The Different Types Of Content That Make Up Content Marketing

Riley Barry

When you think about content marketing, does your mind immediately jump to blog posts?

That’s what content marketing is all about, right? A blog full of interesting and relevant articles for your audience to enjoy. It’s only natural to assume that blogging is all that content marketing is.

Well, you’re not exactly wrong. Blogging plays a huge role in the content marketing world, but it isn’t the only type of content on the field.

There are lots of other ways you can, and should, create content. Different types of content will help you connect and interact with different members of your audience.

In this post, we’ll look at 9 different types of content that you can use in your content marketing campaigns. (I bet you didn’t think there were that many types of content!)

Together, we’ll explore how you can use these different types of content to drive traffic to your website, increase your leads, and grow your business.

1. Blogging

As mentioned, blogging is a huge part of content marketing, so let’s cover that first.

For most companies, blogging probably makes up most of their content marketing efforts, and for good reason.

Blog posts are ideal for building relationships with your audience, which will help you get more leads and conversions in the future. Maintaining a high-quality blog and posting regularly will also drive a significant amount of traffic to your site.

2. Long-form content

Long-form content perfect for widening your audience and attracting more subscribers, because it can be repurposed across many mediums. You can share sections of long-form content (a guide, for example) via email newsletter, social media updates, video summaries, and so much more. Your audience might stumble across an intriguing section of a longer piece of content and wonder where they can read more.

That’s when you hit them with the perfect CTA:

“Want to know when the next chapter of our guide is out? Subscribe today!”

Long-form content can be anywhere from 5000 to 50,000 words (and beyond!).

Guides like this should ideally provide all the information the reader could need on the subject they cover. Your audience shouldn’t have to go anywhere else to get more information, because you covered it all in your guide.

You should always break your guides down into sections so that your users can easily see where each section starts and ends.

Once you have your guide completed you can also use it as a downloadable freebie for your audience if they join your subscriber list.

3. Case studies

Case studies are in-depth pieces of content that cover a specific scenario or explain an example of your work, positioning you as an expert in your field.

Case studies are brilliant for a couple of reasons:

They establish thought leadership
They’re unique to your business
They’re highly shareable
They show off your best results and happiest clients

How do you write a case study?

The basic way to write a case study is in these 4 sections:

1. Write a summary of the project and the results you achieved

2. Present the problem your clients were facing

3. Explain your solution

4. Share the results and explain how they improved your client’s business (with a happy testimonial from the client!)

Pro tip: Don’t just write about stats. Instead, write your case study like you’re telling a story. Give your audience a reason to care about your case study. Focus on the ‘whys’ and the ‘hows’ to make it more interesting for your audience. Bring it all back to the human element of why you do what you do.

4. White papers

White papers are pieces of content that are densely filled with information or data on a particular topic.

It’s all about the details with white papers. They’re very specific and super in-depth, perfect for helping you build up respect and leadership in your industry. They also happen to be amazing lead magnets.

When planning out white papers, you should always start with a summary or introduction of what you’re writing about. After the intro, you should clearly title each of your sections to make them easy to scan through and navigate. And if your white paper is a few pages long (and most are), then you’ll want to include a table of contents, too.

Try to focus on one problem, with a detailed explanation of how to solve it for your audience.

White papers a great way to sell your business and show people that you’re an expert in your industry. They may take a long time to write, as they’re so rich and packed with information. But in the end, they’re worth it!

5. Ebooks

The thought of writing an ebook might be a bit intimidating, but they can be fantastic lead magnets to keep in your content arsenal. Plus, if your ebooks are full of evergreen content, your one-time writing investment will give you an amazing lead magnet for life.

The length of an ebook can vary, but what’s most important is that they hold value for your potential clients.

There’s no point in using an ebook to show how great your business is in an ebook – that’s not why your audience will want to read it. They want to read an ebook that provides them with valuable information.

So keep your audience’s needs at the forefront of your ebook’s content, and you’ll have a winner on your hands.

6. Infographics

Infographics are a fantastic way to display content to your audience. They make it possible to pack a lot of information onto one page in an interesting and digestible way.

For example, if you’ve got 20 different statistics for a case study, instead of listing them all, you can display them in an infographic.

Having statistics visually represented with charts and graphics is a lot more appealing to your audience than a bullet-pointed list of numbers.

Remember when creating your infographic:

The design should be simple to avoid overwhelming or distracting the user
Use plenty of white space so it doesn’t look crowded
Organise the content into recognisable sections
Use a clear, succinct title to explain what the infographic is about

7. Templates & checklists

Downloadable templates and checklists make impressive lead magnets, because they’re incredibly easy and affordable to make.

Your templates and checklists should be clean, crisp and well organised. Include a lot of white space to make them easy to read, and keep the copy concise yet informative. And make sure to include your branding on it somewhere, too!

Your audience will love the chance to download a professional checklist or template from you that they can use to streamline or enhance their work own. All you have to do is ask them to sign up to your email marketing list in return.

8. Video

Many people don’t include video under content marketing, but it’s a powerful part of a balanced content strategy, and your audience will love it.

Video is dynamic, easy to engage with, and let’s face it, your audience is probably more likely to watch a video than read a long wall of text. In fact, four times as many customers would prefer to watch a video than read about the subject.

You can distribute videos by posting them to your social media or uploading them to YouTube and embedding them in your blog posts.

All videos, like all content, should provide value to your audience and include a CTA near the end to push your audience to a landing page or to your website.

9. Email

About 99% of people check their email on a daily basis, making it a super powerful communication channel for you and your brand.

Email is an important part of any content marketing strategy. You use content to get your audience to subscribe to your email campaign, but you should have amazing email content to go with it.

When building your email marketing strategy and making your email content, make sure you’re sending relevant and valuable information to your audience. You can send them information about your latest offers or services and intrigue them with links to new and exciting pieces of content.

Email is the most direct way to connect with your potential clients, nurture them, and turn them into customers. It’s incredibly effective – the number one tool for turning leads into customers.

Now that you’re familiar with all the different types of content, I’m sure you’re itching to try some of it out for your company’s marketing.

Luckily for you, here at The Content Lab, we’re experts at all things content. We want to help our clients improve their content marketing and win over the hearts of their audience.

So what are you waiting for? Let’s chat!

Are you ready to start getting the content your business deserves? Get in touch with the team at The Content Lab today to start building better content for your site.