Since there are different content types, young marketers often don’t know how to choose the one they should use. This guide offers what you need to know on the matter.
Content Is Important, According to the Content Marketing Institute
The Content Marketing Institute has reported that 69% of people working with online marketing are generating more content. However, a lot of those young marketers still do not have an effective strategy when they’re planning.
Having a strategy and choosing the best types of content for your website is crucial. If you don’t create content that’s beneficial for your marketing approach, it will be very difficult for your site to grow.
To reach your target audience, producing high-quality content is essential. Therefore, you have to know exactly what you must do to give your public the best.
Best Types of Content for Your Content Marketing Strategy
There are numerous types of content you can create for your target audience. Before you choose the ones you want for your website, exploring all alternatives is a fantastic idea. Here are some options you might want to consider:
Blog Post
Writing blog posts is one of the classic content creation strategies you can implement in digital marketing.
Regardless of whether you have your own blog or a business website, a blog post can help your audience understand things from a new perspective.
In a blog post, you can teach your public how to do something, tell them some secrets about the industry you’re in, or provide them with a perspective they might not know.
Even though Search Engine Optimization is still a challenge for many people’s content strategy, long-form content like a blog post can definitely help grow your site, and it’s why it’s the number one option on this list.
White Papers
Another type of high-quality content you can explore is writing white papers. These are similar to Ebooks, but they also have essential differences.
Making white papers is a fantastic way to position your business brand, and it can help your audience know you as a subject matter expert.
All white papers must include statistics and scientifically-backed information, and they’re usually long. Therefore, you must do some research before offering them to your public.
Stories of Customer Success
You’re probably more likely to buy something if you know it worked for someone else. Therefore, customer success stories are a great way to show your potential clients that what you’re offering them works in the real world.
To publish the best success stories, talk to your clients and ask them to provide feedback. With their permission, publish what they said about your product or service and you’re done! You should now have a whole new content section on your site.
Product Guides and Similar Content
The classic blog post can provide your customers with fantastic information about your brand and products, but there are other written content ideas you can also try.
Writing product guides, for instance, is a great example of a strategy you should try if you’re running your own website.
In an in-depth description, tell your clients how to use your product without sales jargon. Doing this allows you to show off your industry expertise, and it also lets you show your customers how they can use what you offer.
Case Studies
Numerous digital marketing experts say that case studies are immensely effective to turn readers into customers.
Case studies work similarly to success stories. However, in this case, the strategy focuses on giving your potential customers a lengthy explanation of how your product or service can change people’s lives.
Images
Content without images is simply not alive. At the same time, visual content is one of the most successful types, so offering images to your clients can definitely help your brand.
You can communicate a block of text through an image that your customers can read in just a matter of seconds. It guarantees that they will stop scrolling, and it also ensures that you keep their attention, so they can stay on your site, read more, or even buy from you.
Testimonials
Customer testimonials are another great example of a way to give your customers an in-depth description of how others feel about your products.
Adding testimonials to your own business site or blog usually means you include a snippet of what former customers have said about you. As with similar strategies, you must contact former clients, ask them for feedback, and then publish it.
Resource Centers
Help centers and company news pages are also immensely helpful for your clients. If you incorporate them into your site, you can give them guides and articles to go to when they’re learning how to use your product.
Additionally, a company news page lets your potential customers know everything about your website, for example, product updates, new policies, and so on.
Videos
Video content is one of the most popular ones on social media platforms, and generally speaking, all over the internet. You’ve surely come across TikToks on Google, even if you don’t have the app.
Some people think they need a lot of expensive equipment to create videos that make a difference, but this is not necessarily the case.
Creating content requires you to be creative, especially when it comes to video production. You can, for example, make animated videos instead of recording content.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can find a FAQs section in almost all types of online content. Whether it’s a business website or a blog, the Frequently Asked Questions page is essential to educate your customers.
Even though this is a type of valuable content, you must know how to format it correctly if you want it to succeed. Make sure the answers are clear and concise – this is the perfect section to offer bite-sized information about your brand.
Comparison Sheets
As was mentioned before, creating content is all about being creative and finding innovative ways to highlight your company’s knowledge.
Offering your customers a resource library to go through when they visit your site is the best idea ever, and adding comparison sheets to the mix is a fantastic way to incorporate easy-to-make content.
To make comparison sheets, you can turn content creation into a whole new experience to go through with your marketing team.
Ask them for some ideas, brainstorm options together, and once you come up with different products, services, or posts to compare, make visually attractive sheets comparing what you chose.
Awards
Reminding your audience of your expertise is essential to position yourself in the internet world. To encourage brand awareness, you can create content that includes the awards you or your business won for your knowledge.
Although using social media platforms to publish posts might sound like a convenient idea, in this case, you should avoid it. Instead, publish your awards in a section where anyone can find what you’ve done.
To show the best of your brand to your potential customers, add any press release that has mentioned your business. When your site is featured in press releases, you can show people what others think of what you can offer.
Memes
Adding memes to your social media posts, blog posts, and even your visual content is one of the best content strategy ideas you can incorporate.
Nowadays, you can incorporate memes into almost all types of content. Doing so allows you to connect with your audience because they might find the images funny or may even be able to relate to what they say.
Even though memes are convenient and funny, you shouldn’t use them excessively. If you do, you risk your potential customers not taking you seriously.
Instead, add memes here and there to incorporate a touch of humor into your content without losing sight of what’s important: the information you give to your clients.
Contests
Hosting contests is another way to drive organic traffic to your social platforms. This strategy encourages people to engage with your posts, which is essential for traffic growth.
When you host contests, you have to make sure that you offer something valuable to your customers. Provide them with exclusive content, for example, a free e-course, a unique go-to guide, or something else that they might not be able to obtain otherwise.
Contests are very popular, and you might have even participated in one yourself. They’re an essential strategy for content marketing, and they can be extremely helpful if you want to improve your methods and grow your social networks.
User Manuals
Even though there are many content types, if you want to provide your audience with an in-depth look into what your products or services can do and build respect within your industry and thought leadership, giving your clients a how-to guide is certainly the most straightforward strategy.
Giving free user manuals to your customers allows them to understand what your brand can do for them.
Instead of simply making a social media post about your product, you can develop guides in multiple formats. PDFs and audio content are the most common ones, but there are other alternatives too.
Keep in mind that user manuals should be long how-to guides. Therefore, they should be more detailed than the regular blog posts you publish.
User-generated Blog Content
When you’re examining different types of content to publish on your site, you must keep something essential in mind: you have to connect to all the levels in your sales funnel.
However, this is definitely easier said than done. Making the ideal content that provides valuable information to your clients and allows you to connect with them is often challenging because you need to come up with something that’s unique.
A very effective way to achieve both purposes is to rely on user-generated content. It takes little time, makes your brand stand out from the competition, and you can incorporate it into different formats (blog posts, visual content, landing pages, and so on).
If you encourage user-generated content, you can make sure that the people who visit your site see others who have used your products or hired your services. After this, they might be much more prone to buy something from you, especially if they feel identified with the person they saw.
You can try this method in blog posts at first. Show your readers what others are doing with your products, and make them see how their life could change if they tried them too.
Soon enough, you might see that it’s an immensely effective strategy, especially if you try doing it in video format. After a while, you can use it on any social media network you want – showcase your clients on your Instagram stories or make a Twitter thread!
Infographics
Visual learners thrive on infographics. These are definitely a very popular method to incorporate eye-catching images into your blog posts.
Infographics are a fantastic option if you want to summarize some text. Instead of showing it to your audience with words only, you can use visuals to connect with them and make your site look more appealing.
Using infographics is immensely convenient, and even though finding the best ones takes time, you might be very grateful once you start incorporating them into your posts. It can catch people’s attention and guarantee that your brand stands out.
Screenshots
Although there are numerous types of content, people rarely think of screenshots, and adding them to your blog posts can make a huge difference, especially if you offer digital products.
Suppose that your brand specializes in app development or writing ebooks. In those cases, adding screenshots is a fantastic method to show your clients what you’re offering them.
The key to using screenshots the best way you can is to make sure you’re not giving everything away. Alternatively, show some (preferably the best) parts of your product or service and watch your potential customers start messaging you to know more about your offer.
Polls
Content marketing involves many strategies, and polls are very effective for social networks. They allow you to engage with your audience, which is crucial to attracting new potential clients to your brand.
Before you use polls, though, there are some things you must consider. The algorithm of each social media platform is unique. Consequently, you must examine them separately and decide what you want to do for each one.
Twitter polls, for example, are completely different than the ones you can do on Instagram because on the latter, you’re interacting through the stories and using stickers. Therefore, you must know the tools and platforms you have available and choose the most convenient one for your brand.
GIFs
Incorporating gifs into your content marketing is a fantastic strategy, especially if you want to add a touch of humor to what you do.
Gifs are ideal to catch your audience’s attention. Adding them works particularly well if your content marketing is based on writing long blog posts.
However, you should use them with caution. Just like memes, gifs are funny, but you risk losing seriousness if you use them after every paragraph you write.
Adding fun gifs here and there can make your public break out in a genuine smile as they read what you write or check your posts. Nonetheless, you must make sure you don’t go too far.
Magazines
Many marketers don’t know they can incorporate magazines into their strategy to attract more people.
Digital magazines work similarly to the ones you already know. You need to make sure that you add beautiful and eye-catching images with a little text, and you must regularly post them.
Magazines are unique and can definitely make your brand look different from many others out there.
Nonetheless, you need to be consistent and guarantee that you provide your clients with a beautiful design that accompanies convenient information. Otherwise, they don’t have any reason to read what you’re giving them.
360-degree Videos
If you want to add something even more interesting to your site, you could try recording 360-degree videos.
These types of videos are ideal if you want to show a specific place. Suppose that you work with interior design or architecture. Recording a 360-degree video allows your clients to get a full view of what you can do.
With a 360-video, your clients can also see a product from all of its angles. Therefore, this is a very convenient strategy if you want to show off the structure of what your clients can buy from you.
Quizzes
Just like polls, quizzes are ideal if you want your audience to interact with you. In this case, you can use various platforms to host them, for example, Instagram, your blog, or even your newsletter.
Creating engaging content is essential for any brand, especially if you want to bond with your potential customers. Thus, hosting quizzes allows you to test your public’s knowledge in a fun way.
Calculators
Content marketing for online stores can be challenging sometimes because you might not know how to diversify your strategies. Nonetheless, one of the best things you can try is adding a calculator.
An interactive calculator allows your clients to adjust its settings according to what they want to buy from your store. It might take you a little time to set it up, but once you do, you’ll see that it was worth it.
Clients love to have content they can interact with, especially if it helps them with what they want to do. Therefore, a calculator can be very beneficial for your site.
Interactive White Papers
As was mentioned before, clients love it when you make some content they can interact with. Overall, white papers are very convenient because they offer a lot of information to your potential customers.
To make things more interesting, you can change your white papers and allow clients to interact with the content. Let them answer questions, highlight phrases, and even host quizzes related to the papers themselves.
Content marketing requires work, but most of all, it needs for you to be willing to let your creative juices flow and come up with innovative ideas. Thus, think of the best ways to allow your customers to interact with the white papers you give them and try it out!
Brackets
If you’re interested in trying numerous content marketing strategies, here’s one you might not know already: adding brackets to your subject lines when you send an email.
This strategy is not as famous as others. Nonetheless, some people say that it worked for them, so it wouldn’t hurt to try and see if it increases the number of responses you get from your customers.
The best thing about brackets is that they can highlight a phrase or a word and make them look entirely different. Consequently, they’re ideal if you want to emphasize something.
Vlogs
If you use YouTube, you probably know that vlogs are immensely successful. Some people only record their lives and show that to others, so it’s a way for you to connect with your public at a deeper level.
Vlogs require you to be constant. When you run a regular blog, you have to post a few times a week for it to succeed – the same goes for vlogs. Instead of writing the posts, you’re recording them.
Incorporating video blogs (or vlogs) into your brand is a fantastic method to add some dynamism to your site. These videos can be immensely simple, and this might be convenient if you prefer something more straightforward and easy to edit.
Product Demonstrations
Clients love it when you show them the products you’re offering. If you want to sell, you have to make sure that your potential customers understand what they’re buying.
Product demonstrations are essential for content marketing, especially if you’re selling something very specific instead of offering services.
To show your clients what you sell, you might want to examine different methods. You can, for example, record a video of yourself or someone else using the product.
Another option is to make a step-by-step guide where you demonstrate how people can use your product.
Nonetheless, regardless of the alternative you choose, you must make sure that the instructions are clear enough for clients to be able to understand what your product can do for them.
How-to Tutorials
If product demonstrations are not what you want for your content marketing tactics, you can make how-to tutorials instead. Show your clients how to use your product or service or take advantage of the format and give them valuable information.
A good example of this is to make an extensive guide on how to do something specific. Focus on providing your clients with the information they can’t find elsewhere, and if they can, make sure that you’re writing from an innovative angle.
The key to writing the perfect content marketing guide is to identify your customers’ needs. Once you do that, you’re able to address those requirements and give them what they want.
Company Culture
Your clients want to know more about your brand. If you’re doing everything right, they probably subscribed to your newsletter, follow you on every social platform, and read the new posts you publish.
Take advantage of this and show some behind-the-scenes content. Record your team, take pictures, and show how your company does things.
If you have a personal brand, forget about filters and edited videos and show your followers how a day with you really is.
Making content that shows the true colors of your company allows your clients to feel identified with it. Instead of focusing on selling, you can turn your attention toward bonding with your customers.
Webinars
According to some marketers, webinars are powerful tools if you want to turn your public into customers whilst providing people with valuable information.
Since you can gather data when you send the webinar invitation, it’s a fantastic strategy if you want to build your email list and start sending newsletters afterward.
Many people love webinars because they can learn a lot when they join. Therefore, you must make sure that the information you provide is unique and makes your public feel interested.
Social Media Content
It has been briefly mentioned before in this guide, but now it’s time to discuss social media posts. Using social network platforms is crucial if you want your brand to grow, regardless of whether you offer products, services, or both.
Millions of people have social media accounts, so creating content for these platforms allows you to reach out to clients. Furthermore, since they probably check these apps from their mobile devices, you can also learn new techniques to distribute the information and design the visuals.
Posting on social media can bring organic traffic to your site. Additionally, you can interact with people, especially if you host a live stream event, for example, on Facebook Live.
Since social media platforms are so versatile, you can also explore other possibilities. You can write a guest post in someone else’s profile, for instance.
Guest posts can drive new people to your account. Once that happens, you can redirect them to your landing page.
Overall, posting on social media platforms is a fantastic idea. Lastly, keep in mind that you have to be constant if you want your content to succeed, so you must post a few times a week, every week.
What Is the Best Type of Blog Content?
Many marketers wonder what’s the best type of content to make for their blog. However, you should always remember that there is no unique answer.
Generally speaking, you should publish blog posts if you’re running a blog, but this is not the only strategy you can implement.
Many people add infographics to their posts, while others have their own podcast and link it, or link a YouTube video.
If you run a blog, what you should consider is that consistency is crucial. You have to provide valuable content to your clients, and it should be consistent.
To Wrap Up
Posting a few times a week every week allows you to get the results you want as long as you give unique content to your clients. You must provide something that enhances their thought leadership and not only redirects them to random landing pages from sites they don’t want to subscribe to. Thus, you have to be patient.
There are many content types, and you have to choose the strategy that works for your business. Therefore, give some of these ideas a try!
