the SaaS industry through its content. Content is key on Notion’s website, from the story on the ‘About Us’ page to every article on the blog. This sets them apart from most other SaaS businesses in terms of quality content.
Notion has a very diverse group of users, from many different industries and professions. They have managed to keep this large and varied group engaged with their content marketing strategy. Let’s take a closer look at how they do this.
The Notion Content Marketing Strategy
A Horizontal Content Marketing Approach
Notion’s target audience is very diverse, so its product and marketing efforts have had to expand to cover a lot of ground. The marketers at Notion can’t afford to focus their content creation on any one area or group of people. This is why their blog and social media are filled with content aimed at different audience segments and personas, all of which is equally interesting.
Notion’s marketing team saw that a diverse audience brought new opportunities, but also realized that they would need to produce content to answer numerous questions. With so many ways to use the tool, people might have trouble understanding it. This required Notion to be especially careful when planning their content, and to always be on the lookout for ways to improve it.
Audience Segmentation and Content Planning
At first, the content on Notion’s site was mostly educational and helpful. However, they realized that they would need more than just educational content to reach more people. So, in 2020 they increased their output of blog posts by fifty times. Cory Etzkorn, a designer and engineer at Notion, says that this was when their content marketing really took off. Before then, they had mostly focused on customer support and help articles.
When content marketers realized the growing importance of marketing content, they respond by increasing blog production, creating more guides for potential users, and adding new landing pages. Marketing the site becomes a priority and an extension of the core app. As a result, content marketers also need to consider audience segmentation.
Notion needs to focus on different types of content for different customer segments, and reuse existing content that is still relevant. They need to understand how different customer types use Notion and what content would be most useful to them.
The Notion blog has sections for different types of teams, with content tailored to each one. For example, there are sections for startups, engineering teams, learning and development teams, and more.
There are currently only a small number of posts on their blog, but in the future this granular understanding of their audience will enable them to produce content that is more relevant.
Creating Helpful Content That Resonates With the Audience
Even if you divide your audience into segments, your content still needs to be good in order for it to be effective. According to Camille Ricketts from Mission.org, content must be either helpful or emotional in order to resonate with its audience. This is true even for business to business marketing, because the people who make decisions are human beings.
It’s likely that the majority of articles on Notion’s blog are focused on how-to content, productivity tips, guides, templates, and similar topics because the company’s small content marketing team needs to make effective use of their limited resources and target their content at their key audience.
Notion started by targeting a much broader segment and then went on narrowing down. This is evident from their content in the early days of their blog, which primarily targeted Startups.
Audience segmentation and targeting – Notion content marketing strategy
The content creators and marketers on Notion’s team are focusing on startups as their primary target and generating content ideas for various teams and corresponding use cases. This approach has helped them gradually scale their content production efforts, instead of going all guns blazing at once and exhausting their resources.
How To Create a Content Marketing Strategy
There is a lot of content available on the internet, from million-dollar NFT monkeys to short films on YouTube. With so much content available, it can be difficult to stand out and get noticed. To be successful, you need to have a clear content strategy that will help you achieve your business goals. Posting content regularly without a plan is not enough, especially when there is so much competition.
The real question therefore is whether you can produce content that is good quality.
Before you can create a content marketing strategy, you need to understand what content marketing is. Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that involves creating valuable content for a specific audience to generate positive business results. The best way to convince you to do it well is by showing you how it’s done. That’s what I’m doing with this article.
Although it may be tempting to get caught up in all of the possibilities that content marketing offers, it’s important to remember why it’s necessary for your brand. A content marketing strategy will ensure that your content is focused and effective.
Why Your Brand Needs a Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing costs one-third as much as paid search and generates three times as many leads. Websites with blogs attract 55% more traffic, and blogs are the most effective brand-building tool.
Here’s the gist: Content marketing can be a powerful way to build trust with your audience, stay top of mind, and drive sales. When your content is entertaining, inspiring, educational, or engaging, it can help you stand out from your competition, increase brand awareness, and grow your business.
A content marketing strategy should not be seen as a separate entity to other marketing strategies, but rather it should be integrated into every aspect of an organization. This is why it’s important to have a clear and concise plan in place so that everyone is working towards the same goals.
Types of Content Marketing
There are an endless amount of content types you can create today. However, if we had to divide them, they would fall into one of four categories: written, audio, visual, or interactive. Let’s take a closer look.
Written Content
Content written for brands includes a variety of topics, such as blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, product descriptions, testimonials, FAQs, and case studies. Blogs are a popular content format as they help improve a website’s SEO and increase brand awareness and web traffic. Ebooks and data reports, which offer more in-depth coverage of a topic, are another type of content that can be used to generate leads.
Sales enablement content, such as testimonials, FAQs, product one-sheets, competitive comparison sheets, and case studies, provides sales teams with educational tools to help them understand how they can provide value to the customer.
Audio Content
Audio content involves channels that are consumed by listening to them, without looking at a screen. This can include things like podcasts, live broadcasts on platforms like Clubhouse, or even music.
Podcasting is a great way to interview prominent influencers and create deeply personal relationships with your audience.
Hamburger Helper created a stir by releasing a mixtape on April’s Fool Day.
Visual Content
Visual content is a way of communicating a message through design that is easy to understand. Some ideas are difficult to explain and it is easier to show them. The most common types of visual content include infographics, memes, gifs, photos, charts, diagrams, and slide decks. In today’s world, both influencers and politicians are using memes to get their message across the internet because they are an effective way of communication.
Interactive Content
Interactive content is a great way to keep your audience engaged by providing them with a valuable experience. This includes webinars, calculators, web tools, checklists, polls, and even games. Just like we learned in grade school, everybody has their unique learning styles and interactive content is a great way to keep your audience engaged in different ways. Interactive content is an excellent tool to create a two-way relationship with your audience.
Best Content Marketing Tools
Here are 24 content marketing tools that can help you create and scale a successful marketing engine.
Content Ideation
- Google Ads Keyword Planner: keyword tool that provides comprehensive search data
- Google Search Console: see what keywords you’re ranking for on Google Search
- Google Trends: identify search volume data around relevant topics
- Quora: Q&A discovery tool to find what people are curious about
- Reddit: online communities for every topic imaginable
- Advanced Twitter Search: dive deep into what people are saying
- Buzzsumo: keyword research, influencer research, and link-building tools
Content Briefing
- MarketMuse: for content planning, briefing, and optimization
- Clear scope: for content optimization at scale
SEO
- Semrush & Ahrefs: keyword research, SEO optimization, and competitive research tool
- Content King App: Real-time SEO audit and monitoring tool
Editing
- Grammarly: Grammar checker
- Word Tune: AI-powered tool to help rephrase and restructure sentences
- Hemingway Editor: grammar, flow, and composition editor
- Ginger: English grammar and writing app
- Copy.ai: utilize AI to generate copy for your content
Production
- Canva: free design tool with thousands of templates
- Biteable: make quick videos in minutes
- Adobe Spark: easily create graphics, images, gifs, and more
Distribution
- Alfred: LinkedIn and email outreach automation tools
- Buzzstream: link building and digital PR tool
- Pitchbox: influencer outreach & link building tool
Measurement
- Google Analytics: web analytics to measure your website traffic and performance
- Google Search Console: identify and track your website performance on Google search
- Google Data Studio: create comprehensive data reports from multiple sources
- Hotjar: measure user behavior through recorded user pathways and heatmaps
Content Management System
- WordPress: tried and true content management system that runs 30% of modern websites
- Elementor: codeless & design-focused website builderÂ