The Beginner’s Guide to the Content Marketing Mix Part 1
Content comes in various forms and serves different purposes. Whether you are developing a content strategy or just curious about the types of content available out there, this guide will provide you with an insight to the content marketing mix.
As you start crafting your content marketing plan, the first questions that need to be addressed are:
- Who is your target audience?
- What stage of the consumer purchasing funnel do they occupy?
- What benefits do you intended to highlight?
Depending on these factors, your content can be:
Informational
An educational type of content that helps customers to learn about the product or service your company offers, and how it can solve the customer’s needs by focusing on functional benefits.
Entertaining
This type of content is engaging on the emotional level and helps to build an overall positive perception of your brand.
Inspirational
Likewise, this type of content appeals to emotional benefits and helps the customer to visualize how the product or service will solve their needs.
Convincing
This type of content is focused on the rational benefit and provides important reasons as to why the product or service is outstanding.
Once you’ve identified the purpose of your content, you can decide on the relevant form to compliment your strategic plan. The following are the most popular types of content that can help to diversify your content marketing strategy.
Blog Post
Every marketer knows about the effectiveness of blogging in the marketing campaign. As an owned asset, it is a valuable tool for building communication between the company and target audience through storytelling. Readers are encouraged to interact with the content through commenting and social sharing. Although the creation of quality content requires some time and research, including the research of relevant keywords, search engine optimised content will improve your website’s visibility.
Case Study
A case study is simply a story that helps your consumers understand how your product or service can solve their needs via an in-depth look at your past projects. Specifically, the established objectives, resolution methodology and accomplished results. Case studies are highly informative and usually include testimonials from customers. Because it is written from the customer’s perspectives, the case study helps them to understand the unique value your company provides. And it is one of the most trustable sources you can use since it includes real customers and their challenges, which helps build a positive image of your firm and brand trust.
Checklist
This form of content marketing is a list of items or crucial tasks. By creating a checklist, you are providing value to your consumers by significantly improving their workflow and productivity, which in turns makes their life easier.
EBook
This type of a long-form content is beneficial to readers seeking even more industry-specific information. EBooks help companies to enhance credibility and increase conversion of leads into sales. They can be published in many different formats depending on the reader’s device preference. Some of the formats include PDF, HTML, MOBI, EPUB.
These are just a few of the many different types of content you can use to improve your content marketing strategy. Check back with us tomorrow for the second part of this blog.