Top 10 Content Types For Marketing
When running your business content marketing is an important part of attracting new customers. While there are several pieces that work together in your overall content marketing strategy, in this article I wanted to look at the top 10 content types you can include in your marketing strategy.
In previous posts I have covered:
Now let’s look at some of the most effective content types to include in your content marketing strategy.
Most people tend to narrow down content marketing to only one type of content. While written content indeed should be the cornerstone of your content marketing efforts, other types of content can add to your efforts and produce enormous returns when done effectively.
The simple truth is that if you want to succeed in your content marketing efforts you are going to have to expand your efforts beyond just the written word.
- Blog posts
Even though I am trying to get you to think outside the written word only, blog posts are still very effective when it comes to your content marketing efforts. The great thing about blog posts on your website is that you can add visuals such as photos or videos. You can use those to show a technique or a new product. You can use them to let people get to know you and your brand.
When you get customers to visit your blog they can see at a glance all the blog posts you have written. They can do a search for the ones that interest them. This makes posting on a blog for your business probably the best return on the investment of your time in your content marketing.
But wait, you aren’t a writer. No worries because there are people just like me who make a living researching and then writing for businesses for a living. You can contact me for further details.
- Case studies
If you are selling a product or service you can easily create a case study. Your case study can focus on how your product or service helped someone. You want to focus on how it solves a problem or answered the needs of a customer. This is another case where you can use mixed media to tell the story. By adding photos or video to the written case study you can make it more engaging for your audience. Remember, when you engage your audience you can turn potential customers into paying customers.
- Videos
The popularity of video as a delivery medium for content continues to grow every year. Just look at the popularity of sites like YouTube. In fact, many businesses post content on YouTube, so that YouTube hosts their content. In that way they don’t have to pay for video hosting. The trade-off is that YouTube will run ads during your video. But that is pretty much expected by users, and it doesn’t seem to reduce engagement of customers.
Some people simply prefer to view video over reading. By using video as part of your overall content marketing strategy you may be able to reach customers you may not have
You don’t necessarily have to have a huge video production budget either. You can repurpose some of your most popular content into video format and use slides and a voice-over to produce the video. However, if you or someone else in your company
If you need video production please feel free to contact us, as we also offer that service as well.
- Infographics
Infographics are another way to reach customers that most people overlook as part of a content marketing strategy. Infographics make it easy for people to see the main points of your content in just a few seconds.
This can be important for reaching people who are looking for information but don’t have the time to read a long article. They don’t have to read thousands of words to get important information. They can scan your infographic and get the main points of your content quickly.
If you are skilled at graphics, or have someone in the company that is, you can create infographics quickly. There are many templates online. You can also use a service like Canva which allows you to create infographics online from a template and then download it to your computer. It can then be uploaded to your website or social media sites.
- Social media posts
Since we are on the subject, does your company have a social media page? If not, you certainly need to think about creating one. Many companies do very well with social media.
Try and think about where your potential customers are most likely to be, then target those social media platforms. Don’t try to target every social media platform. That will result in none of them getting the attention they need. Pick one or two and focus on learning them inside and out. Engage with customers and build a community. Post to them to keep people coming back to see what is coming next.
- Checklists
Checklists are useful for content that requires action. They can also be useful to help customers solve a problem.
Look at your customer service requests. Is there a step in a sequence that multiple customers keep missing and need to call customer service. Why not provide a checklist to help them.
For instance, think of software. If a customer has to complete several steps for the software to perform at its best, why not create a checklist to help the customer through the process.
You see where I am going here. Checklists can help solve problems for a customer. And you can even use them to attract customers. If you can show someone that your product is easier to use than a competitor’s product, which do you think they will ultimately choose to purchase?
You can also turn your content into graphics that will make it easy for your audience to share your content on social media.
- Presentations
With sites like Slideshare becoming quite popular you can use your content and make it into a visually appealing PowerPoint presentation. Then you can simply upload the entire presentation to the site, tag the correct keywords, so it can be found, and use it to reach a whole new set of potential customers.
- Quizzes
For sheer interactivity and engagement quizzes have become very popular in content marketing. This really isn’t a shock since your whole purpose of content marketing is to get people to engage and share your content. Quizzes are a great way to do that.
- Online courses
You can also repurpose your content into an online course once you have enough content. Many people love online courses because they are able to learn something to solve a problem. Online courses are easy to consume because they are usually presented with video or slides. They are also quite popular because consumers can get all the information they need in a single place.
You may even be able to charge a small fee for the course by uploading it to a site like Udemy and create a profitable new product for your company if the course is popular.
- Memes
Who hasn’t spent some time scrolling through a social media site looking at memes? They are very popular on social media. If you can create a good one and relate it to your product you may be well on your way to a viral hit. If the meme you create goes viral it can mean a huge increase in engagement and traffic for your website.
- Bonus- FAQ
Many people don’t think of this one anymore with all the more popular means of content marketing, but a good searchable FAQ database can be a good way to help your customers solve problems on their own.
Many people prefer to solve a problem on their own rather than call customer service. The wait times for customer service can sometimes be quite long. Help your customers out and compile a list of the most Frequently Asked Questions and post it on your site or make it a blog post.
There you have the 10 most popular content types for content marketing. By using the list I’m sure you can come up with lots of ideas for ways to improve your content marketing.
