Originally published February 19, 2019 , updated on September 9, 2024
Consumer trends indicate that no matter the trade you are in, you can’t escape the demand for digital content marketing items. Studies show that people spend about 8 hours a day engaging with digital content. Not only is the rate of daily content consumption somewhat alarming, but it is also constantly increasing.
Mobile devices give consumers access to whatever they desire – they shop online, share posts, view hours of footage and read their favourite blog posts regularly. They share their favourite moments with contacts in different continents and can find info about an incident mere minutes after it had occurred.
Highest-Performing Types of Content Marketing
A business that aims to survive the technological age must have a solid content marketing strategy in place. Depending on what your goal is, you should include at least two or three of the types of content into that strategy.
Blogging
Until 2009, blog posts were usually seen as a social networking service that featured posts about the individual or about an individual topic. It didn’t take long for the blogosphere to branch out into the business sphere. After 2010, blogs became multi-authored platforms showcasing services and products.
Today, having an active blog is as important as having a website. In fact, it’s pointless having the one without the other. Not only are you afforded the opportunity to explain your services or product benefits in each post, but you can also add outgoing hyperlinks to established websites, backlinks to older content on your own site, and apply a unique keyword density for each post. In turn, this should give your site credibility and improve your SEO ranking.
Research the keywords you wish to write about in your content marketing plans. Write a post that is short enough not to bore the reader, but informative enough to engage them. About 2000 words is the sweet spot. If they do not get anything substantial from visiting your blog, they will surely not return.
Case Studies
Case Studies are like a credit-worthy infographic in your content marketing plans. Though most case studies have a dull appearance, they are effective because of the content therein. Fully referenced facts about relative topics make case studies a very useful marketing tool in a specific field. To a large degree, this is applicable to infographics, as well. A memorable and dynamic infographic will also always be riddled with numbers or statistics that convey a very specific message. Though case studies will offer a more fact-based and data-driven format.
With the ever-expanding digital landscape, narrowing down a target audience is one of the most difficult things to do. In writing a detailed case study, you have set your sights on an isolated field of practice. Not only have you compiled statistics and facts into a workable document or post, but you have addressed concerns and offered examples of solutions. Your readers will be industry professionals, students or experts with experience.
Video
The human brain has been designed to better engage with what the eye can see. Studies show that visual content is processed 60, 000 times faster than text and has a far higher recall rate. This means that the viewer will remember what they saw more clearly and for longer periods, as opposed to what they had heard or read.
Since Google owns YouTube, there is an automatic indexing that takes place when you load a YouTube video onto your landing page. So it is easier for Google to find you on the internet. Also, it will position you out higher on search engine searches. This gives your website an added authority or credibility.
Video also boosts conversion rates, has better customer engagement and offers you access to 1.9 billion active users worldwide. While there are endless statistics gathered from research and studies that prove the power of video, businesses are still skittish to explore this platform.
Social Media Posts
Most businesses have cottoned on to the whole social media thing in their content marketing strategies. They create pages or set up handles and post every other day. While this gets some likes or follows, and gains some engagement, it can drag out too long. The concept of traffic and reach can be misinterpreted and can lead them into a different direction, leaving this vital marketing channel unexplored. Since entrepreneurs or small businesses don’t completely understand it, they quickly lose interest and eventually abandon it altogether.
As a consequence, they either go into idle mode on social media or just disappear after a while. Business owners and CEO’s seldom know how to boost Facebook posts effectively, or how to select the correct target audience. They think Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Twitter have to be treated the same way. Most importantly, they struggle to interpret the analytics, insights or marketing stats for their posts.
If you are a business owner or entrepreneur and you don’t understand the difference between reach, impressions and engagement, then you need to get someone on board who knows the social media game better than yourself. In no way does this detract from your abilities.
Deciding Which Type of Content Marketing to Invest In
While these are the five highest-performing types of content marketing, you can also look at infographics, GIFs or memes, eBooks, checklists and interviews. Including these into your strategy would be fantastic, but it’s not always that easy. The sad truth is that most SMEs or startups simply don’t have the infrastructure or workforce to tend to all their platforms on a regular basis. In fact, they probably don’t even have available capital to outsource the activity on those types of content marketing.
It is impossible to say which of the platforms mentioned here will deliver the highest ROI. Since they are all powerful in their own way, it is best to look at the five examples above and to select those you are prepared to spend time and money on. Run with it before you discredit it. If possible, just to get yourself on the roll, obtain help or advice from an online content marketing specialist.
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