Guest post provided by: Marvellous Aham-adi
Content marketing is the strategic use of valuable and relevant content to attract a target audience, boost brand awareness, and turn prospects into paying customers. If you want to run a successful business, you need to invest in content marketing. There are also several content marketing types businesses can choose from. In this article, we will discuss 5 effective content marketing types that will help you grow your business.
Let’s get started.
1. Blogging
If you run a business, blogging is an inexpensive way to boost your marketing efforts, drive traffic to your website, and also attract potential customers. If you are wondering if blogging is worth the effort, here are some stats to prove it:
- 84 percent of consumers will make purchases after reading about a product or service on a blog.
- Companies that run an active blog receive 55% more visitors than companies that do not have a blog.
- Blogging increases your brand awareness. 70% of consumers will learn about a business through blog articles.
- B2B businesses with blogs get 67 percent more leads than those that do not.
- Research from Ascend2 also reveals that blogging is one of the most trusted content marketing types.
Here are some of the benefits of having a blog for your business:
Boost your traffic: Running an active blog will significantly increase the number of people visiting your website. Google gives preference to websites that have fresh content. The more you update your blog, the more traffic your website will receive.
Establish authority: Blogging is an effective way to demonstrate your knowledge and build yourself as a thought leader in your field. Consistently creating high-quality articles will help establish you as an authority in your industry. Boosting your credibility will also increase your conversion rates. Your customers will most likely do business with you because they see you as an industry expert.
Offer value to your audience: One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is promoting only their products and services without delivering any value to the reader. When running a blog, ensure that you create valuable content. By creating beneficial content, you will increase customer loyalty for your brand. When you position yourself as an authority in your industry, you will become the go-to resource when they are looking for who to work with.
Generate leads: Blogging is one of the most effective lead generation strategies. Every visitor to your site is a potential lead waiting to be converted into paying customers. You can also use your blog posts to grow your email lists. These email subscribers are leads that can be directed for other marketing purposes.
Tip: To increase the chances of your blog posts ranking on search engines, you need to optimize your articles for SEO. The more traffic your websites get, the higher your chances of ranking in the search results. To get started, target the keywords your audience is searching for. You can use keyword research software to choose the best keywords to target in your articles. (Check out this comparison guide between SEMrush vs Moz for proper insights on how a keyword research tool works).
2. Video marketing
Video marketing is utilizing videos to promote your products and services, educate your customers, increase engagement on digital channels, and reach a larger audience.
In the last couple of years, videos as a content marketing tool have increased in popularity. According to reports for Ascend2, 25% of businesses say that video marketing is rated very successfully at achieving important objectives
Videos are also very effective in increasing your conversion rates. Adding videos on your business landing pages can increase your conversion rates by 80%. Another research shows that adding the word “video” in your email subject lines will increase your email open rates by 19%. These stats show the effectiveness of videos.
If you aren’t creating videos for your business, you should start now. The best part is that it is very easy to create high-quality videos today. You can shoot high-quality 4k videos right on your smartphone.
Some of the best marketing videos you can use include demo videos, brand videos, event videos, educational videos, how-to videos, expert interviews, explanation videos, case studies, and customer testimonial videos.
Tip: Another effective video format that businesses should use is live video. Live videos are an effective way to show your audience a behind-the-scenes look at your company. Stats also show that viewers spend up to 8.1x longer on live videos than other video formats.
3. Case Studies
Case Studies is a document or web page that helps prospects learn more about your business and value proposition.
A case study normally includes three parts: a description of the customer’s pain points, an outline of the different solutions available, and actionable results that prove that your product/service is the best solution for the problem. Simply put, case studies let the target prospects understand what they will gain from using your product/service.
Case studies are problem-centric and solution-centric. What this means is that a case study will describe the problem and also offer a solution. Case studies are also very specific. While a landing page will say something like “our software will help you increase email conversions”, a case study will say “our software will help you see a 56 percent increase in email conversion rate by solving X, Y, and Z problems”. Case studies will let your prospects know exactly how you will help them solve a problem.
Tip: Publishing a case study isn’t enough. If you want a positive ROI, ensure that prospects who read your case studies join your email marketing lists. You can then channel these leads to your sales funnel. You can use a pop-up form to collect emails.
4. User-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) is any content created by people rather than brands. This content can be texts, videos, reviews, images, etc. UGC is an effective way to get your customers involved in the content creation process.
Why should you bother with user-generated content? Here are three main benefits of UGC:
Promote your brand’s authenticity: Research shows that consumers are 2.4 times more likely to see content created by other consumers as more authentic than content created by the brand.
Create trusts: The truth is that customers trust their fellow customers more than brands. 70 percent of people consider other consumer’s opinions when deciding where to buy from. Positive word of mouth from your customers goes a long way in convincing prospects.
Drive purchasing decisions: UGC has a high impact on customer purchasing decisions. In fact, 80 percent of customers say the UGC affects their purchasing decisions.
Incorporating UGC in your content marketing strategy can help you boost brand awareness and increase sales.
5. Podcasting
A podcast is a collection of digital audio files that can be downloaded over the internet. Podcasts have grown in popularity in recent years. Your goal with content marketing should be to give your audience as many avenues as possible to access your content. Your customers might prefer blog articles, videos, or audio in the form of podcasts. By offering these multiple content types, you increase your conversions and ROI.
Podcasts are also a very powerful marketing tool. They are a very effective way to reach a wide range of audiences. It also helps you build a relationship with your audience. Podcasts are also very engaging. Listeners respond very well to podcasts. A survey of 300,000 podcast listeners found that 63 percent of them bought whatever the podcaster was selling.
Creating podcasts is also very easy. All you need is a quality microphone and headphones for recording your videos. You can publish the audios directly to your websites or send them to your audience via email. You can also use a podcast host to store and distribute your audio files.
When it comes to content marketing types, choose one that best suits your business. Perform regular analysis to help you identify the content marketing type that offers the best return on investment.
Guest post provided by: Marvellous Aham-adi is a freelance writer and content marketer. He writes on how to grow a brand using actionable marketing strategies at thezeroed.