You may have heard the phrase, “Content is King.” If that’s not the most overused phrase in the marketing industry, we don’t know what is. However, that’s only partially true. According to top B2B strategist and international speaker, Lee Odden, Content isn’t king; it’s the kingdom. It is true in the current digital space, where we are surrounded by various forms of content strategy without even realizing it.

However, if you’re a business owner, keeping up with such vast and profound types of content marketing could get overwhelming over the years. Therefore, we recommend going through data-driven results that can contribute to scaling your business in the longer term. If you want to learn more about content marketing, check out our digital marketing courses. 

As a commodity, content marketing is taken seriously by every business owner. However, that necessarily doesn’t mean that they understand how to project it the right way. Moreover, according to studies, it is observed that about 60% of companies often grapple with generating regular content, and 65% of them agree on quality being the most demanding factor in the process of content delivery.

We get the challenges that come with the field. In case you’ve often wondered if all this effort is worth it, know that you’re not alone. As long as you keep your content diverse, engaging, and relatable to your customers, understand that all types of content marketing work the best for you, and there’s no wrong answer. 

The key to appeal and invoke a strong urge in your customers is to know precisely what they’re looking for online. Your customers might not be interested in reading a new article on your website, but they might be into listening to it as a podcast. Keeping it real is all that matters. Doing so could reward you in many ways, translating directly into bringing revenues by:

• Driving Traffic to Crucial Landing Pages
• Generating brand awareness
• Reaching to a wider audience across several channels
• Producing audience engagement in terms of organic shares and backlinks
• Building successful customer relationships
• Higher SERPs and ROI

Now that the stakes for content marketing are high, you need to start looking into various prospects of content that can potentially be the rocket fuel for your business. We collated some of the most-relied, tried and tested methods of content generation in the industry, and here’s what we found:

Types of Digital Content You Should Make

1. Blogging

When in doubt, go vanilla. Who doesn’t like reading a well-written, insightful blog? As Lee Odden also says, content is the reason search began in the first place, readers shall always seek and find a good read. The possibilities that come with an elaborate blog are many, including setting the correct tone for your brand, right from the start. Learn how to launch a blog.

Brands, big or small, started with blogging as the foundation of their digital journey and used it to maneuver control over their niche. Gradually, guest blogging came along:

• It was helping brands to get into talking with their customers, often breaking the fourth wall in the process. 
• It also goes hand-in-hand with SEO and SERP results as more citations translate to better traffic. 
• Few people understand the value of a popular blog when transformed into other pieces of the content funnel, like podcasts, videos, etc. because content lies in great storytelling.
• Generating better leads, staying ahead of your competitors, laying the foundation of influencer marketing social media presence come as productive outcomes to effective, consistent blogging that brands like Hubspot, Buffer gained mostly from. 

2. Original Research

Previously known as tried-and-true content marketing, the original research type of content marketing doesn’t require the validation of social media. Instead, it comes from the need to analyze and know everything that goes into various industries design thinking in content marketing as trends in the form of a report. It delivers insightful data that other institutions can take reference from, as it generates their types of content pieces. 

As a business owner, producing such valuable content may require massive investments in time and money. However, given its freshness, relevance, readability, and reach, the capital generated will be worth it. As people keep citing from your content, you may end up having a strong foundation for inbound marketing via links and subsequent lead generation. A great brand example to that would be the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) which is an acclaimed industry leader known for its study papers and articles targeted on content marketing and reader behaviors.  

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3. Videos

The thing that keeps the process of content generation impressive is its diversity. Unlike the written form of content, visual content generation remains one of the most engaging methods of instant user engagement of the current times. Video marketing is one of the instant crowd-pleasers of this industry, and here are some of its productive ways:

• Introductory explainer videos for your business
• Product feature videos
• Tutorial Videos
• Customer Reviews/Testimonials
• Vlogging videos for building customer interaction

Thanks to its popularity, video marketing is preferred by mainstream brands like Nike, or homegrown sellers equally as one of the most compelling types of content marketing mediums.

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4. Infographics

Next to videos, infographics have the most takers online as customers highly prefer them for sharing on their social media platforms. Unique for their brevity, infographics can be relied on for quick-understanding of any given situation. However, infographics can be generated with a solid outline as they control the conversation between the reader and the source. They:

• Tell a story in fewer words and more data and images
• Are great attention grabbers 
• Are mostly intended for informing readers

From CMI graphs to Shutterstock’s compelling audio-enabled infographics, more than 6 billion site visits were recorded in Shutterstock’s last year reports.

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5. Podcasts

Research says that 51% of consumers in the USA prefer listening to podcasts archives, aging above 12. Podcasts are similar to videos, only with no visual experience involved for better convenience. Preferred mainly by people who love to include a dash of entertainment in between their work, podcasts come as a breath of fresh air as they inform people about a product or condition first-hand. 

The best part of podcasts is every time you generate a blog or video, it can easily be converted into a meaningful podcast. Brands like GE, McDonald’s saw tremendous response over their recent podcasts named ‘The Message,’ ‘The Sauce’, respectively. 

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Conclusion

Long story short, a lot goes into creating various types of long-term content marketing channels. However, there are and will always be enough takers for successful, enjoyable content that can drive real-time ROI for your brand. You just needed to know how!

If you want to explore and become an expert in Digital marketing, check out MICA and upGrad’s Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing & Communication. Become an expert in content marketing, social media, branding, marketing analysis and PR.

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