Which Type of Content Marketing is Best for Your Business?

Creating content might sound fairly easy, but the truth is that choosing the right content type is overwhelming and stressful. What has worked for one brand or audience might not work for another. Top of that, it is not easy to decide which ones to use and which ones will be a statement. With so many forms of content available, it can be challenging to narrow down the choices and finding the right solution for your business.

Apart from considering the needs of your audience, you have to build different types of content to engage with them at the different stages of the buyer journey.

To make it easy for you, here is a rundown of important content marketing types to get started.

Blogs:

Blogging is the most used form of content marketing, especially for small businesses.

They have been a traditional way to enhance SEO and boost more traffic to your website from search engines. This can help marketers to achieve the most with their limited budget by integrating any advertising with inbound marketing tactics.

Forbes has found that websites that have a blog generally have over 400% more indexed pages than those that don’t. It simply means that the websites that have blogs have better chances to be on the first page of search engines like Google when prospective customers search for relevant keywords.

Moreover, websites with blogs have more than 90% inbound links, which also helps improve SEO.

Not only does blogging enhance your SEO, but it is also an efficient way to build a relationship with your potential and existing customers.

However, it requires you to provide more valuable forms of content. Make sure your blogs address the key issues of your target audience and present solutions accordingly. Great content inspires people to buy from you.

Blogs are tried and tested ways to provide value through short-form kind of content.

If you are looking to incorporate blogs in your content marketing and scale your business, make sure to have a strategy that includes which topics you are looking to cover in your blog.

Keyword research is important to see what phrases are used by the consumers in the search engines to find services like yours. Then, ponder over the relevant topics or questions and create blog content around these topics.

Videos:

More and more people are watching video content. No wonder why one-third of all online activity is spent viewing video content, establishing the video as one of the effective types of content marketing.

Video is a great content marketing tool to boost brand awareness and increase customer engagement.

For example, providing a video testimonial of a client is more powerful than its textual counterpart.

Similarly, showing an unboxing video of your product can generate more views than a blog. Instructional or how-to videos are more effective when it comes to showing how to use your product.

According to one study, brands that use videos are likely to see over 150% more organic traffic from search engines. Moreover, videos can also increase time spent on site by 105%.

The more time your target audience spends on your website, the greater you have chances to convert them into customers.

Here are some more interesting statistics for using video content:

• Increasing social shares by 1200%
• More consumers prefer to watch a video about a product first before buying it.
• Landing pages with video content can see up to an 80% increase in their conversion.

Infographics:

If you don’t have a sufficient budget for video marketing, you can try this cheap yet effective form of content.

Infographics have become more valuable than ever before as today’s visitor needs information quickly. They might not read your lengthy blog posts or watch a 5-minute video.

Although it might not be as powerful as videos, it gives information in a snappier and engaging way. It helps you educated your audiences and provide useful information that can add value to your prospective or existing customers.

This visual content marketing format helps your target audience better digest data such as statistics and scientific explanation.

However, it is important to make your infographics visually appealing as well as informative. And it is equally important to make sure that the information is easy to understand. Infographics are great when it comes to explaining a complicated subject or presenting statistics.

Case Studies:

Another useful type of content marketing is a case study. Gone are the days when case studies were used to be black and white data created and used by researchers only. Modern-day marketing has realized the value of case studies.

Case studies are generally customer stories that explain how your business has helped a specific customer.

For example, a digital marketing company can create a case study to show how their SEO strategy improved the traffic of their specific client. You can also highlight your special services or product in a case study.

A case study is an efficient content strategy as it can help them understand how your business can help them.

While you can include the general applications or uses of your product or services, a real-life example is often more effective as it can help you build trust with new leads.

Case studies can be published on your website, but you may also use them in your blogs, eBooks, social posts, and other content types. Your sales team can use them while approaching the leads.

eBooks:

If you have never used an eBook before, think of them as detailed blog content spanning 2000-2500 words.

However, they shouldn’t be treated as a non-fictional novel or a multiple-page ad for your business.

Rather, they aim to provide valuable information to your client.

For marketers, an eBook is a great opportunity to highlight their expertise, improve their reputation, and above all, generate leads.

It is a great way to build a relationship with the target audience so that they can trust your brand and contact you when they are about to make a purchase.

eBooks are also counted among the best content marketing forms to collect lead information.

This is because a visitor is required to provide some type of information to download an eBook, thereby adding them to your email list. This information can be used to create a better marketing strategy.

To get started, you can choose a topic that matches the needs of your customers. For example, you can write about the best online marketing tips for small businesses. The next step is to choose the right visuals, color, and graphics. Afterward, you need to promote it.

User-Generated Content:

User-generated content, as the name suggests, is created by a user. It can be any form of content, such as videos, text, audio, images, or anything that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media.

And it is an amazing content marketing method for many reasons. First of all, it serves as an effective social proof. Seeing content from real customers can improve your credibility. After all, real people sound trustable than marketers.

For example, one of your customers has posted his experience about using your teabags on Instagram. Or you can ask your loyal customers to upload pictures of them using your tea brand on social media.

When Coca-Cola launched their personalized coke bottles with customers’ names on them, the company asked the customers to share pictures of them enjoying a drink with their personalized coke bottle on social media.

And this has turned the Coke’s customers into the advertisers of the company.

Social Media Posts:

Social media can help you reach your target audience. Some platforms like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook can increase your outreach as well as build relationships with customers.

The content of your social media posts plays a vital role in how your company interacts with prospects and existing customers. How you use social media as part of your content marketing strategy is determined by your goals.

Social media posts can be used to improve the visibility of your brand, notify customers about sales and promotions and provide leads and additional information about your products.

The Bottom Line:

While you should try to incorporate all these content marketing strategies, you have to choose a format that can work best for your target audience.

In other words, you need to choose the type that can fit your business the best.

For example, if you are a clothing business, only using a blog might not really make much sense. But using videos and images for imparting styling tips is engaging. On the other hand, if you are educating people on how to cook, providing written recipes in the form of blogs can work. If your audience spends a lot of time on YouTube, then video is your go-to marketing method.

The point is here to determine the right content marketing type for your business. You can then incorporate your preferred content marketing methods with other types.

What do you think? Let us know by commenting below!