Everyone knows how important blogging is for the growth of your business. As the backbone of most acquisition plans, a marketer’s dream is to have a fully functional and insightful blog that directs traffic, generates leads, and helps convert sales.
Written blog articles are great – they are easy to consume, informative, multi-faceted, and extremely engaging when written well. However, with the number of social channels,
You can use to reach customers, expanding your content repertoire (and reach) is an important part of every company’s long-term content marketing plan.
Each platform, from your blog to your Facebook and Instagram page, to your email list, has a unique way of reaching customers. But the content you produce needs to be as well thought out as the messages you are trying to convey.
There are many types of content you can create, depending on the social channel – just know where to start. And, fortunately, there is plenty of statistical and anecdotal evidence to help you find the type of content you need.
But before diving into the different types of content you can make, it is crucial to understand why you need to diversify your content portfolio.
The Importance Of The Variety Of Content
Sometimes, you need to go beyond a blog post. And that’s essential because your customers don’t always need to. I see a blog post.
Depending on where they are in your funnel, they may need to see something different – something more effective and engaging for where they are.
The best way to start understanding this is to understand the Customer Value Journey. If you can understand and memorize the steps of the CVJ, you can begin to understand what you need to give your client to help him move on to the next step.
Tip: this is not always a blog post. And here’s why …
Blog posts are an effective type of content in the CVJ Awareness Stage. They can help people remember your brand, learn what you do, and, hopefully, learn about the process of your industry, your business, or the specific problem you solve. Blogposts may be good at other stages, but different stages require different content.
For example…
In the Awareness Stage, short blog posts are effective in making your brand known. At the engagement stage, long-form blog posts can be effective because they provide information and create credibility. But at the sign-up stage, a free blog post is probably not the kind of content you need to accomplish your goal: getting your customers to sign up and provide your information.
For that, a lead magnet or piece of exclusive content would be much more effective and attractive to your customer who already knows who you are.
Once you understand how content works within the context of the customer value journey, you can understand what types of content are effective at each stage. So, all you need to focus on is creating valuable content.
As everyone knows, the value that your content offers is what matters to generate customers.
(If you have not yet defined your CVJ or your Customer Avatar, you should do this as soon as possible before writing more content, blog, or other. That way, in content marketing and others, you can better understand the steps you take you to need to follow to succeed.
And then you can create all the content they need to move along the journey.
5 different types of content
1. Videos
We’ve talked about it a thousand times before, and until recently we created a blog post about it, but here we are to say it again …
Videos are an extremely effective type of content. In fact, video content may be the most important type of content to have in 2021.
That’s because people are viewing videos more than ever. The rise of the video was inevitable. But its popularity has grown so quickly that now all companies need to figure out how to keep up.
And those who have incredible content marketing success….
Just check the stats of other content marketers like you. 80% of the video markets said that the video helped them to increase sales and 87% said it increased their website traffic. The video has been shown to generate results – and the best part is that it is multifaceted.
Video can inform, entertain, and captivate. He can do all three of these things at the same time, and he can also do them exclusively. There is no limit to what the video can offer.
That’s why, whether it’s a commercial, an explanatory video, or anything in between, people use the video so much.
Because of this, video can be useful at almost any point in the customer value journey. But they are effective in the first two stages of the CVJ because they do a great job of raising awareness and are extremely engaging.
You can find ways to use the video later on at CVJ as if you were creating a challenge video to generate excitement or customer testimonials to defend your brand.
If you want to learn more about creating great videos, check out our blog post. And if you do, you will notice that there is another type of content attached …
2. Infographics
If you looked at that blog post, what did you think of the infographic?
It will be your first thought that it was informative, unique, or aesthetically pleasing.
See, infographics are very similar to blog posts, but they do have an advantage on a typical blog.
They are beautiful to look at.
People like infographics because they can provide a lot of helpful data. They also make this information very consumable and easy to know. Also, clarity, more than anything, makes people require to buy your product or use your service.
Infographics are excellent for creating engagement – just look at what we did with our video infographic.
This adds a different aspect to our long blog post, strengthening the post as a whole, as well as the information we are trying to convey. It can also be downloaded, so people can use it at any time.
Infographics are sure to help people learn who you are and what you do. This is mainly because your customers can get a lot from them. And with a little creativity and a good graphic designer (or a Canva account), they aren’t that difficult to do.
3. Tools
The good thing about the tools as a content type is that they are useful. The other good thing is that they are interactive.
The ability to interact with something and use it in a unique way not only makes it useful, but it also makes it memorable. That’s why tools are such a good type of content: people can get value out of it and can do it on their own.
Just as you loved using crayons for the first time as a child, or in the same way that our ancestors reacted when using the first hammer, your customers should react in the same way to the tools you provide them. They are cool, useful, and tangible.
The only problem is knowing which tool you need to provide in the first place.
There is no right or wrong answer here because it depends entirely on what you do and the problem you solve. For us, we created a tool we call the Content Calculator that helps you understand and predict your metrics (traffic and sales) based on the amount of content you create. Very cool tool, right?
If you work with digital marketing, it may be a tool that helps your customers to outline their marketing plan. If you are a personal trainer, it may be a tool that helps your clients to monitor their fitness and eating habits. The options are endless.
But regardless of the tool, it’s best to use it to get people to sign up.
That means not giving it away for free. If they are not going to convince them to convert by purchasing, they should at least subscribe to your email list or provide their contact information. That way, after they get some value from your tool, you can make another offer that will bring them back.
And they’ll probably like you already since your tool was so good.
4. Challenges
The challenges are great. They are inclusive, fun, exciting, and promote interaction between your brand and your customers.
And that last part is because they are really useful. This is also why the challenges are different from the other 3 types of content above.
The challenges are not intended to generate new customers. The goal is to keep those that already exist happy.
They can be a great way to keep your already satisfied customers engaged or win back some customers who may not buy or open your emails for a while. They allow your customers to do something interesting while keeping your brand in mind.
And if you combine your challenges with some prizes for the winners, you’ll have people participating every time.
The only problem is like the previous one: there is no challenge that works for everyone. They will depend entirely on what your business is. For us, it is the marketing challenges that help our customers and partners to learn a new skill or to reexamine something in their marketing plan.
Perhaps it is just a demonstration of the excellent work they have already done.
No matter what it is, that is the ultimate goal: show your customers. It is all about giving them something to accomplish and then showing them some appreciation. That’s why they work so well on the Excite stage.
Who said the content was just to pique people’s interest? Even for someone who has purchased from you 100 times, generating content for that person can do wonders for your business (and the customer retention rate).
Learn more about Business and Small Business at Digital Business Grow.
5. Case studies
Last but not least, case studies are a great form of content to attract people at all stages of your customer value journey. That’s because everyone finds them attractive and interesting.
Whether you’re trying to reach new customers or those who have been with you for 10 years, people love success stories. They are inspirational and offer something your customers can strive for, and also show how your product has helped them achieve something meaningful.
This makes the case studies look like customer testimonials. And while they are similar, there is a very significant difference: they need to be about your customer, not you.
Although you should mention that they used your service, this is not what your case study should be about. It must be about the cool thing or milestone that your client was able to accomplish.
By making it customer-centric first than business-centric, you can captivate your audience in your customer’s story. This will only increase your desire to accomplish something like this on your own.
And they will still associate your success with your brand. At the very least, they will want to end up being the next case study to be featured on your website.
Case studies can accomplish many things at the same time, and they are no more difficult to create than a regular blog post. All you need to do is contact your customer and talk to them. If they were very successful, I promise they will be more than happy to talk about it.
While blog posts are the backbone of most content marketing plans (and should not be underestimated), many content options can help you reach your audience in new ways.
If you use them and do it effectively, you will have no problem making your business and your audience grows.
