Content marketing has transformed how companies do business and interact with their customers. Merely distributing advertising messages to your audience is no longer a viable strategy for increasing your website traffic and customer conversion rates. Since the rise of social media, companies have become closer to their customers, becoming more communicative to gain their loyalty and trust. This has resulted in companies having to focus more on content marketing and developing solid content marketing campaigns to increase their exposure and reach more potential customers. Discover the many different types of content marketing strategies for you to implement in your online business..

Expanding the types of content that you are creating, will help your company increase the number of customers that visit your website. When a business can increase the amount of traffic their website sees, they have a better chance of improving their conversion rate and gaining higher profits. 

Including different types of content in your overall strategy will help to increase your customer’s engagement and build your company into an authority in the industry, one that customers can trust. Incorporating these seven types of content into your marketing strategy will lead to an increase in targeted visitors, new traffic, higher conversion rates, and better rankings on search engines.

Types of content marketing strategies

1. Infographics

Infographics have become a favourite tool for businesses to use to draw upon their complex data and statistics, and organize them into a compelling and readily intelligible visual display. Infographics tend to get shared more, viewed more and are more loved than any other kind of content you can produce. Infographics have become an integral part of content marketing strategies when accompanied by diligent promotional endeavours.

To reap the highest rewards of an infographic, it is essential for you to create impactful design and layout. You must combine the right colours, fonts, and shapes to convey your valuable data in an easily digestible format. You must also include accurate data, like peer-reviewed sources, as well as data that is contextually relevant. Infographics are a powerful way to share your information in an explosively visual format. With one study finding that infographics were shared and liked on social media three times more often than other content, it has a high potential for going viral.

2. Videos

Videos continue to gain popularity as being a useful tool for showing the solutions you can offer for common problems that your customers face. While there are much cheaper types of content that you can use, videos serve as a way for your company to demonstrate that you are willing to go the extra mile for quality. A recent study concluded that including videos on your landing page can increase your conversion rate by 86%.

There are a variety of types of videos that you can use to enhance your content marketing campaign. You might want to consider using how-to videos, demonstrations, animated explanation videos or customer testimonials. The kind of video that you choose is not important, what’s important is that you create videos that correspond with your company’s overall style and the ethos of your brand. Creating content that includes videos has the potential to provide you with 300% more inbound links. The videos you produce could have the potential to become the chief representation of your brand, so make sure they are all of the highest calibers.

3. Images

Your readers will be more inclined to finish reading your content when you split it up with high-quality, compelling images that are contextually relevant. Articles that include images tend to get 94% more views than those that don’t. With attention spans getting shorter than ever, thanks to the oversaturation of digital content and the increased use of mobile internet access, creating content that contains big blocks of text has become extremely unappealing. 

When using images in your content marketing campaign, you want to be sure to use original photos, or ones that you’ve taken, because this creates a more personal touch to your marketing campaigns. While high quality, attractive images can be time-consuming to develop and a bit expensive to purchase, you can use popular imaging tools to create unique and captivating images for free through a simple drag-and-drop user-friendly interface. You can also use photo-sharing sites to purchase high-quality photos for free. Just make sure you have the authority to use them to avoid them being used by your competition.

4. eBooks

Using eBooks as a part of your content marketing strategy offers several distinct benefits. Including long-form content in your approach will allow your business to establish credibility in your industry and paint you as an authority on the subject. They allow you to formulate both the message you are delivering and the expertise you aim to project to your target audience.

Compared to other marketing materials, eBooks are relatively inexpensive to produce. Aside from the time you spend creating the content to include in the book, the production costs are minimal, as well as being efficient. The total time from concept to publication can take just a few weeks. Getting the content into the hands of your audience is also relatively simple. Many companies will offer their eBooks through their website as a download in exchange for their email or other contact information. If you want to increase your reach, you can make your eBook available through Amazon.com or other online digital self-publishing platforms.

5. Podcasts

Podcasts continue to be a popular choice for many businesses to use in their content marketing strategy and have seen a recent explosive growth due to the increased use of mobile phones. Podcasts don’t require a lot of equipment to create and can be finished in a matter of hours. Businesses that utilize podcasts can reach a broad audience and reach out to new potential customers quickly.

Even though podcasts are a one-sided medium, they help you build relationships with your customers and gives listeners the feeling that they know the person that is speaking. Providing your potential and regular customers the opportunity to listen to podcasts can be a welcoming break from the ample amount of written content that they are exposed to. A recent survey revealed 63% of those who listen to podcasts purchase the product or service the host promoted. This shows that podcasts can be used effectively to engage the audience and positively influence their buying decisions.

6. Memes

Not many people thought that memes, commonly known as images that are accompanied by humorous captions, would play such a substantial role in content marketing. When memes first started to gain traction online, they were primarily shared by college students as a form of entertainment. Today, however, they have become an easy-to-create, unique form of visual content. They don’t require any graphic design skills to create, and you can use online sites like Meme Generator or Quick Meme to add your text to popular images.

A great way to evoke positive emotions and set yourself apart from your competition is to create your own memes and share them with your audience. To use them successfully, you need to determine if the meme is appropriate for your niche and figure out whether or not the will gain actual engagement with your audience. Another benefit of using memes in your content marketing campaign is that they allow you to create in-jokes about your industry. This is a great way to make your audience laugh and build a community around your business.

7. Presentations

Presentations are no longer strictly for the boardroom. Businesses can now share their presentations with the world through sites like SlideShare. Using these kinds of sites can dramatically expand your company’s outreach. Developing an excellent SlideShare presentation can allow your business to inform and communicate to your audience, no matter the type of device they are using. Like infographics, when developing your presentations you want to use attractive colors and design to draw the reader’s attention to the content.

Your presentations are likely to include a ton of information, so it is important for you to be consistent with elements like fonts, colors, and borders. For your presentations to have the most impact, it should not only be entertaining, but it should also provide your audience with actionable advice. Just like with any other content that you develop, it is paramount that you carefully proofread your presentations for spelling and grammar errors. You also want to make sure to include reputable sources to back up your claims.

Conclusion

These kinds of content tap into the emotional psyche of your audience and encourage them to learn more about your brand. If you can produce high-quality content that resonates with people and promote it on a regular basis, your brand’s reputation and awareness will skyrocket.

However, if your content is badly designed or bland, you will end up doing more harm than good. You always need to be considering what your audience needs and avoid putting out content just to stick to your editorial calendar. Just like with any other content that you produce, it’s the substance that counts, even with these seven different types of content that you create.