Today, people depend more on the internet to search for information than any other sources like TV, radio, or newspapers. The majority of the population is using search engines to extract relevant information needed as and when required. Content marketing is not all about advertising; it offers information that converts potential customers into buyers of your products/services through various content formats.
It is proven that content marketing helped brands to generate leads and sales, and increase customer engagement. Content marketing not only increases the reach of your business to potential customers but also offers customers to experience the brand authority and value. Customer success can be accomplished by providing in-depth information about the brand in different content formats that helps the customers to achieve desired results by using the product or service.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing helps to build a strong relationship with existing as well as new customers. Various content formats are used in content marketing ranging from videos, podcasts, blog posts, infographics, website content, white papers, press releases, SEO articles, social media posts, and ebooks. So, content marketing consists of any content format that is used purposefully to share information and engage the audience.
Here are the 6 content formats that help you to engage with the targeted audience.
1. Blogs
Every one of you already knows what a blog post is. Blogs are one of most popular content formats used to bring traffic to your website, and publishing blogs on your website is a great way to reach the target audience. It helps businesses to improve search engine rankings through SEO and drive organic traffic to the site. Posting blogs enable you to reduce the marketing budget as it is an affordable way to market your business.
Blog posts are an indispensable part of a content marketing strategy. Blogs help to convey the brand’s message to the audience in simple language. While writing a blog post, it is necessary to have an understanding of your target audience. Knowing the target audience helps you to write blog posts that generate interest in them.
Informative, authentic, and original blogs will help to increase traffic and conversions through your site.
2. Infographics
Infographics is a content format that educate your visitors about the business through a combination of visuals and text. This content format is recommended to show statistics and comparisons as it helps to convey the message easily. The text content used in infographics should be to the point and the visuals should be aligned with the content. Hence, it is easy for the visitors to have a better understanding.
The infographics are favored by the audience because it takes less time to browse through the content than a textual article. This content format is getting more social media shares than any other content format. It is a great way to get some high-quality backlinks to your website.
3. Whitepapers
Whitepapers are typically government policy documents.
When whitepapers are used in content marketing as one of the content formats that helps to establish the brand authority of the business in its industry or domain. Whitepapers are long-form content formats that handles a specific topic consisting of a problem and a solution. It is not a sales pitch, but contains rich content that clearly communicates the issues and timely solutions.
Writing a highly researched and in-depth white paper on a topic related to your industry increases brand authority or thought leadership of business.
4. Ebooks
Ebooks are also long-form content that educates prospective customers about topics relevant to both the brand and customers. It is a creative way to express your industry expertise. It consists of more visual content than a whitepaper but is more thoughtful than infographics. Understanding your audience is the key to develop ebook content that showcase your authority on the topic to create a curiosity in them.
Ebooks are generally 5- 30 pages long but help you to showcase your expertise in your industry. This content format helps to build a strong relationship between your business and the targeted audience. Creating ebooks is also an ideal way for lead generation.
Do you know how it is possible? Because visitors should provide their information to download the eBook.
5. Social Media Posts
Social media posts are an excellent way to advertise your brand. The power of social media is known to everyone as social media post reaches more people and brings in visitors to your business. Social networking platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are helping brands reach their audience and establish relationships with prospective customers.
Social media posts engage visitors as well as existing buyers. The engagement helps the visitors to make purchasing decisions. Social media posts are also helpful in creating alerts about a product launch, discount sales, promotions, and newly added product features.
6. Case Studies
Case studies are another kind of content format depicting the success stories of the business. It is basically about a problem solved by your business and how it helped the customer to become successful by implementing the solution provided. Case studies are used to showcase special features of your product or service.
Since it is a real-world story, customers will go through the case studies with great interest to know how your business can help them. Even though you can use any scenario to explain the features of your product or service, giving a real-life example helps to build trust and authenticity. When you decide to write a case study, you should be careful in selecting the customer as an example for your case study. Consider providing a customer example who has benefitted from your business at large.
Final Thoughts
Businesses can be benefitted from content marketing if used in the right manner. Businesses should consider using different types of content formats to reach the audience. Most people have a short attention. Hence, businesses should create and publish authentic content that allures the potential customers.
Build a long-lasting relationship with your customers through well-written and thoughtful content.