10 Types Of Content Marketing Assets And How To Implement Them

Content Marketing is everything. It’s a must. Creating content is the way to go, if you are trying to build a long term brand and customer relationships online. Success doesn’t happen overtime. It happens with long lasting engagement with your current and potential clients. And content marketing is how you can achieve that. It’s a strategy that demands a lot of time and effort but is worth it for both you and your audience. Its purpose is to provide solutions, information, entertainment, and experiences to your target market, while converting their attention to actual sales of your products and services.

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Let’s see the most popular types of content marketing assets you should also use to grow your business:

1. Blogging

Maintaining a blog is number one on the list of types of content marketing assets for a good reason.   This is your best way of communicating with your audience. Blog posts are often the central part of a brand's content marketing strategies. You can write blog posts about your products, features, services, news, interviews, case studies  etc. However, post content that is actually helpful for the readers. Write about everything you believe your customers and potential clients want to know. This is how you can get dedicated readers and loyal clients. 

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The benefits from blogging include – communicating with your target market, providing value to people, posting content that can be shared on social media, getting exposure, bringing traffic to your site, increasing your search engine ranking by improving your SEO. And many many more. Bottom line is that there is no harm in having a blog, only endless opportunities. It is a great way to offer value at a fairly low cost. 

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There are a few important tips you need to follow when writing your posts:

• Write quality and original content. People won’t read ten articles that are completely the same on a given topic. They need new and informative content that will help them with a problem or news on subjects they are currently interested in.
• Post frequently. A good amount is once a week for smaller companies and 2-3 times for bigger brands. If you don’t often post content, you might lose your readers. 
• Optimize your blog for leads and sales. Have call to action phrases and buttons which will encourage engagement.
• Implement an interlinking strategy. Add plenty of internal links in your blog posts and through your website, so users can get interested to read more and more content.
• Use keywords. Research how people talk about your products and services and use their words in the blog posts. That will improve your SEO, bring the most relevant traffic, and connect better to the audience.

2. Social Media

Who doesn’t use social media on a regular basis? Nowadays it’s an absolute must to have social media accounts to promote your brand and communicate with the world. And you need to post every single day, more than once, and on more than one platform. 

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Some of those platforms are the well-known Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. But don’t think that when you come up with an idea for a great post on Facebook, that means it can be shared on Instagram too. Oftentimes you will have different types of audiences for each platform. You have to research those audiences to ensure that you communicate to them in the right way and language. Nonetheless, be consistent. Otherwise, you will lose your exposure, reach and opportunities.

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Getting spotted on social media can be harder for smaller companies. There’s just a lot of content circulating and people get picky on what they read. Always do your research on what’s trending among the internet users and your audience. People generally like to engage with and share funny content that taps on well-known jokes and anecdotes. However, the tone of your posts will depend on your particular brand as well. Make sure that you are consistent with your mission statement, views and goals.

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There are tons of content marketing tools that can help you with managing all of your social media accounts at once. Some of them are Hootsuite and Tassi. You can save hours on social media tasks, so they are worth the investment. 

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing does miracles when combined with a blog and social media accounts. You probably know what email marketing is and how it’s used. We all get promotional emails from online shops, blogs, travel agencies, airlines, etc. And sometimes all those emails can fill up our inbox and get annoying.

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On the other hand, you will notice that you can get a little annoyed with emails that have nothing to do with your current interests. If, however, you are planning a trip to Iceland and you receive an email from a travel agency with top 10 things to do in the country – that’s the content you actually need and want right now.

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Email marketing can be tricky. Again, do your research. See what content your readers want and give it to them. Build relationships with your audience and create value for them. 

4. Video

We see videos across all platforms, all the time. As we mentioned, people want to see information that they need. But they also want to consume it in a way they want. So, integrating video into your content marketing strategy will help you reach even more potential clients. 

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Videos are engaging, dynamic and informative. People tend to watch more videos than read articles. Especially for tutorials on how to use a particular product. You can integrate those videos in your blog posts, social media accounts, and email marketing. Always include a call to action and try to encourage people to get to the end of the sales funnel. 

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However, videos take more time to be executed, if you want them to look professional. You need to write scripts, shoot and edit them. And those steps have many subtasks to complete. Lighting, animation, audio recording, etc. Make sure you have someone on the team with experience with this type of content.

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Right now, posting stories on Facebook and Instagram are the most popular social media activities. Users prefer to tap across people’s stories than scroll down on their newsfeed. Good thing is that they don’t always have to look professional and polished. So, you can post multiple stories and engage your viewers every day. You also can encourage them to create their own videos and stories that promote your brand.

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Last thought on videos, always transcribe them. This will improve your SEO and visibility by Google. And, if there are people who prefer to consume content by reading it – you won’t lose potential clients. 

5. Podcasts

Podcasts have become trendy in recent years. It’s another type of content marketing that you can use to reach your audience. People listen to podcasts at home, in the car, while camping, etc. Basically, when they are unable to watch a video, but still want to be informed on a topic or just listen to a good story. 

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You don’t necessarily need to have a podcast channel with completely different content from your videos. You can just strip out the audio of your videos or record separate audio while shooting. 

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However, if you do want to have a well-developed podcast channel, there are some techniques you need to implement. Some of them include narrating with sound and using simple everyday words. Writing for the ear is a hard task. So, research how listeners receive and absorb information that they get from audio. 

6. Webinars 

Webinars are another type of video with the difference that it’s broadcast live. You can interact with people who are watching and engage them in the conversation. They are a few platforms you can use for holding webinars. You can record live on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as well, where viewers can post comments and questions for you. The content for the webinar can include announcing a new product, conference talk, discussion panel and others. 

7. Infographics

Infographics are images with sensitized information that can be easily and quickly absorbed. They give you the opportunity to present a lot of information in one picture that is visually appealing and easily understood. Infographics usually include statistics from research and surveys that are presented in an aesthetic way. 

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You can use platforms like Canva or Infogram for creating infographics. But having a designer who is familiar with your brand and can create completely original designs, is a better option. When designing an infographic, be consistent with colors, shapes and messages. Keep your design simple and neat, so the information you want to convey is not overwhelming. Use white space and organize the content in distinct sections.    

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Infographics are also great from an SEO perspective. You can embed a link to your site, so when the infographic is shared in other blogs and websites, you will get valuable backlinks.

8. Ebooks

You can publish free or paid ebooks online. They’re easier and inexpensive to make. Everything gets digitized now after all. An ebook can be five, thirty or more than a hundred pages long. However, make sure it provides real solutions to problems that your readers might have. Ebooks generate great leads and usually get potential customers to the end of the sales funnel. Depending on your business, an ebook can focus on anything connected to your field, case studies, inspiring stories from the industry, etc.    

9. Long-Form Content

Ultimate guides are a type of long-form content. This is a free guide, typically 5,000-15,000 words, that is informative and educational. It’s distributed free and it’s a great way to build customer loyalty and increase subscribers. 

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Break guides into clear sections and promote each section on all the other channels and platforms we introduced above. You can create it as a pdf that you can upload or post each section with its own URL on your blog.

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You can also have long-form content with the idea to be distributed only to the email subscribers of your business. This way they will receive one of a kind content that is just for this special group of people. 

10. White Papers

A white paper is a persuasive, in-depth report that focuses on a specific topic and presents a problem and gives a solution to it. It sounds authoritative since it aims to help readers understand an issue and guide them to the solution through a particular methodology. White papers are very informative and packed with data, statistics and evidence. They are great in building loyalty and respect from customers and the industry. 

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As with long-form content, white papers need to be divided into sections. Add a summary, conclusion and table of contents for clear understanding on what is included in the text. White papers are tremendously valuable when it comes to selling your products or services.

There you go! Now you know 10 of the most beneficial types of content marketing assets. Make sure you use them consistently and efficiently. In order to generate the most leads, you need to have a marketing department within your business or hire a digital marketing agency whose sole task is to handle your content marketing strategy. In the future, we will dwell more into the details of each type of content and introduce a few others.

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