4 Types of Content you definitely haven’t thought of

So you want to improve your content marketing strategy. You’ve written blogs and followed all of the online guides to try to drive traffic to them. You’ve keyword optimised your website and have only had a minor SEO boost. Now what.

You’re left feeling deflated, demotivated and on the verge of giving up. All that time you’ve spent researching and writing those blog posts was for nothing. Or was it?

Blogging can take months, or even years, to reap the rewards. So what do you do if you want to see a return on investment from the start? Have you ever considered creating other types of content? I doubt it. Content marketing is one of the first things you should look into if you’re trying to get your business up and running.

Why is it that whenever someone mentions content marketing our minds jump straight to blogging? How many blogs do you read and engage with? It’s time that we stepped up the bar and started producing content that our audience wanted to interact with.

Rather than writing articles, think about other types of content you can create. Video has become increasingly popular over the years – but I’ll be honest, I have seen many brands fail creating them.

My company design and manufacture exhibition display stands for businesses to take to trade shows. We have a very niche product so it is impossible to keep thinking of fresh, creative content ideas!

Furthermore, our audience is a relatively small pool of business to business marketers and decision makers. We’ve found that they’re often busy and don’t have time to read lengthy how-to articles and they don’t want to sign up to another email newsletter.

Because of that, we’ve had to find a content marketing strategy that works for us. Blogging was one of the first tactics we tried. It went alright. But we wanted more. So we started looking for new ways of spreading our brand messaging and engaging with our target audience.

Did you know there are over one hundred different types of content you can produce and distribute for free? This is a list of the best types of content you should release if you want to increase engagement and drive traffic to your website.

1.     Whitepapers

A whitepaper is a fancy term for primary research results. It sounds scary, but it’s so easy! And everyone loves up-to-date statistics. If you have a platform that allows you to reach a large audience (hello social media and email marketing!) then you are in a prime position to release your own research findings.

If you can get 100+ people to partake in a small survey or poll with 2 – 4 questions you can publish a whitepaper. You’ll get more shares, likes and engagement on your content if it contains statistics and information about a current situation.

2.     Infographics

Sometimes people don’t have ten minutes to read a 4,000 word guide to extract one piece of information. That’s why infographics work well and encourage engagement. Many people are visual learners, as well as being time conscious. Giving them information in an easy-to-digest, striking graphic benefits everyone.

3.     Stock-Quality Images

So many people invest heavily in writing a blog when they could simply share their photography with the world. There are hundreds of websites that allow people to download stock photos for free. We all use them for our blog posts!

If you have a professional camera, smartphones have reached the same level, and then start shooting. If you are working for a business then get snaps related to your niche. We can share images of exhibition stands, venues, busy trade show aisles… the possibilities are endless. People share your photos because you’ve offered them on the public domain. You might even get a backlink or two!

4.     Formatted Spreadsheets

If spreadsheets aren’t your thing then this one might bring out a cold sweat. I’ve included it on this list because it works! Like you, people don’t like working their way through thousands of formulas to design a spreadsheet. They like using them though! And why wouldn’t they when it can turn a 2 hour job into a 30 second one.

Things like planners, budgeting sheets, checklists and timelines are great things to offer your audience. It’s about offering content that gives the audience value – a formatted spreadsheet certainly does that.

Summary

Have I convinced you to stop writing so many blog posts yet? Well, don’t stop. Writing blog posts regularly can still give you an SEO boost and your audience might engage with informative guides. All I’m suggesting is you should create a content marketing strategy that encompasses an array of content – not just articles!

Have a go at the types of content I’ve listed in this article. Maybe they work for you, maybe they don’t. You might have a list of your own that you want to share. Get in touch with us to share your favourite types of content to produce, and let us know which ones you typically see the most engagement on.