For marketers, content is still king. It provides value to your target audience, helps you become an expert in your field, increases traffic, and tells search engines why your website should rank highly.
But what is the best type of content? You’d probably get 12 different answers if you asked a dozen marketers.
Some swear by blogs, while others say infographics are the best way to generate exposure. eBooks are a great way to establish your authority, while memes encourage organic shares.
Each content type has different strengths and weaknesses. By understanding the unique benefits of each offer, you can create a cohesive offer content marketing unique strategy for your needs.
In this article, we’ll take a look at 17 types of marketing content, explain how you can use them to achieve your goals, and give you the knowledge you need to make your marketing stand out.
Why is content marketing important?
The world has gone digital. There were such in July 2022 5.03 billion people worldwide with the help of the Internet. This means that 63.1% of the world’s population can come to your website.
Thanks to smartphones, the Internet has become a source for entertainment, shopping, or resolving disputes about Florida’s state bird. northern mockingbird), no matter where you are.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that a Pew Research Center study found 31% American adults report being online “almost constantly.”
At the heart of any successful digital marketing campaign, content marketing has many benefits, including:
- Building trust in the audience.
- Improving SEO efforts.
- Showcase your expertise.
- It helps you maintain your brand reputation.
- Encourage social sharing.
- Improving conversion rates.
Plus, it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to attract new leads, as you can often repurpose content for more exposure without much work.
Of course, not all content reaps the same level of rewards. The mix depends on the specifics of the business and its goals, but certain types are essential.
17 basic content types
1. Blogs
Since 1994, when Justin Hall created the very first weblogor blog as it would become known, blogging was the cornerstone of successful content marketing.
Blogs are a great way to add new content to your website on a regular basis. Blogs are a versatile, low-cost and often evergreen way to increase organic traffic.
Their long format allows you to focus on target keywords and topics that are important to your audience.
Blogs can also play an important role in your SEO strategy.
Their length (the average blog post is 1500-2500 words) provides Google’s search robots with a lot of information about their content, which in turn helps determine how it helps answer search queries.
To ensure your blog posts get the most traffic and results you want, make sure you:
- It was written for humans – not search engines.
- Use targeted keywords.
- Optimized for loading speed.
- It links to high authority websites.
- Use headings for effective overview.
And don’t forget yours long tail keywords. Remember, the more detailed a blog post is, the more likely it is to get the traffic you want.
Plus, it’s a great way to show off your brand’s personality.
2. Case studies
Your target customers have a specific problem. As a marketer, your goal is to show them why your business is the best answer to said problem.
To do this, you need to prove not only that you are an expert in the field, but also that your solution actually works. And one of the best ways to do this is to go through case studies.
Case studies give your audience a real-life scenario where someone like them used your offering to solve their problem. They see the purchase journey from start to finish, helping them visualize how your product or service works.
They allow you to portray yourself as an expert, which helps reduce perceived risk, especially for high-cost products and services.
Like blogs, they offer a longer format where you can effectively add keywords without feeling like they’ve been pigeonholed.
To maximize their impact, make sure your case studies:
- Focus on a problem that your target audience can relate to.
- Show a cohesive narrative from start to finish.
- Provide real statistics whenever possible.
- Describe exactly how your business solved the problem.
3. Checklists
Santa isn’t the only one who makes a list and checks it twice. Many people like a step-by-step guide to completing a task or solving a problem.
By breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks, checklists can make even the most complex jobs less daunting. And from a marketing perspective, it’s a great way to generate leads.
It’s a simple, easy and free way for your audience to make sure they’re following all the right steps. They develop ownership, set expectations and set deadlines, all of which contribute to productivity.
In addition to creating a useful tool for clients, checklists also let your targets know you understand what they’re up against. Good checklists include:
- A title that defines the purpose of the list and why it is useful.
- Step-by-step tasks that outline the overall process – including sub-tasks.
- Time frames for each step – this can be a hard date or range.
- A state that indicates whether a step is complete, in progress, or not started.
4. Customer reviews and recommendations
You know your business is great, but let’s face it: it doesn’t matter much. However, what matters is what customers say.
Digital age word of mouth, customer reviews and testimonials give you a level of credibility that paid marketing can never achieve.
Studies have shown 93% consumers say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions, making them extremely valuable.
Opinions and their less celebrated but no less important countersigns help reduce the sense of risk and provide a useful way to overcome potential objections. Plus, since they’re generated by customers, they don’t cost anything.
There are many ways to encourage them, including:
- Ask for opinions and recommendations directly.
- Encouraging customers to create them.
- Create automated responses that make it easy to create reviews.
Google takes positive reviews into account in the decision Search quality assessment guidelines.
These has no direct effect in search rankings, but it helps your pages meet the minimum quality thresholds set by search engines.
Testimonials and reviews should be prominently displayed where they make sense, including on websites and emails.
5. E-books
One of the best ways to present yourself as an authority is to demonstrate thought leadership. One of the best ways to do this is to create an e-book.
These long form texts are not advertisements, at least not in the traditional sense, but offer value to potential customers.
By delving deeply into a topic specific to your field, you demonstrate your expertise while also providing value to your goals.
If your eBook covers a particularly under-researched topic or presents information in a new light, it can generate significant interest in your company. And even better, since these long-form texts are usually hidden behind emails or contact forms, they are a great opportunity to generate new leads.
6. E-mail marketing
The bread and butter of marketing in the 21st century, email marketing a fast and flexible way to reach a highly targeted audience.
Whether you’re trying to retain existing customers, reach new ones, or increase brand awareness, email marketing provides a measurable way to connect with your targets.
At every stage of the sales funnel, you should use email regularly to connect with people.
Limited-time offers can help convince hesitant drivers to finally give it a shot. Birthday messages to existing customers help keep your brand top-of-mind, and abandoned cart emails can entice people back to complete a purchase.
No matter what your business goals are, there’s an email strategy to help you achieve them.
Be sure to focus your strategy around these goals, segment your audience to target specific audiences, and measure results. Then take what you learned from this campaign and apply it to your next campaign.
7. Guides and Guides
Any company that offers a complex product or service needs detailed guides and guides.
Another way to showcase your skills is a great way to expand your online presence.
For example, if you’re a software company, you can help your customers get the most out of your product by using guides in the form of printed manuals or online training.
They can also help eliminate frustration and minimize learning curves—both of which customers love.
8. Infographics
Everyone knows that a picture is worth a thousand words. Infographics apply this adage to marketing.
By allowing a significant amount of information to be presented in a quick and easy-to-understand format, they provide an easy way for viewers to understand the information.
It’s great for capturing people who only read the text on your website (which is almost everyone), with the help of infographics, marketers can control which information is displayed.
Create infographics that display statistics, events or timelines to help showcase your business. They are quick and cheap, and often act as stand-alone content that can be shared on social media.
To ensure that you get all the credit (and backlinks) for your content, please provide an HTML snippet that is as makes it easy for other webmasters to embed them on their sites.
9. Interactive content
In the old days (i.e. before the internet), marketing was usually about the audience. But now the power of technology has allowed marketers to “talk” to people.
Interactive content is a great way to use this feature to gather information, increase engagement, or find new customers. Plus, it’s a great way to provide value and/or show off your creativity.
Create quizzes to help people decide which product is perfect for their needs, create games to distract them while increasing your brand awareness, or create an app that adds value to their lives.
While this type of content requires a bit more tech savvy (or outsourcing) than some of the items on this list, it can also be one of the best performers.
10. Interviews/Questions and answers
Want to massively grow your audience with a single piece of content? All you have to do is be interviewed on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Simple, right? Well, maybe not, but don’t let that discourage you from using the power of interviews and Q&A segments to your advantage.
A great way to build relationships (and links) with other websites, they’re a great way for your internal thought leaders to showcase their knowledge to an external audience.
By going “up”, you show the world that you stand behind your offer. This means quality customer service, helps with reputation management and can improve overall engagement.
11. Lists
Don’t know the word “list”? You’re not alone. But they refer to something that you must have already seen. You’re actually reading one – it’s an article structured as a list, hence the name.
While the most popular of these are often Buzzfeed-like pieces such as15 hedgehogs with things that look like hedgehogs”, they do not have to be pointless entertainment, but can be used as effective marketing content.
People love lists because they’re easy to read, you know what to expect, and they break down information into digestible chunks.
Marketers love them because they are easy to design and write.
Create your own marketing list by following these steps:
- Choose a subject and angle.
- Choose a keyword.
- Write down the points on the list!
- Conclude with a strong conclusion.
12. Podcasts
Podcasts are no longer the exclusive domain of real law enforcement, podcasts are a great way to build your brand with effective content marketing that people can consume while commuting, walking, or any other convenient time for them.
Podcasts allow you to share your stories and experiences directly with your audience and build relationships by speaking personally to your target audience.
To maximize the impact of your podcasts, make sure you provide useful information in an entertaining format. You can also use hosts or interviewees as a way to expand your audience.
13. Social Media Posts
Everyone from grandma to the teenager next door uses social media these days.
While it’s true that they’re not on the same platform, they’re all using it for the same purpose – to stay in touch. And there they are literally billions of users worldwide.
Social media has become an important part of any marketing mix as it provides an opportunity to initiate and maintain conversations with targets.
Of course, how you use it can vary greatly from company to company.
For example, a candy maker might have luck recreating viral videos on TikTok, but this approach is likely to fail for a software developer.
To get the most out of your social media efforts, you need to determine which platform or platforms your audience uses and then create content that appeals to them.
Try to build relationships with your audience and any influencers who can help increase the impact of your content.
And remember, social media is also a great place to recycle content you’ve already created.
Do you have a great infographic? This would be perfect for your Facebook. A tutorial video about the product’s hidden features should be on your YouTube page. Linking to your eBook on Twitter can help you get new leads.
Find where your content fits and place it on your social channels.
14. User Generated Content
Similar to testimonials, user-generated content adds credibility that self-promotion can’t match. Even better, because it’s generated by a third party, it doesn’t require much investment on your part.
User-generated content, or UGC, can be anything from someone tagging your brand in a selfie to a video using your product. It provides social proof while driving word of mouth and driving engagement.
Encourage your fans and customers to create content by:
- Post regular user content on social media channels.
- Invite user-submitted content with or without rewards.
- Create and use your own branded hashtag.
15. Videos
If you’re looking for a way to engage your audience, there’s nothing like video.
Platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Meta’s Reels have made videos a ubiquitous part of digital marketing. And for good reason – video content works.
Although this type of content generally takes more time and resources to produce than text or static content, video content published increase wait time, better customer understanding of your product or service, and lead to higher lead volume.
Part of the strength of video content lies in its versatility.
From short introductory videos and social media clips to interviews and long-form videos that tell your story, video can connect with your audience in a way that most content can’t.
16. Webinars
When you think of content marketing, webinars probably aren’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, they can be a very valuable part of your strategy.
Whether you’re using on-demand webinars to provide 24/7 value or live sessions to build personal connections, these online training sessions are a great way to educate existing and potential customers, attract new leads, and establish authority in your field.
To create successful webinars, first identify the area you need. There may be a new law affecting your industry and many questions about its implementation.
Maybe there’s an aspect of your offering that customers don’t seem to understand clearly. Or maybe you just want to provide expert insight on a relevant topic.
Whatever it is, webinars should provide unique content that adds value. You need an email list to sign up and they are a great way to create new lists.
17. White papers
Not to be confused with e-books, whitepapers are lengthy papers filled with data, statistics, and information—sort of like business research papers.
The information they provide may be the results of their own studies or compilations of information compiled from other sources. Either way, they should provide key information and provide authentic insight.
Keep your design clean and attractive for easy scanning and allow others to reference it to help build backlinks.
Takeaway: Why use different types of content
Although they may have common characteristics, every target prospect, prospect, and customer is different.
Some are visual learners and love videos and infographics. Others prefer to be taught new information and retain information best from webinars. Others, however, prefer downloadable texts that they can read in their own time.
If you only create one type of content, you won’t achieve as many goals as possible with a more varied approach.
For busy marketers, it’s often tempting to take the easiest approach, but that’s not the best recipe for long-term success.
Instead, define what your goals are and how you will define success. Then use that to create a multi-channel content plan to help you achieve it.
No matter which content mix you choose, regardless of format, each element must do certain things:
- You must provide value.
- You need to promote your brand and your product/service.
- You need to target your desired audience.
- You must actively move customers along the purchase journey.
- It should be shareable.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and take risks. Not all content works for every brand, but if you invest in it, you will see rewards.
Additional resources:
- 7 Best Content Marketing Platforms for Effective Strategy
- 12 Ways to Use Content Marketing to Increase Brand Awareness
- Content Marketing: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
Featured image: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock