9 Types of Content Marketing Formats (And How To Use Them)

In this digital world, content marketing plays a major role in marketing online! That is what will set you apart from your competitors and drive relevant traffic. However, producing high-quality content that performs can be a bit hard.  

The fact is that there are a lot of different types of content marketing and each one has their own benefits. For example, B2B marketers might use educational content and email campaigns to nurture their leads whereas B2C marketers may lean more towards social media, offering incentives, etc.  

To use these content marketing types to your best ability, you need to understand what are the types of content so you can use them efficiently for different campaigns and create a cohesive overall content marketing strategy that help you provide a better experience and better value.  

Read on to learn the different types of content marketing and how to use them in your marketing strategy.

What are the types of Content Marketing Format?

Each piece of content you create should have a defined purpose. For example, your content could inspire someone, educate them, bring in more sales, etc.

When thinking about various content marketing types, you need to keep in mind that different people learn in various ways. Different types of content will appeal to different segments of your audience. For instance, there could be a segment of audience that are attracted to podcasts and don't understand long form articles at all or some people who prefer visual content such as videos, infographics, or presentations.

That is why you need to leverage multiple types of content in your strategy to respective segements of your audience. There are many different content marketing formats to consider.

Let’s look at some of the most popular types of content marketing commonly used:

1] Blog Posts/Articles

For many brands, blogs are the central part of their content marketing strategy. That is why they are one of the most dominant forms of content online. A detailed written content piece can not only drive traffic to your website but also inform them about your product, brand and build authority around the topic.  

Creating blogs and articles will allow you to answer your audience’s most ask questions and help them understand why you are better. Additionally, blogs are a great place for keyword optimization and gaining inbound links which can improve your SEO as well! They allow you to include your target keywords that can increase your page rank on the SERPs and overall site authority.  

Blog posts or articles tend to have a word count of anywhere between 400 to 2000 with 1600 being the optimal length.  

2] Long-form content

This includes content pieces that can be around 3000-5000 words. White papers, eBooks, Ultimate Guides can come under this type of content. These types of content can offer immense value to the viewers and is also a fantastic way to build your authority.  

You can create long pieces of content such as guides and turn them into eBooks. eBooks can not only boost the rankings of your target keywords but also allow you to collect lead information, nurture them and eventually convert them into your customers.  

White papers are like statistical reports that can be very effective at attracting your target audience’s attention and give them real insights into your company.

According to a survey, approx. 79 percent of B2B buyers share white papers with their colleagues.

3] Podcasts

Podcasts were not a huge deal until recent years and now there are more than 29 million podcast episodes online. This audio content marketing type has grown rapidly over the past few years and it’ll be smart for you to jump on it as well!  

Podcasts are an engaging type of content that allows you to reach your target audience – especially the ones who are not a fan of reading long articles. One of the major advantages of doing a podcast is that your audience can consume your content and learn about you even when they’re doing something else, such as driving or working out at the gym, which is not possible with other types of content.  

4] Videos

If you have a product to offer then you simply cannot leave videos out of your content marketing strategy. 4x more users would rather watch a video about a product than reading about it. Despite the fact that video is not always associated with content marketing, it should be a major part of your content marketing campaign. It is not only more engaging but more of your audience would prefer watching a video over reading a text.  

One of the major reasons why this content type is popular is because of the ease of use and it can be consumed passively as well. Additionally, creating video content will give you a better chance to capture your audience’s attention rather than a long piece of article.  

5] Infographics

The attention span of users has been decreasing for a while now and it will keep decreasing. That is why you need to create content in such a way that you can capture your audience’s attention in a short span of time. Apart from videos, creating infographics is another great to hold the attention of your audience.  

Infographics allow you to stuff a ton of information in just a single image that is not only visually pleasing but also easily understandable. It can make difficult concepts easier to represent and understand and that’s one of the reasons why infographics are loved by the readers! Consumers are 30% more likely to consume infographics as a piece of content rather than only written content.  

6] Case studies

Creating case studies means sharing the success stories of your existing or previous clients. They are an excellent way for potential leads to learn about your services from someone who has already done business with you. Case studies are one of those content marketing types that will build trust among your potential clients and pursue them to avail your services.

With case studies, you can share the entire client journey from the start and enable your leads to see how your expertise have helped clients achieve better results. That is why it is one of the top types content to create online and why you should jump on the bandwagon as well!

7] Webinars

Online webinars are yet another way to educate your prospects about your services and show yourself as an authority in the field. Conducting webinars will not only help you reach potential leads and tell them more about your services but also share expert insights on a specific topic, how to overcome a particular problem, etc. to your existing clients.

One of the main benefits of conducting webinars is that you can interact and engage with your leads & clients outside of "work" and build a good relationship with them. The viewers can ask you questions in real-time and you can immediately respond to them and offer a solution; it will help you create a more personal connection than any other formats of content. Webinars are one of the strong educational content type that should be definitely on your list!

8] Social Media Posts

Social media platforms has almost billions of active users every month which is why you simply cannot ignore it. With social media posts, you can directly engage with your audience, without any formal requirements. It enables you to get real-time feedback and understand what your prospects care about, what difficulties are they facing, etc.

Moreover, you don't specifically need to create content for social media, you simply need to repurpose your blogs, podcasts, videos or any other content and post it on social platforms. However, it doesn't mean you shouldn't put in efforts to repurpose content, you need to make sure you create social posts that are share-worthy and offer snackable but valuable content.

To imrpove your social media experience, you should also tap into partnering up with relevant influencers and try your hand at meme marketing. Memes are relatively new but increasing every year. They are a great way to present your services and has potential of making your business viral.

9] Email newsletter

Even though emails are a formal communication platform, newsletters are an amazing way to reach to your audience directly in their inbox. And it's a popular content marketing strategy that has been in the game since a long time and will only grow stronger going further.

One of the key benefits of newsletters is that your audience has given you the permission to communicate with them! Plus, with today's email automation techniques, you don't even need to manually send emails, you can simply set create email campaigns that automatically send emails to your selected segment of subscribers at a regular intervals (set by you).

Final Thoughts

Good content will always be the key to a successful content marketing strategy. And blogs, articles are the cornerstone of content marketing which can bring in organic traffic and convert prospects. However, it should not be the only kind of content you create for your business.  

You should have a diverse content plan which always is helpful to fulfill your long-term goals and get you the result you want. There are a ton of more types of content that you can create apart from the ones mentioned above and thus you need to experiment and analyze what works best with your audience.  

So, what types of content marketing do you create or will start creating for your business?