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So, crafting content that appeals to your customers is crucial to expanding your reach. We’ll explain all well-nigh how that’s washed-up through this comprehensive guide on the 16 weightier types of content to use as part of your content marketing strategy.
So, let’s begin!
When we normally say content type, it refers to the format of the media file you’re publishing somewhere. It might be a blog, an eBook, an email newsletter, a whitepaper, an infographic etc.
Now, it’s important for the format of content marketing format used by any merchantry to match their goals, offerings, regulars demographics, and budget. You may sometimes end up choosing a wrong content format that’s either irrelevant to your needs or requires stretching your budget. Side by side, using merely a few formats might rationalization wearisomeness and deprive you from experimenting with other formats.
That’s why it’s weightier to utilize a combination of several content formats to enhance the effectiveness of the content marketing campaign. This can help you stay superiority of competitors and uplift your ROI for marketing. In a later section, we’ll moreover discuss how you can monitor the impact of a content marketing wayfarers with the help of marketing KPIs.
Blogs are perhaps the most well-healed form of web content. These are conversational write-ups on either a wholesale or specific topic.
Marketers mostly dedicate a separate section of the website to blogs, or otherwise, upload their blogs on specialized blogging sites. The weightier part well-nigh this content format is its versatility- you get to explore various writing styles and have the self-rule to segregate any topic.
Just icon out the ones that would suit your content marketing goals, and you’re all set. The increasingly successful blogs you’re worldly-wise to create, the increasingly conversions and traffic you’ll proceeds in the long term. And that too, without any massive recurring costs!
These long-format content pieces let you focus on target keywords powerfully and provide vast information to search bots well-nigh the content. And ultimately, the bots can yield increasingly constructive answers to search queries.
Here are a few key points to remember while using blogs to unzip your content marketing goals:
It’s a must to update your blog posts on a regular basis- it will not only yank fresh traffic to your blog but may moreover help convert them into leads or potential customers.
The increasingly powerfully you elaborate on a point in the blog, the easier will it be for a search engine to evaluate the text and rank the blog accordingly. *
As per the latest content marketing data, the stereotype blog post is 1500 to 2500-word long, and often includes zaftig evidence, facts, and substance on any topic. And that’s what search engines squint for in any content piece. Ultimately, this makes long-form content stand out and rank higher than shorter formats like social media posts.
Avoid overloading your blogs with images and unify the text in a way that the page isn’t cluttered. Other ways to modernize the loading speed are to reduce the redirects on the site, enable browser caching, and ‘minify’ the JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for the site.
However, you may skip these steps to directly switch to a performance-optimized solution for hosting the site, which includes page speed alteration.
For instance, you may segregate to put along your blog through either social media or streamlined emails based on the engagement they earn.
Including validity links in your blog can fetch increasingly targeted traffic for your site and earn largest industry points as well. And these are sure to reflect in the SERP rankings of the site.
Make sure to add an towardly number of headings as that helps search engines understand and read the text increasingly effectively. Plus, a skimmable blog can help readers understand its coverage, importance, and usability in solving an issue.
While figures do tell you well-nigh merchantry performance to an extent, the feedback from your customers reflects your ultimate success. In a review or testimonial, customers’ opinions are the part-way point. That’s why a positive scuttlebutt by an existing consumer provides you with a word-of-mouth advantage. On the other hand, testimonials are recommendations of a service or product, vouching for the value it gave to the user.
Do note that visitors to your page will squint for credibility. And that’s weightier achieved through testimonials or reviews, rather than any form of paid marketing.
Review and testimonials are often brief, so you can insert them in video captions, landing pages, blogs, or images as needed. For instance, marketing agencies might showcase comments of pleased clients on their landing pages.
But how much can this form of content really achieve? Recent surveys revealed that 93% of consumers say online consumer reviews stupefy their choices while shopping. And since the reviews are consumer generated, you incur zero costs!
In effect, these are quick blogposts where businesses discuss specific topics with customers to develop their knowledge in that area. Such content pieces come with helpful suggestions and tips on the topic
How-tos and guides squire people with achieving specific sales goals. It’s worth noting here that the person viewing a guide or how-to vendible is once interested in the topic. So, you have the opportunity to explain its usefulness using a real-life instance involving a prospect!
Approach how-to guides by identifying worldwide problems related to your merchantry expertise. You’ll then need to write those problems with solutions- discuss all the steps needed and do summarize the process surpassing you conclude.
Here are some other factors to alimony in mind:
With all washed-up right, how-tos and guides can provide a significant uplift to your sales outreach within months.
Another user-oriented form of content marketing is a specimen study. It lets you write a specific problem that your customers are likely to squatter without a purchase. To prepare a specimen study, you can use the knowledge and resources the visitor once has. But how do you go well-nigh it?
Your merchantry can demonstrate the expertise that’s once been utilized to help other entities. This is an opportunity to ensure your prospects understand what the merchantry can do and how it can fulfill the task.
Just provide a real-life scenario to your regulars which demonstrates a user utilizing your service or product to solve a specific issue. This allows consumers to witness the unshortened purchase journey and visualize how the service or product works. Importantly, this helps reduce the perceived ownership risk, expressly for expensive services or products.
Do note that the primary goal is to show the target regulars why your merchantry is the weightier at solving a problem.
For the marketers of today, email marketing is no less than a staple. Without all, it’s one of the fastest and most flexible methods to reach a very targeted group of potential customers.
People still do read emails despite the rapidly evolving digital marketing scenario. So, it’s a unconfined tool to alimony in touch with customers and subscribers and build a long-lasting relationship. A 2021 study revealed that emails earn an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent on them.
Let’s squint at some crucial factors to alimony in mind while crafting an intelligent, conversion-worthy email marketing copy:
If you’re using email marketing for the first time, we’d recommend taking inspiration from the content that worked for you in the past. For instance, you can segregate to reach the regulars with content marketing strategies that clicked for Quora, Reddit, and Buzzsumo.
Remember that email marketing requires you to contact people on a regular understructure at each stage of the merchantry funnel. In special cases such as when a lead is hesitant to proceed or it’s a customer’s birthday, you’ll need to handle things increasingly tactfully.
Use limited-time offers or birthday messages to maintain the trademark image. Additionally, x-rated cart messages can urge people to well-constructed a purchase.
Any information you present as a list is easier to understand and utilize. That’s why listicles have turned so popular nowadays with content marketing platforms such as Buzzfeed. Every item you segregate for your list would include either a few sentences or paragraphs to elaborate on each list item.
These wares with compelling headlines make the readers learn something new each time or finger entertained in a unique manner. Plus, the use of multiple sub-heads (for each list item) makes the write-up easy to scan and imbibe.
Listicles can plane make denser and drier wares easier to read. Remember that the use of a headline with a number is likely to fetch increasingly clicks compared to standard headlines.
An electronic periodical on a specific topic, often tabbed an eBook, is created to entertain readers and provide them with vital information simultaneously. Plus, it provides businesses with the telescopic to engage in impactful yet subtle content marketing.
An eBook that has engrossing information will summon a keen interest in a subject. Readers would then seriously consider suggestions to go for relevant services or products.
Do note that people put a upper value on an e-book when it first emerges in the market. And when the perceived value in a content piece is high, it implies readers will spend increasingly on acquiring and applying the content besides sharing it.
For instance, you can write an exhaustive e-book on website layout and recommend your web diamond tool as an constructive solution at specific points in the journal.
eBooks do hold a little increasingly value when compared to blog posts, but not all of them turn out to be worthy of consumer attention. So, be shielding while deciding what to put into an e-book- it should be interesting unbearable to fetch you loads of traffic and shares.
Original content created by existing customers is flipside form that provides authenticity to your content marketing campaigns. Such brand-specific content is published on media channels by third-party entities, which is why it doesn’t need too much investment by the business.
User-generated content ranges from selfies tagging previous users to videos featuring people using the product. As such, this content type provides the much-yearned social proof and word-of-mouth essential for driving merchantry growth. Do note that user-generated content can be sourced from variegated groups of customers or stakeholders based on how well you’ve been worldly-wise to engage with them. For instance, an unboxing video or fun-filled post on Instagram can help vamp several potential customers. It might moreover come from trademark loyalists who’re enthusiastic well-nigh the merchantry and can be approached for UGC content describing their experience. In addition, there are UGC creators who emulate original UGCs to create sponsored content that’s theoretically authentic.
Considering that social media channels are used by 4.7 billion people worldwide, it isn’t surprising that most businesses invest heavily in this medium.
It lets you project quality content through multiple platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. And for each of them, you can create and share many variegated types of content, such as short marketing copies, pre-recorded videos, live sessions, stories, and photos. Presenting lulu content in a transitory form is increasingly user-friendly than overly nowadays, thanks to the supra social media channels. Such content marketing platforms have provided businesses with wide options for targeting their regulars and tampering data on viewer feedback.
When viewers spot a useful and engaging piece of content, they proceed to share it with their peers on a platform and the trundling continues. This can ultimately help expand your merchantry reach exponentially. To reap the weightier results from social media marketing, you’ll need to identify the weightier platforms your regulars are using and speak to them with your content. Also, make sure to engage with social media influencers as they can make your content increasingly impactful wherever needed.
If you just came up with a new idea or concept to educate potential customers, go superiority and plan a webinar to market the same.
With such a content marketing services, you can interact with the regulars in real time and create a strong bonding with them. In wing to educating potential and existing customers, this content format will help you vamp leads and plane establish validity in your industry.
You can plane segregate to add an interview-like element to the webinar so that users get the finger of a podcast. Do note that webinars are at least 30 minutes long since they come with highly educational content.
Lead magnet is the term used for self-ruling resources that can earn clicks from potential buyers in your niche. These may make visitors want to subscribe to the mailing list and sooner turn into paying buyers. Thus, lead magnets play an important role in promoting a merchantry and generating leads.
Know that a lead magnet has several forms, but usually has the pursuit characteristics:
a) Involves zero costs
b) Has good perceived value, which can be helpful, informative, or valuable
c) Is self-ruling to deliver
Businesses might put along lead magnets on their website in the form of a self-ruling white paper misogynist in mart for your name and email address. By opting for such a document, both the customers and businesses obtain something that has real value.
The email id of a potential consumer would hold unconfined value to your merchantry as it would let them connect with the people on a personal level. Recent studies revealed that 99% of consumers go through their email daily. Moreover, people who buy email-marketed products spend 138% increasingly compared to those who don’t.
Now, here are some tips to make your lead magnet truly marketable:
Visual content marketing encompasses various formats such as GIFs, videos, and images and is possible through multiple platforms. With a visual content format, you can engage the target regulars better, grow a business, and plane build emotional connections.
But do note that this type of content marketing strategies isn’t just well-nigh sharing info graphics or well-flavored pictures. It’s moreover well-nigh understanding how our smart-ass processes a visual and leveraging that idea to uplift your content marketing initiatives.
It’s worth noting here that 43% of visual marketer’s struggle with creating engaging content consistently. Running out of ideas for such content is natural at a unrepealable point, but you shouldn’t finger discouraged. Try to be increasingly creative and squint vastitude mere static imagery, as that will ensure you stand out from competitors easily.
One of the weightier ways to pack a lot of data within a single traffic while ensuring it doesn’t squint ugly or complex.
GIFs are a good option if you’re willing to add flashiness to the content while lamister heavy files such as videos. On the other hand, memes are made to evoke humor and use recognizable images with funny captions for the purpose.
As per the latest data by HubSpot, 92% of marketers regard videos as a key part of their marketing strategy and gives them a positive ROI from video marketing.
So, if you’re yet to use video content marketing to your advantage, we’d strongly suggest starting now! There are plenty of types to try out – explainers, screen-sharing videos, speaker-view videos, candid’s, short films, and many more.
While including research findings and statistics in long-form content or plane short marketing copies, do consider visually representing the data. Data visualization can take multiple forms and shapes like pie charts, bar graphs, zone charts, line graphs, and so on.
Want your viewers to act on advice? Or need to make a content piece increasingly credible? Then subtracting screenshots is the weightier idea. For instance, businesses dealing in SaaS require this form of visual content exhaustively to showcase the working mechanism of their offerings.
Rather than just using static images for your marketing activities, you could create visuals that the regulars can interact with. This can be possible by creating an interactive bar graph, map, or simply a mini quiz on topics that your customers may find interesting.
Slide decks are presentations well-balanced of multiple screens or slides displaying some information in the form of videos, images, or text. The aim is to unravel lanugo a ramified discussion into simpler shit for a well-spoken understanding.
Thus, marketers use decks to powerfully explain customers as to what they would proceeds by investing in their product or service. You can moreover modify a slide deck to suit waffly merchantry needs or evolving marketing goals.
Here’s a round-up of what the regulars expects to know from any slide deck:
To create a slide deck that truly works, here are the weightier practices to adopt:
a) Know the audience
b) Use fonts that are easy to read
c) Ensure all the slides have a purpose
d) Consider consistency in the brand
e) Try to alimony it simple
f) Use a story
g) Use visual content
g) Remember to cite facts
h) Go vastitude the rules if needed
81% of the retail customers of today prefer researching a product online prior to making a purchase. Moreover, 66% of people making online purchases often self-mastery some online research beforehand. So, customers ownership products and services merely based on their squatter value is a thing of the past.
No wonder white papers have emerged as a prominent content marketing trend. They provide customers with detailed reports and images on specific topics and plane offer them relevant suggestions well-nigh what to purchase. Also, do note that whitepapers have increasingly information than an stereotype vendible but aren’t as detailed as an eBook.
A truly valuable whitepaper details specific issues that your regulars is facing and outlines the most constructive solution the visitor offers in that regard. Curating such reports stimulates the customers’ interest while helping to generate trust in the product. Eventually, this instills in customers the desire to purchase the product.
Follow the tips listed unelevated to make your whitepaper stand out from that of competitors:
Also, remember that though stereotype whitepapers aren’t meant for light reading, using data, charts, and similar visually well-flavored elements can help make them increasingly attractive.
Visuals may be quick at drawing consumer attention, but an audio file whence with a powerful message or slogan can moreover make them want to hear more.
Podcasts that compile audio files for listening online have appealed to a large section of worldwide internet users, expressly Gen-Z and millennials. This content format gained increasingly popularity in the last decade, but the proportion of interested audiences has grown unceasingly for the last twenty years.
A recently published report by Insider unscientific that the podcasting industry would be valued at $94.88 billion by 2028. When it comes to content marketing Strategy, podcasts are stuff used by an increasing number of businesses to convey their value to a highly receptive audience. Such an on-demand foible of podcasting lets brands and companies share their stories unendingly and anywhere. Ultimately, you get a endangerment to demonstrate your merchantry expertise and develop evangelists for your brand.
For starters, gaining a good regulars isn’t that easy, but a strong comic sense can make marketing with podcasts a lot increasingly easy and effective. You can communicate your message through a variety of ideas and spread information to a pre-determined audience.
Plus, podcasts can be subscribed to, which ensures your regulars knows right when you release a new episode. This rule out the need to launch separate marketing activities to alimony them informed. Furthermore, you can integrate podcasts into the social media strategy to facilitate increased spritz of traffic. Flipside good idea is to incorporate podcasts into existing blog entries and promote the blogs via social media. A shining example of a successful podcast is “Let’s Do Shots” by Mad Over Marketing. This online platform for publishing digital marketing content started out with just an Instagram worth defended to spreading the word on razzmatazz and marketing strategies. But it sooner went on to showcase well-done and short episodes of human-centric trademark stories.
Key Performance Indicators or KPIs are quantifiable values that tell you whether you’re on the right path to unzip your merchantry goals. All types of businesses unriddle or measure multiply KPIs to judge the success of various marketing activities.
Content marketing KPIs help measure the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts or activities so that you can make any required changes in time. This ensures businesses meet their goals in an affordable and timely manner. Hence, make sure to segregate hands measurable, simple, and relevant KPIs to track the wayfarers performance wideness variegated sales funnels.
But at this point, you might be wondering whether KPIs are any variegated from marketing metrics in general. Know that KPIs for a particular merchantry are mostly related to engagement, conversions, and sensation and reflect the profitability of the merchantry at any point in time. As for other performance measures, they are useful but aren’t key indicators of merchantry performance.
Delving deeper, here’s what makes KPIs for essential for any content marketing campaign:
Related – What is Content Distribution and their Strategies?
In a nutshell, content marketing provides you with zaftig opportunities to woo your target audience, that too at minimal cost. All you need to do is follow the weightier marketing practices while leveraging a suitable content format.
Notably, the latter would depend on the merchantry goals you’ve set for the near future, your budget, the niche you’re focusing on, and the target audience. Here’s one last tip we’d like to share with you- the initial numbers (KPIs and other metrics) will grow with time, and merely indicate the potential of your brand.
We’ll be when soon with flipside guide. Till then, take care! So, don’t wait crafting.