Types of Content Marketing: A Complete Guide

Blogging may get all of the attention, but there are many types of content that should be a part of your content marketing strategy. You should include several different types of content marketing in your strategy. This helps you reach a broader audience and speak directly to each buyer persona in your target audience. Create a plan where you utilize different types of content to help someone move through the marketing funnel and decide to make a purchase.

This is probably the most well-known type of online content. These are 300-2,000 word pieces that you publish on your website on a routine basis. You could post daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on your strategy. Businesses can easily and quickly produce blog content that’s informative and topically relevant to current trends. This type of content is useful for targeting keywords, helping your website perform better for SEO, and moving your target audience through the marketing funnel. 

Make the most of your blog posts by putting a strategic plan into them. Choose a long tail keyword that you’ll target in each post. Interlink your posts to guide readers through your website. Use your blog posts to answer the questions that your target audience is asking. Contact other bloggers and see if you can write guest posts. This will let you build backlinks to your website.

One of the best evergreen types of content marketing is calculators. People want an easy answer, and the majority of people find math to be difficult. So providing a calculator on your website gives your potential and current clients a valuable resource. Don’t worry about having to code. There are some calculators that you embed in your website through an API. This can be done in a few clicks. If you want a custom calculator, you can hire someone to create it for you as a one-off project. 

If there is any math problem that’s related to your business, provide a calculator for it. Perhaps you are an interior designer and have a calculator for room square footage. You could have one that determines the best-sized area rug for a room. If you’re a lawyer, you could have a calculator that helps clients calculate child support, Chapter 13 bankruptcy payments, or a personal injury calculator. Motorcycle and automotive dealers can have loan calculators that aid people in planning their next purchase. 

Do you have a client that has experienced a benefit from using your product or service? Then you can do a case study on them. This is a long-form piece of content that features a single client. It’s typically used to supplement sales-focused marketing materials that move potential clients through the marketing funnel. This is one of the data-driven forms of content. Think of it as a step up from standard reviews and testimonials. It needs to have accurate, high-quality content that potential customers would consider valuable information.

Reach out to your current clients that you have a strong, positive relationship with. Ask them if they are comfortable working with you to draft a case study on them. You may need to comfort them by agreeing to not reveal sensitive information about the client’s business. Case studies typically tell a story and are full of qualitative data. You want to provide a snapshot of who your typical client is and what you can do for your clients. 

Use checklists to outline what you want people to do. For example, estate planning attorneys often use them to help clients get organized for preparing their will and other documents. Interior designers can use checklists to help clients stay organized when redesigning or decorating a home. A motorcycle company could create a checklist for regular maintenance required on bikes or a checklist of required items when going on a long trip. 

People love free stuff, so hosting a contest is a great way to get people engaged and share your content. Contests require people to submit their information to enter the contest. Then they gain a chance to win a desirable prize. Contests work well for lead generation, brand awareness, and engagement.  

Just like the name implies, ebooks are long-form content that consists of lots of pages. Typically, you’ll make them available on your website as a PDF download. This lets people download and print the ebook and read it at their leisure. Because they are so long, you’ll use ebooks to showcase your expertise or knowledge. Focus on your ebooks being a solution for the reader. This gives the reader value while establishing your authority on the subject matter. 

When you create an ebook, you can use it to generate leads or increase your subscribers. Have people submit their email before they can download the ebook. Include hard data in your ebook to establish trust and authority. This goes beyond asking the reader to take your word for it, you give them concrete facts that they can trust. Your ebook is not the place for selling, so keep the promotional messaging to a minimum. 

One of the OG types of digital marketing is email. While it won’t directly help you perform better with search engines, it’s a valuable tool for your marketing efforts. In today’s world, we all have at least two email addresses, sometimes many more. Email allows you to directly communicate with your current and potential customers. You have a direct line of communication with people to deliver great content directly to their inbox. Encourage them to sign up for a subscription. You can use email lists to help move your target audience through the customer journey to make a purchase decision. Then once customers make a purchase, you can use email to continue and strengthen the relationship. 

Use email as a touchpoint for your target audience to build trust. Encourage website visitors to sign up for emails with pop ops on your website. Send out emails to customers to enhance the buying experience. Use emails to promote specials, sales, and new products that you have developed marketing campaigns for. 

Everyone loves looking at pictures, right? Instead of delivering information in the form of several paragraphs, turn it into an infographic. These are the long scrolling visual content that tell a story with data through the use of engaging graphics. This turns information that can be complicated and detailed into a quick and digestible format. Because they are pictorial stories, they are shared three times more often as social media posts than a blog post conveying the same information. This makes them a good tool for building backlinks to your website.  

If you want to use infographics on your website, you need to have an artful eye. The overall design needs to look good and be visually appealing. The biggest mistake people make is not embracing white space. There needs to be some empty space to avoid your infographic looking cluttered. Try using color and design to visually break up the design and allow the eye to flow from one section to the next. 

Try reaching out to influential people and ask if they would be willing to participate in an interview. If there is no one willing or you don’t want to do this, there are other options. You could interview your employees, bringing a human face to your brand. Another option is to interview your clients and customers. This helps to establish a connection between current and future customers, which makes those in the marketing funnel closer to purchasing. 

Some industries benefit greatly from featuring a photo gallery on their website. Photo galleries allow businesses to feature their completed projects, products, people, and physical locations. For the greatest benefit, the images shouldn’t be generic free-use photos. They should be of professional quality. Having them in categories is also helpful, making it easier for someone to view them. 

Feature photo galleries of your products, completed projects, or office location. You could source images from social media that customers have posted. This creates engagement and allows website visitors to see what a real-world experience with your company is like. This increases trust. 

The origin of podcasts was that independent individuals would record themselves talking and create a series of episodes. They would publish them on a regular basis. Many podcasts have hobby topics. For example, crime podcasts are especially popular. Typically, podcasts are spoken work and do not include video. 

A press release is a structured written letter that announces company events and news. There is a specific format for them, and you’ll publish them through AP distribution channels. This gets it in front of news media publications to increase the odds of it getting picked up and published. 

Every time your business has an official event, then you can prepare a press release about it. Common reasons for publishing press releases are appointing new board members or executives, releasing a new product, reaching a sales goal, or opening a new office. Keep your press release narrowed to the point and direct. Do not include marketing or sales language. 

Social media can take up all of your time if you let it. Don’t do this. Instead, choose the most important social media platforms where you find the largest volume of your target audience. Try scheduling your posts to take the bulk of the last-minute work off your plate. Use your social media to keep your finger on the pulse of trends, public opinion, and your brand’s reputation. Use social media to stay interactive with your target audience and practice thought leadership. Don’t be afraid to let your marketing team use less formal forms of content, such as memes, gifs, polls, and quizzes.

Make your customers’ lives easier by providing them with templates. They can then download the template and fill it out. Templates are good for branding because you can theme the template to your company’s colors and style. This reinforces your relationship with the user by placing your company in front of your target audience even when they aren’t on the website or social media. HubSpot is well known for using templates to increase its leads and email subscription list.

Build templates that you think will make your customers’ lives easier. Perhaps a template that helps them plan a move, redecoration, or even a home maintenance schedule. Sometimes templates are good for helping people submit forms to empower them. 

Instead of written content, video marketing has become the most used kind of content. You could keep things simple with your iPhone on a tripod or hire a professional videographer. Video content conveys information or provides entertainment to the viewer. While it’s a bit more complicated to produce than other content, it’s the most engaging form of content marketing. People will watch a video for longer than they would read a blog post when both are conveying the same information.

A webinar is a video class online. People sign up for a webinar with the intent to learn something. It should provide them with value and new information. Sometimes, webinars are a series, providing several videos that each go in-depth on a particular aspect of a broader topic. 

If education is a part of your marketing strategy, webinars are essential. They are perfect for engaging interested individuals. You can go in-depth into information with a captive audience. Give your webinars a professional feel with professional quality lighting and video production. Record your webinars once, and then you can promote them and reuse them. Hosting webinars are a great way of hosting demos for people interested in your product or service.

The content on your website is part of your branding and marketing. Don’t waste this prime opportunity to target keywords, improve SEO, and engage visitors. You should have at least 300 words of content on each website page. Target a different keyword for each page. Focus on writing engaging content that is formatted in a reader-friendly design. 

People tend to take the set it and forget it approach when it comes to website content. The problem with this is that it will eventually become stale and outdated. Google likes to see that you keep your website fresh, relevant, and up to date. Use your website content to explain who your brand is, how it started, and what you have to offer. Once you have your website created, you can start testing with a landing page. Create two with slight variations. This can help you improve your inbound efforts. Use what you learn from your testing to optimize your entire website.

People often confuse white papers with eBooks or case studies. They are not the same thing. White papers are long-form content and full of data and information. White papers are one of the least sexy pieces of content marketing. However, they can be one of the most valuable. When people are looking to get down to brass tacks, white papers are what they are looking for. 

If you need to have data to back up your claims, you’ll use this information to publish white papers. Perhaps you can publish statistics on family court or data on personal injury claims. Maybe you have developed a new aftermarket auto part and want to prove your claims. Perhaps you submit your product to third-party testing. You can then use the independent findings to back up claims about performance improvements, environmental effects, or safety.