Content marketing with digital marketing as terms are often interchanged – they are different but a combination of digital and content marketing always works wonderfully. But, let’s differentiate – The one with ‘content’ focuses on the messages being delivered while the one with ‘digital’ describes its online nature.

Globally, marketers are spending more than USD 584.2 billion on their Content Marketing. 

Both revolve around wordy, auditory or visual, static and moving, infotainment bytes. These short or long-form content nuggets are distributed via multiple online platforms such as email, websites, social media, Google AdWords, chat forums, or mobile applications.

Content focuses on customer engagement and gives a voice and backbone to the brand. It attracts, engages and converts readers into loyal customers. For example, you can use blogs to answer questions and queries asked by the customers on the website. Providing a solution in one of the blogs will generate a sense of expertise and increase the chances of getting shared within groups of people.  

On the other hand, digital marketing focuses on aspects like search engine optimization (SEO), Pay-per-click (PPC), and launching ads on social media platforms. The main goal is to take the user from the search result page to your website. It improves the search rankings of the website so that it’s visible to the audience. 

But, as a company or a brand, how do you know if you’re using the right types of content marketing? 

Is your audience listening?

Content Marketing Types You Should Consider

1. Blogs Marketing 

Blogs are a long form content variety that when marketed well, contribute to the organic SEO levels of a brand. Earlier, blogs had limited reach, existing merely on a section of your website. Today, with social media platforms, enabling blog publishing, the entire scenario has changed. 

Engaging, keyword-rich blogs based around your business, brand or sector can boost your SEO considerably. They will enrich your brand awareness, product knowledge and give you sector authority with trust and ease. 

2. Video Marketing

Almost every online platform supports high definition videos that can hypnotise audiences with visuals, music and catchy words. Videos are entertaining and can promote your brand and products in a way that no other medium can. Tell your story but keep it crisp. 

Enticing ads, tutorials, or short flicks can be marketed via Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and even EDMs. They have super high recall and can be played over and over again with low fatigue levels. Video has been known as the SEO treasure chest. Google loves them so they just click. That’s the power of video!

63% of businesses are already using video marketing as a key driving tool. Where are you?

3. Social Media Marketing

People browsing through their social media accounts love to lap up short form content such as  snappy phrases, entertaining videos, memes and even puzzles. 

If you wish to be seen, identify the social media platform that your target audience frequents and make a splash there. Create your page and keep it active. Invest in Pay-Per-Click ads but stick to the requirements of content v/s image ratio of 20:80, utilise original creatives and taglines and prepare to go viral. Yes, Viral Marketing is the next step up. 

4. Podcasts Marketing

If you are new to the Podcasts genre, podcasts consist of well written, articulated, backed, mixed and mastered audio clips. Some businesses that are benefiting from audio recordings include Food & Beverage companies, Spiritual or Self Improvement Training, Travel shows and much more. They are largely used to educate and explain while keeping the tone entertaining and immersive. 

Podcast advertising is another subset of this category and is worth USD 800 million globally. 

Platforms that market podcasts well include iTunes, Apple, Spotify and Social Media Platforms. If you wish to score well on YouTube via your podcast, convert it to a visual treat and then post. They however, need to be regular for audiences to connect well and offer highly valuable information that your listeners hear, implement, share and come back for. 

5. Infographics Marketing

Infographics may sound boring but show me a blog or article without one and I’ll show you a stagnant narrative! Images with infographics tickle the visual parts of the mind and help to convey certain data, facts and statistics in a quick concise manner.  Technical and semi technical topics benefit greatly from infographics. A solid infographic can also be marketed as a stand alone piece of data while others can be inserted into blogs, articles or web copy to play their vital roles. 

6. Call To Action Marketing

Here’s a new one! Everyone knows about call to action but did you know that this was considered a Content Marketing technique? 

Regular notifications from your mobile apps, slogans or action triggers on landing pages or even remarketing ad copy carries call to action content. They are all equipped to push customers to the next step in the sales funnel. 

Michael Porter, knowing the power of Content Marketing once stated, ‘The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.’  This to me means, choosing just the right types of content marketing tools and discarding the rest. 

So, let’s learn from the best and stay in the loop of the latest trends to master every Content Marketing trick that there is to discover. Stay tuned!