Types of Content Marketing

Content marketing is an inbound marketing strategy, which means that it is much less intrusive than outbound marketing methods like paid media and traditional marketing. Storytelling and the material you produce to attract your target audience both play a significant role in how you express your brand and its value when using the inbound marketing methodology. You may better adapt your material to your audiences and make it feel more authentic by constructing a narrative.

Every brand or type of business may benefit from content marketing, which comes in a wide variety of forms. It’s crucial to select the type of material that is most pertinent to you when producing it. Take into account your target market, your brand persona, and your communication style when you do this. You can determine which sort of content marketing will help you succeed by asking questions like which channels they use, how they consume their content, and what kind of content they are seeking for.
In this guide to content marketing, we’ll be focusing on 4 main types of content creation:

• Blog post / long-form content piece
• Video
• Podcast
• Infographic

Blog and Long-Form Written Content

When we talk about content marketing, written material or blogging are typically the first types of content that come to mind. Any expert in digital marketing will tell you that prospects are more likely to return to a brand’s website for new content if the blog is current and has interesting insights. In addition to this, a strong blog strategy will probably keep your company up to date and can make sure that it’s the first business your target audience thinks of when they’re ready to convert.

A brand can experiment with other types of written content outside blogs, though. A written content strategy may also include a sizable amount of whitepapers, eBooks, and articles. These lengthy pieces of content are frequently referred to be lead magnets because a prospect frequently needs to trade contact information in order to access the resource. In addition to giving the company a qualified lead who is already interested in the services they offer, this strategy adds value for the client by distributing high-quality, intelligent material.

While each sort of written material has its own advantages and factors to take into account, there are certain fundamental similarities among all of them. Written material is frequently concentrated on responding to particular long-tail keywords and questions. A crucial component of a company’s SEO strategy is blogging, which can assist your search ranks and increase visibility in specialized search engines. If SEO is a top priority for your company (and it should be! ), you should look into written content.

Video Content

In recent years, video has become more popular, and it’s simple to understand why. Video has quickly emerged as the social media networks’ icing on the cake due to its immediate attractiveness, engagement, and eye-catching nature. What’s best? Marketers now have all the tools necessary to start producing engaging video content in their pockets thanks to advancements in smartphones.

There are numerous strategies for maximizing video content, just like there are for textual material. Naturally, you can create a talking head video quickly and easily by simply setting up your phone or camera and starting a conversation. Video client testimonials may be a particularly effective approach for B2B companies to demonstrate their skills, especially through social media posts. Animated videos are popular on social media for individuals with design abilities since they make it simple to explain how one of your goods works or to give a quick summary of your company.

These examples are all typically quite brief—at most a minute or two if they are intended to be posted on social media. Longer-form videos can, however, be just as important to your content marketing approach as written content is. The ability for customers to access unboxing or installation videos straight from you helps to close the loop and improve customer satisfaction because they aren’t forced to search endlessly for a reliable video instruction. Although they will be closely related to your events marketing strategy, webinars can also fit in here.

Podcast Content

Podcasts can be a terrific way to continuously engage your target audience if you have friendly personnel, a wealth of knowledge, or fascinating relationships. One of the most well-liked media formats is the podcast, which attracts regular listeners. Marketers will want to investigate podcasts as a part of their content creation process as a means to promote engagement and raise awareness as demand continues to grow.

Compared to written material and videos, podcasts are a very different kind of content marketing. Podcasts are more focused on building brand awareness than these other content forms, which aim to address highly specific topics or offer solutions to widespread issues. The majority of listeners will probably tune in to your podcast in search of insightful commentary, fascinating hosts, or to keep up with the most recent business news. Naturally, in order to remain relevant, you’ll need to be completely up to speed on all of the hot subjects in your field, but right now, answering specific questions isn’t your main concern. Your podcast content strategy’s top aims should be to make it interesting, relevant, and engaging.

Infographics

Particularly on social media, marketers must compete to captivate their audience. Infographics are a great method to convey information rapidly, making them the ideal choice for this medium. Infographics offer you a new way to visually present information and can help increase the amount of traffic to your website. They can range from single, Instagram-sized images that display a statistic to lengthier images with numerous bullet points.

The fact that infographics are images makes it much simpler to share and store them on a device, which is one of their best features. For instance, while browsing Twitter in the evening, you can easily download an infographic of anything that would be useful the following day at work. When done properly, this offers them a little more sturdiness than the majority of social media content. Additionally, friends may quickly share them by tagging one another on pertinent posts, which expands your visibility and reach.

How to Develop an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

It’s time to start creating a potent content marketing plan now that we’ve discussed the four main categories of content you can utilize to accomplish your business goals. As this frequently helps to avoid silos and ensure that your content marketing efforts fit in well with the rest of your digital marketing activities, such as search engine optimization, it is ideal that you conduct this as part of your overall marketing strategy planning. The last thing you want is to needlessly double up on effort or produce material that doesn’t correspond to your current key performance metrics.

When you’re prepared to create your content marketing plan, the first step is to choose the channels that will work best for your company. Think about the kinds of content that appeal to your audience and the platforms they use to access it. As you create your plan, these content types should come first. Naturally, a well-defined audience is essential in this situation. Instead of assuming what people want to see, you may research current customer behavior by knowing who your customers and potential customers are.

With the content formats outlined, you can begin to research the kind of topics and trends that are popular within your industry and amongst your target audience. There are lots of different tools you can use during the research phase:

• Google Trends shows you how search volumes for a particular phrase, topic or keyword have changed, often highlighting what is currently trending within your sector.
• Keyword research tools such as SEMrush can show you what users are currently searching for, which makes it a great tool for SEO optimised content such as blog articles and even some video content.
• When used with Google Search Console, Google Analytics data can reveal the precise queries that are driving visitors to your site. This information can help you understand how people are currently accessing your website. This might be helpful in determining where to start when developing content and whether you already have any content that converts very well and could use more optimization.

Because it reveals what consumers are already interested in and what they regard as “excellent material,” conducting this research makes it simpler for you to produce captivating content. It is also more probable that your content marketing efforts will lead to more leads, more sales, and assistance in achieving your overall business objectives if your content marketing strategy is based on data of this nature.

You are prepared to begin laying out the specifics of your marketing strategy now that you have determined your favorite content formats and done some research on the themes that are currently essential to your audience. You can start to create a content development calendar using your goal keywords, concepts for interesting material, and any other information you have at your disposal. If you’re making something similar for the first time, make your selections straightforward. Start with simply three months’ worth of content for one channel, then as you develop confidence, start to ramp up. The strategy or schedule that explains the following is what we’re looking for here:

• Which content channels you will be using
• What type of content will be produced (blog article, talking head video, podcast episode)
• What keyword, question or topic you’ll be addressing or targeting
• What stage of the consumer journey this piece of content is geared for
• Which buyer persona this piece of content is targeting

In addition to having content that is uniquely created for each of your buyer personas, you want to ensure that all phases of your customer journey are covered by a piece of content. By using this information, you can make sure that your material is pertinent to the various audience segments you are targeting without being overly general.

It’s crucial to remember that content can serve multiple purposes. An insightful whitepaper may serve as fodder for your upcoming podcast or be condensed into witty infographics. As you start coming up with topics and particular components, think about how you can strengthen your ideas.

As part of your content marketing plan, you should think about how you’ll market your work once you’ve chosen the content kinds and developed ideas for them. Even if you have some of the most informative blogs in your field, you won’t reap the rewards if no one is aware of your content’s existence. Once more, as you choose your distribution strategy, keep your target audience top of mind. Which of those outlets draws the greatest visitors and where do they currently spend their time are possibly more crucial questions. LinkedIn may be the most popular platform for your audience, but email has a greater ability to draw users to your material. In this case, you’d want to make sure that email marketing was prioritised as part of your distribution and promotion strategy.

Successful Content Marketing Examples

What sort of comprehensive guide to content would this be if we didn’t include some effective content marketing examples to assist get the creative juices flowing as you’re putting together your content marketing strategy? Here are just a few of our favorite recent campaigns that might be helpful to you as you create a successful content marketing plan.

Buffer’s Marketing Library

In terms of B2B content marketing, there are few better examples than the incredibly vast resource that is Buffer’s Marketing Library. It is a wonderful resource that has all the information you could possible need about social media marketing for any aspiring or developing social media marketer. You can find everything in Buffer’s Library, whether you want to learn more about how Pinterest functions or the ideal times to post on other social media platforms.

With this tool, Buffer can offer you hundreds of hours’ worth of useful content that will assist you in your work. It can keep you coming back since you believe in them as a company that can assist you and offer guidance. Repeated interaction primes you to instinctively trust social media tools so that they are immediately at the top of your thoughts if you ever need them. Building trust is an important component of the inbound marketing process since it makes your company a prospective customer’s first choice, which generates leads.

Nike’s Behind the Design Series

A brand’s YouTube channel can be a powerful awareness and traffic driver when done right – and Nike’s marketing team knows how to do it right. One of their best series of videos is their “Behind the Design” which gives you a look into the design decisions that go into making some of their newest and most innovative products, such as the FlyEase hands-free shoe. The videos themselves are funny, which makes them watchable, but the creators have managed to also make them interesting and valuable.

These videos are a great hook for anyone who are interested in sportswear and fashion. You can’t help but be inspired by Nike’s video content because they are so well-aware of their target and how they communicate.

Get Ahead with 2022 Content Marketing Trends

Smart marketers keep ahead of the curve, therefore you must make sure that you do as well if you want to develop a successful content marketing plan. The top 4 content trends that will shape 2022 are covered in this last section of our comprehensive guide to content marketing, along with tips on how to use them to develop a successful content marketing plan.

Being Data-Driven and Google-Savvy Content Marketers

The best ally of a marketer may just be data. Data may help us understand how our campaigns are performing, how we can make improvements, and it can inspire new methods and concepts. But data and content marketing have never gotten along well. The effectiveness of a single blog post is frequently difficult to measure, and the alternatives you have when generating content ideas utilizing keyword research and analytics can frequently overwhelm you.

As content marketers in 2022, we are taking the time to comprehend our data and what it implies for our campaigns. To make content planning a more data-driven process that takes into consideration SEO and Google ranking factors to support the success of our campaigns, this entails spending more time using tools like Google Search Console, SEMrush, and other content marketing tools. In order to offer our campaigns the best possibility of appearing in the SERP, we’ll also make sure we fully understand Google’s policies and recommended practices.

Creating More Trustworthy, Relevant Content

Although it has already been said that your content should be appropriate for your audience, this is a trend that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The ultimate goal for content marketers should always be relevance. There are further techniques to make sure that the material you produce is reliable and pertinent, in addition to using more data during the planning stages as we previously indicated.

Google’s Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (EAT) guidelines will continue to play a big role here. Outlined back in 2014, this guidance for writing high-quality pages and content is as relevant today as it was when it was written. Additionally, be sure to constantly design with your ideal client in mind. What are they concerned with? What exactly are they looking for? What information do they need? How can they be certain that you are trustworthy? As you start to construct your approach, you should be asking all of these questions.

Measuring Content Marketing ROI

You need to know that your campaigns are working, and that they are bringing business back into your brand. This means that content marketers will need to establish the best way to measure content marketing ROI in order to have an up-to-date view of performance. Real-time tracking is the greatest approach to ensure that your material is always in the best condition. It can also enable real-time optimization, which can help inform your future strategy.

Create your own KPIs to ensure that you are monitoring and maximizing for the things that are most important to your company. To give you the best possibility of optimizing should any chances exist, these should be tracked in real-time. The complexity of the modern consumer experience, with its numerous touchpoints and non-linear structure, must also be taken into consideration.

Exploring Content Channels: Video Content Creation

Video marketing has proved to be one of the most effective and popular content formats of the last few years, with Hubspot reporting that 76% of marketers who invest in video say it’s their most effective content format. If video isn’t already on your radar, 2022 is the year to take the plunge.
If you’re investing in video marketing for the first time, data and trends indicate that this year will be particularly successful for short-form content. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given the decline in attention spans and the popularity of TikTok and Instagram Reels. Your viewers will appreciate it if you keep your films brief and nice.

Bolster Content Marketing Efforts with Agency Expertise

One of your top priorities for 2022 should be developing a strong content marketing strategy, but you don’t have to do it alone. Leverage the expertise of specialized digital marketing companies like The Revenco.Agency to support your content marketing initiatives. They’ll make sure to keep you up to date on the current trends while also promoting a data-driven strategy that will guarantee your success. Get in contact with us right now to learn more about how we can boost productivity and create leads for you.