5 Useful Content Marketing Types for Business

Your business is special.

It is special because it is either your creation or it is a business that you are ultimately responsible for.

It’s also special because of the amount of attention, hours, emotion, energy and hard work you have given to it.

For this reason you want to ensure that when you take your business down the content marketing path, it is represented to its full ability.

The fantastic thing about content marketing is that it is driven by a combination of detailed thought and strategy and a whopping wealth of creativity.

The planning canvas is white space that is waiting to be populated with topics, ideas, visual and methods that will serve to generate an increased ROI.

This opportunity to be creative with your planning is supported by the range of content marketing types that are available to formulate your ideas upon. These are the vessels within which to unleash your creativity.

They also provide diversity and colour to your subject matter and are the containers that, when published, become a representation of your business.

Let’s take a look at some of the content marketing types that can be used to represent your business.

#1 Blogs

When you hear the word blog it can conjure up images of heavy text and boring content yet blogs can be creative, informative and valuable.

Blogs are not just text. They can integrate a number of content marketing types within which add to the colour, flavour and tone of your brand representation.

The most important component of a blog is the ideas created and documented in your content marketing strategy and planner that are presented with quality and on a consistent basis. All the other components are important yet cannot be utilised well without being based on the idea and its ultimate business goal.

There are many ways you can formulate this and our guide, 10 Killer Content Ideas for your Blog will help you do just that. It includes:

• Reviews
• Interviews
• Case Studies
• How to Guides
• Link Round Ups

And many more.

The key to consistent blogging is to develop a content marketing planner that will enable your business to prepare and produce rich content that will enhance your business ROI.

With the blog ideas and the plan in place then you need to turn your eye to the individual blog content piece in order to maximise it in such a way that it will get your content seen.

Our Ten Tips to Blog Post Success post incorporates the key factors required to do just this.
It includes tips on:

• Blog Titles
• Content Impact
• Blog Formatting
• Blog Length
• Call to Actions

and it also includes information on SEO optimisation and Social Sharing which can also be applied to the other content marketing types we are going to look at.

These factors ultimately assist you to get your content seen.

#2 Images

These are a powerful content marketing type that will draw the eye quicker than text. This is why you need to be careful in your creativity in ensuring that the image will represent your message and your brand in an appealing manner.

In our fundamental guide to blog post images we wrote that Images can:

• Educate
• Represent
• Inform
• Inspire
• Sell

using anything from enchanting photography to statistical graphs and this diversity is why they should be utilised well to add value to your business.

The post details the types of images that can be incorporated into your blogging strategy in order to enhance the text yet stand-alone images, if used well, can have the ability to go viral.

Take a look at memes. Memes are snapshots of humorous or social content that are taken and shared quickly using either the same content marketing types or a similar variation. They often focus on a topical issue or a play on words that resonates with the online audience.

Memes can be displayed in a variety of content marketing types and a popular one is the combination of image with text.

Whilst memes have an instantaneous result you need to be careful that the subject matter that is being shared has value for you and your brand. Typically, the content has a shock value that may garner attention but not the right TYPE of attention for your brand.

With fantastic, easy to use tools like Canva and Buffer’s Pablo App all ready to use, you really just need to come up with the idea and the concept can become a reality very quickly.

When memes do work, in the right way for your brand, they can be content marketing GOLD.

#3 Video

We think video will rule the content marketing airwaves this year and the combination of mobile technology and the platform accessibility on popular social networks like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; this content marketing type is there for the taking.

A Demand Metric survey reported that 82% of marketers reported success with video marketing initiatives and this is down to the diversity of use.

Video can:

Give Insight to your Brand: Portray the people behind the brand, an insight into the way you work and the customers you have. It provides a human aspect to your business. Marketing influencers like Rand Fishkin and Gary Vaynerchuk have used this method with great success.

Provide Resource Efficiency: The utilisation of Self-Help videos and How- To guides can reduce the number of inquiries that you and your staff have to deal with every day. A simple guide can provide a focus shift for your business as you can concentrate on other areas rather than dealing with the same query over and over again.

Drive Business Growth and ROI: Video has never been more interactive. The ability to publish on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter now have increased their sharing ability as, well, that’s what Facebook and Twitter are all about.
YouTube have recently taken the interactive nature of video one step further with the introduction of YouTube Cards which enables you to place strategic Call To Actions at relevant points in the video that click straight through to a landing page on your website.

How good is that!

It means that video can be utilised for any specific business goal that has been created on your website. The potential for your ROI is HUGE.

#4 Podcasts

Easy to do; you just need you and your voice yet the impact can be amazing! Think about the user friendliness of podcasts …. A mobile device and a set of ear plugs and you can access informative content whilst jogging, shopping, cycling or lying in your bed at night.

Obviously a lot of planning is required in researching subject matter, structuring the podcast and presenting it in an appealing manner but the ability to produce a podcast is made easy with platforms like Audioboom which enables you to upload vocal content whilst on the go.

The content of Podcasts is similar to the other content marketing types portrayed here. They can:

• Detail your opinion on a subject, thereby establishing you as a thought leader in your industry.
• Provide self-help guides
• Be used for interview purposes with influencers in your field
• Direct your target audience to new brand innovation and services thereby increasing the potential to maximise on ROI.

Tech podcasts like FIR For Immediate Release have created huge success with this content marketing type and businesses such as Donegan Landscaping have utilised this method so well they have brought it to the mainstream airwaves with The Sodshow.

So the propensity for Podcast potential is massive!

#5 Infographics

Sometimes a lot of content that is subject heavy can seem cumbersome and deter people from taking a bite of the information within … which is a real shame as that content can be of real value.

This is where Infographics can be a really good fit for portraying this content in an appealing manner.

We wrote about this content marketing type in our Guide to Infographics where we described it as:

a way of taking complex and detailed information and presenting it in a visually pleasing way that is easy to assimilate and share online. Infographics are creative, colourful and fun and capture awareness of the salient points of a topic, creating an opportunity for increased traffic to your website.

An infographic tells a story and how that story is told is down to the planning and creativity within. The finished result has the ability to:

• Convey Information
• Extend Virility and Reach
• Establish Authority In Industry
• Make Boring Data less Boring

They can be stand alone or embedded on your blog and can easily be embedded with an attribution on other sites so increasing the sharing opportunity available.

Try one and see!

These content marketing types are just a few of the ways you can portray your brand online. The one thing that remains important is that, whichever way you plan your content marketing strategy, make sure that your methods of choice fully represent your brand and the business within.

Plan with personality in mind and execute with exciting appeal but do this without losing sight of the business goal. If managed well the ROI will reflect the passion and work put in.

What other Content Marketing types do you use in your business? Let us know!