In this day and age, creating and distributing content is not enough. To reach your business objectives and generate more customers, you need to produce content that’s valuable, relevant, and entertaining for your target audience. Of course, this is easier said than done. All forms of content marketing require detailed planning and time to be effective. Some of the many factors you need to consider are your business’s elements, like products and services, objectives, audience, and brand identity.
If you’re not sure what type of content marketing fits your business’s needs, you don’t need to search too far. There are 5 effective types of content marketing that you can use to promote business growth.
Let’s take a look at each one:
1. Blogging
Since its invention in the early 90s, blogging has been a powerful tool for businesses in several industries. Even today, blogs play a huge role in business growth, especially when it comes to increasing brand awareness. According to a study from Oberlo, businesses that produce over 16 blog posts a month achieve 3.5 times more traffic than those who publish less than four posts each month.
Blogging can provide your business with various benefits, such as:
- Increasing your website’s organic traffic
- Enhancing search engine ranking
- Building trust between your audience and your brand
- Solidifying your business as an industry leader
- Providing additional value to your target audience
When writing blog posts, it’s important to focus on relevant topics. Do not simply write about your business’s products or services and how they will impact your customer’s lives. Instead, write about topics related to your products and services as well as your business’s respective industry. Try to add original expertise and experiences within your blogs so that your readers may find something valuable and unique. That way, you can separate your business from competitors and establish your brand as an industry expert that your audience can rely on.
You can also take advantage of SEO practices and keyword research to help push your blogs towards your audience. For the best tips on creating blogs for your business, read our helpful tips on our blog post, What Is A Blog and Why You Should Create One for more information.
2. Infographics
Content marketing is often mistaken for being mainly written or text-based. However, content marketing also includes visuals. One of the visual content types that can help you achieve business growth is infographics. A good infographic is simple, straightforward, engaging, and informative. It presents complex information or data points about a specific topic in a clear manner. Most infographics take data from a study and break it down so that it’s easy for audiences to understand. When you create a compelling infographic, it can garner a lot of likes, shares, and links from audiences within a specific platform.
Of course, we don’t recommend using infographics as your main form of content or replacing other content with it. Instead, you can use infographics to supplement a blog post, video, or another content type you choose to create. Infographic content can also thrive well in social media. Just remember: do not go overboard with infographics. Always keep it simple and let the information speak for itself.
3. Video
With YouTube having 2.3 billion active users around the world along with billions of users on similar social media channels like Instagram and Facebook, you likely already know how impactful videos are. Videos tend to engage audiences more than written content. Video content can be time-consuming and expensive but it’s well worth the investment. Through video content, you can present a different side of your business’s brand, showcasing its personality, voice, and other unique elements to your audience.
It also allows you to create content that educates audiences on certain topics or how to create something related to your industry. This can further boost your audience’s connection with your brand, increasing your business’s reputation and building brand loyalty. Like blogging, it can be an opportunity to educate and provide value for your audience so that your business becomes their go-to source for information.
When creating and posting videos, pay close attention to the title, description, and tags you use. Each of these descriptors needs to be simple yet informative about what your videos are about. Using the right descriptors will help your videos rank on the platforms you upload them on and make it easier for your audience to find them. Once you finish creating your videos, you can post them on your website, social media channels, and use them for your email marketing efforts.
4. Photography
In today’s digital world, lifestyle images play an important role in a business’s growth and success. Images can be displayed on social media and websites, which not only provides visual stimulation that can capture a target audience’s attention but also provides a sense of trust. On social media, photography is highly reliant on direct engagement with posts. Whether its impressions, likes, or comments, one of the main goals of photography is to provide visual context for audiences about a particular topic, product, or service.
Photography also serves a huge purpose for a business’s website. Along with defining what your business does and what products or services you offer, images also provide opportunities for SEO. By writing a brief yet detailed description for an image on a website’s settings, you can add specific keywords and phrases that help you rank on search engines like Google.
5. Carousel content
Another form of content marketing that can promote business growth is carousel content. A relatively new form of content, carousel posts on social media are popular since they provide creative opportunities for businesses to show off what their brands have to offer or even provide visually engaging content to further add context and value to their audience. Most social media posts provide a small space so carousel posts give your brand a chance to offer more unique, detailed content. Many carousel content posts feature images with captions, headlines, explanations, and call-to-actions. These types of content are thriving on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Content marketing may require a lot of effort but the secret ingredient is knowing your audience’s needs. The more you know your audience and what interests them, the more engaging and relevant your content will be for them. Like all marketing, you may need to experiment with some trial-and-error to get a feel of the content your audience engages with. With enough persistence, effort, and adjustments, you will be able to see significant results in your business’s overall growth.
Make sure to get in touch with us to learn how Creative Core can help you leverage marketing for your business’s growth.