7 Content Marketing Pieces Your Business Can Create

Content goes beyond writing. Content is anything that can be used to inform, educate, or entertain an audience. Marketers are getting creative when it comes to their content marketing strategy, formulating content that is both static and interactive. The goal of your content is to engage and resonate with your audience so they build a connection to your brand.

Ebooks

Ebooks are just one of the many downloadable assets your company can provide to your audience. They can be gated or ungated, which means they can be used as a lead generation tool requiring a user to enter some information (an email address, name, etc.) before downloading.

As opposed to a free blog post, an ebook appears to be more of a real object of value. It gives your marketing team the opportunity to do a deep dive into an area of interest or industry trend, showcasing your authority and expertise.

Ebooks can also be used as a way to offer a solution to a problem your audience may be experiencing. By putting an ebook at the center of your marketing campaign, you can strengthen your brand and use it to build an email marketing list by capturing leads in a highly engaged section of your audience.

Customer Case Studies

Customer case studies are a unique content marketing tool. They can incorporate several types of content, including a downloadable PDF, podcast, blog, video, and more. Customer case studies showcase your customers and talk about how they were successful with the help of your product or service. With the customer’s permission, you can create assets around their story that can be shared with prospective customers during their decision-making process.

Customer case studies have the power to add credibility to your company by expressing the experience of others who enjoy doing business with you and data that backs up their claims. Plus, the quotes and information you compile can be used in other assets, such as emails, to show potential leads that your company is worth looking into.

White Papers

Traditionally, white papers have been used to communicate more technical concepts. Not anymore. Today’s marketing white papers take all shapes and forms, and are used to display thought leadership and competitively position a product or solution in the marketplace.

Consumers gravitate toward white papers because they can learn in-depth how a product or tactic can solve their persistent business problems. This type of content is purely educational, not heavily promotional. When creating a white paper, try to focus on a specific use case or solution that addresses a problem your customer may be experiencing. As a result, your content will better resonate with your target audience.

Blog Posts

If you’re just beginning to create content marketing materials for your business, blogs are a great way to start. Blog posts are meant to be very conversational and informative, as if you’re talking to a friend. This type of content is great for educating your audience on a basic level while linking to longer, more in depth assets that address similar topics.

The true value of blogs for marketing teams lies in their ability to act as the top of the sales funnel and increase brand awareness to a broad audience. By sharing free, useful content, readers are more likely to enter an email address or buy a product, because they’ve already started to trust your brand.

Infographics

An infographic is one of the most visual assets you can produce. They easily catch your audience’s attention and are a key asset for brand awareness. Though they take a lot of time and energy to produce, the end result can lead to your content going viral when shared across social media platforms.

Infographics provide a high-level overview of a topic, which can provide your target audience with a better understanding of the content being presented. They’re also very data-forward. While they’re mainly used for awareness at the top of the funnel, infographics have the ability to show that you’re an expert in your field. And they don’t just have to be static – more infographics are moving toward animation, adding another visual element to capture your audience’s attention.

Webinars

Webinars are great for educating your target audience on a particular topic in much more depth. Oftentimes, it will be an expert in that field delivering the webinar to an audience of like-minded individuals. Webinars make for great marketing content because they can be delivered live or on-demand. On-demand webinars are convenient for many marketers because they can be re-promoted months or years after they’ve aired, as long as most of the information hasn’t changed, and live webinars can offer a Q&A session for viewers.

While they can be promoted on their own, webinars can also be promoted with an accompanying asset such as a white paper, ebook, or blog post, so readers get a tangible takeaway along with the content of the talk. The biggest advantage to using a webinar for content marketing is that they are one of the most cost-effective assets you can create. A simple recording device and some editing software will go a long way.

Email Newsletters

Email newsletters are great for rounding up some of the best assets your company has produced monthly, quarterly, seasonally, or yearly. They can be as creative as you want them to be – loaded with images or centered around a particular theme to increase open rates and click throughs. You can use email newsletters to promote different campaigns or product categories within the company in order to have a more focused newsletter.

When creating a newsletter, it’s key to have calls to action or to link out to the assets you mention. That being said, make sure you offer a mix of content – don’t just highlight one type of asset. Work with your creative team to design fun visuals for your email newsletter so it doesn’t look like every other email your team sends!

Content is one of the most powerful and underrated tools a company can apply to their marketing efforts. It has the ability to resonate with your target audience, and with a diverse content strategy that utilizes a variety of unique pieces across all parts of the marketing funnel, you’re sure to win with everyone in your audience!