The key to effective content marketing is creating valuable, useful, and engaging content that your audience wants to read. But one of the biggest challenges is choosing how to format your content in a way that will be the most effective. There are so many different content types to choose from. No matter what your content marketing strategy looks like, you should definitely make sure you use these four types of content marketing formats:
- Blog Posts
- Case Studies
- eBooks
- Infographics
Blog Posts
Having a blog on your website that covers topics relevant to your business is an essential practice in content marketing. Blogging is a necessary tool in your inbound marketing strategy because it keeps your website up to date with new content to attract new visitors and keep them engaged. Regularly adding new content to your blog is an inexpensive way to boost organic traffic to your website and improve SEO.
If you want to get the most bang for your blogging buck, you'll need to make sure every article you post is optimized for SEO. Use a topic cluster model to organize your blogging content and keep it focused on topics relevant to your business.
Relevant Article: What are Pillar Pages and Topic Clusters?
Case Studies
While blogging is effective for attracting potential customers and answering their questions, case studies show your business in action. Case studies are success stories that showcase how your business has helped solve a real-life problem for a customer. Social proof like case studies can build an immense amount of trust with your audience.
Here are a few ways case studies can help your content marketing:
- Demonstrate expertise. Case studies show real-life examples of your business helping solve customer problems.
- Show the proof. Case studies build credibility with potential customers by showing how others have been successful using your business. No one likes to be first. Consumers want to know that others have worked with your business and have been successful.
- Increase conversion rates. Potential customers who would otherwise be wary of sales hype can see the real-world benefits of using your product or service.
Check out how we use case studies: Mile Marker Club & Sunlight Peaks
Ebooks
Don't be intimidated by the name "eBook." You don't have to write a novel. Instead, think of eBooks as long-form blog articles. As a form of high value content (HVC), eBooks definitely require more time and effort to create, but they're an effective way to give valuable information to your potential customers.
eBooks can help establish you as a thought leader in your industry by providing in-depth and informative content. Potential customers can use the information to better understand what you offer and make an educated buying decision.
You can also use eBooks as a way to capture contact information from potential customers and generate leads. The valuable content in an ebook can be a great incentive for potential customers to provide their email addresses and other information you can use to fine-tune your buyer personas.
Infographics
There are certain situations where the content you need to communicate might come across as a little dry if presented in a blog article. That's where infographics come in handy. They're a visually appealing way to present complex information in a format that's easy for the reader to digest. Here are some forms of content that would benefit most from using an infographic:
- Step-by-step processes
- Comparisons
- Timelines
- Long Lists
Beyond visual appeal, infographics also carry the benefit of being highly shareable. When someone visits your website and sees your infographic, they can easily share it across social media and other online platforms. This can help your business reach a larger audience and boost the visibility of your brand.
There are multiple types of content marketing material your business should be using as part of your overall inbound marketing strategy. Everything from videos and white papers to user-generated content and memes. But the four content types I've listed above should definitely be the first ones you go to when you're brainstorming new pieces for your content marketing strategy.
