Your audience craves variety, and you can reach more of them, more effectively, when you use a variety of content mediums.
For the purpose of this article, I’ve created a collection of different types of content and split them into four main categories: written, visual, video and audio.
Most of you will be magnetised to the type of content that you’re most at home with…
…but, maybe it’s time you made a change. Pick something from one of the other categories and give it a go. If you’re scared, it’s a good sign. Push your limits, and do something that takes you out of your comfort zone.
And remember that 90% of these types of content can be interchanged across all 4 mediums. For instance, some of the written content ideas might work really well in a video, audio or visual format!
52 Different Types of Content Marketing
Types of Written Content
Blog Post
From opinion to diary style entries, blog posts are consistent forms of written content that gain followers and return visitors. Build stories into you content and you’ll see your blog go from strength to strength.
Check out our blog t0 get a few ideas!
News Article
It’s not easy to stay ahead of the media, but you can keep yourself up-to-date with all the announcements from the biggest players in your industry.
A large percentage of our audience use Facebook as a marketing and advertising tool, so I check Facebook’s official newsroom for updates every day. This strategy has led to us breaking news from Facebook and gaining traffic before the majority of other blogs in our niche.
Product/Service Announcement
If and (more importantly) when you update or release new products/services, you need to tell the world about it! Shout it loud!
Case Study
The ultimate type of converting content, case studies tell success stories from existing or past customers. Make sure you include their before and after stages, and how your solution projected them one side to the other.
The better the case study relates to your target market, the more effective it will be.
E-Book
Not all books need to be printed. Round-up some of your biggest life lessons or strategies for success and publish it in an online format.
You can sell this type of written content or use it as a killer lead magnet to grow your marketing list.
Emails are a type of content that when done well, can be a huge money-spinner. Structuring a series of emails is a fine art, especially if you don’t want to irritate your list into unsubscribing. Make sure you put in as much effort to your emails as you do to collecting leads.
Newsletter
A great way to round-up recent news, content or events is via a newsletter. These don’t take long to put together (because the bulk of the content is already created), they keep your email list opening your communications and increase the value of your marketing list.
The newsletter is a highly valuable type of content marketing that you should be employing already.
Social Media Updates
You don’t have to post updates 1,000,000 times a day to make an impact on social media. Make sure your updates are short, engaging and entertaining, and most importantly, consistent.
The content of your social media posts will be crucial to building an engaged following.
E-Brochure
If an e-book was crossbred with a product specification sheet, you’d have an e-brochure on your hands. This is an amazing type of content for you to see who really is interested in buying your product or taking your offer. In other words, they’re a great qualifier.
White Papers
Guides or reports that breakdown the key benefits of your product/service, whitepapers are a great type of content further down the funnel. Use them to compliment your product/service.
General Website Content
Your About page, your Contact page, meta descriptions, excerpts…just about everything on your site is content that matters.
Most customers will want to know more about your business before they commit to buying. Make sure all your website content is up-to-date, consistent with your brand and clearly represents your target market.
This type of content is easily overlooked, don’t fall into this trap.
Guest Posts
A great way of gaining extra exposure is to have guest writers contribute to your content marketing efforts.
Guest bloggers can broaden your reach by promoting their contribution to their audience, as well as taking some of the load off your content creators.
Reach out to relevant blogs in your industry and always make sure you check out their writer’s guidelines before submitting.
Interview
An interview with a well-respected and valued leader in your industry can propel your audience numbers to the next level.
Interviews don’t have to be recorded, and you don’t even need to be in the same country as the person you’re interviewing, simply email the questions to you target responder.
Q & A
This type of content marketing can work in a number of ways, you can open yourself up to questions from your audience (and you provide the answers), ask questions to other industry experts, or you can pose the questions to your audience (and they provide you with the answers).
The latter is a great way of encouraging engagement and conversation with your audience.
Quote
Quotes can be inspiring and motivating.
Mr. A. Example
If you’re having a day where you’re short on creativity, round-up some quotes that relate to your audience. Pull something from your own content or use a quote from a big name.
Contest
What can you offer your audience as an awesome prize? And, what can you get from them in exchange for an entry?
You could use a contest as a lead magnet, an audience grower (sharing to enter) or just a great way to engage and excite the people who follow your brand. Whatever you choose, contests work really well for the holders and the entrants.
Just be careful when using this type of content, if you create too many contests, you’ll burn through prospective leads and followers.
How To
How To’s are guides and audience’s love them. They should break complicated tasks into manageable chunks, and go in-depth on every step of the journey.
How To guides do really well on Google because one of the most popular search enquiry openings is ‘How To…’
Go after this type of content if you’re trying to corner an educational space in your industry.
List
Lists…they’re useless! Why would anybody want to read one of those?
This type of content can be time-consuming to put together, especially when you include a lot of points in your lists.
Round-up
Round-up’s are like lists, but they’re (usually) sourced externally. Simply find the most valuable posts in your niche, write a short description and lay the link for your audience.
You can also create a round-up of your own content, especially when you reach a specific landmark (like the end of a year).
Testimonial
If you’ve got a customer who’s had an amazing experience with your company (you should have many), why not ask them to write a testimonial. These work really well at the bottom of funnel.
As well as using their written testimonial, you could also record them and turn this into two types of content.
Reviews
Your customers might want to write about their experience with your brand, give them a place to do it on your website, or import a plugin from a company who specialise in reviews (like Tripadvisor or TrustPilot).
Reviews really help conversions and act as social proof for people who are unsure about buying from you. Do everything you can to generate this type of content: reach out to past customers and offer incentives.
Combined Relevance
Bring two completely different subjects together to draw a much larger audience to your blog. These pique interest and gain lots of clicks. If you’re chasing more traffic, try a Combined Relevance blog (e.g. 5 Things Your Marketing Manager Can Learn From Donald Trump)…
…however, this isn’t a type of content that I’d recommend pinning your content marketing hopes on. Combined relevance will help boost your awareness now and again, but don’t use them too often (there isn’t enough value in them!).
Worksheet
Some people learn a lot better when they reinforce your lessons. Create a downloadable worksheet so they can improve their skills and memorise everything!
If you need to see an example check out our Customer Avatar Worksheet or our Storytelling For Marketers Content Builder.
Template
What would your audience like to have ready-made?
A template can be as simple as a spreadsheet or design, but it doesn’t have to be a physical template. Explaining the steps of a transferrable strategy can also be considered a template too.
Think about your target market’s biggest pain points and information gaps, and use your expertise to solve their problems.
Report
Putting together an original piece of research and reporting on it is a great way to gain links, increase exposure and position yourself as an industry expert.
What could you study that would make waves in your industry?
Quiz
When we started out, our record day for visitors was when we launched a quiz and there’s no surprise, they’re interesting, engaging and entertaining, and users absolutely love them.
This is an interactive type of content marketing and can be a forward-thinking approach, but your brand’s content marketing strategy won’t be able to survive just with quizzes (unless you specialise in making quizzes). Feed these into your content calendars every so often to give your traffic stats a leg-up to the next level.
Types of Visual Content
Images
Images catch the eye and gain tons of attention (when they’re done right).
This type of content won’t keep users attention for long, so it’s very rarely worth devoting entire pages to them. Sprinkle them through your content (with keywords in your alt-tag fields) and use them to boost awareness on your social media channels. And always make sure you insert your brand logo!/
Infographic
These are visual representations of research, stats or data, and they’re really popular. A good design can make the most boring of stats look interesting and sharable. However, you don’t have to use stats, you can also create infographics from your own knowledge of your industry.
Infographics are usually formatted in a vertical portrait-style format which primes them for Pinterest or square for Instagram.
Photos
That’s right, real-life photos of real life stuff!
Use photos as visual representations of stories, or capture some behind-the-scenes images for your followers. This type of visual content will build trust and demonstrate your authenticity.
Slideshow
Ever since the dawn of Microsoft PowerPoint, people have been learning from digital slideshows…
…and many people still want to! The popularity of SlideShare.net proves it! Why not create a slideshow on your site and share it on Slideshare?
Polls
Most people might consider a poll to be a written form of content, but I disagree. An eye-catching bar chart stands out and always draws attention…
…why not create a simple one-question poll for your audience on Facebook or Twitter?
These are really easy to build and are a great type of content to engage your audience on social media.
Mind Map
This takes me back to school, back then we called them Brain Storms. Remember them?
Mind maps are visual interpretations of your thoughts on a particular subject. Get creative with your next piece of content, and see what your audience makes of it.
Visual Instructions
I use these all the time. Some people are visual learners and they require clear instructional images so they can understand and remember the biggest takeaways.
My favourite form of visual instructions are annotated screenshots (Einstein Marketer’s regular audience will know what I mean). I use a FREE TOOL called Skitch, find it online or in your app store. It’ll transform your content and your audience’s appreciation for it.
Quotes
Quotes might have come under written content (in the previous category), but they can also make up a huge part of your visual strategy.
When you need to bulk up your visual posts (particularly on Instagram), find an inspirational, educational or motivational quote, place it on a relevant background, and bob’s-your uncle, you’ve got an awesome piece of visual content.
Memes
A meme is a photo or image published with humorous text attached. These are popular with audiences of all ages and backgrounds, provided the topic is relevant.
This type of content is easy to make, they often go viral and can be stomach-achingly funny.
Use memes in your social media strategy to entertain your audience.
GIFs
Somewhere in the grey area between videos and images, an unknown explorer discovered GIF’s. Literally meaning graphics interchange format, these short silent videos are commonly used to express opinion and emotion.
Pick a GIF from a huge online library or create your own on GIPHY.
Screenshot
Similar to the visual instructions point a few above, screenshots are a way of explaining ideas to your audience…
…but more than that, they’re a great form of social proof. They can display information from inside accounts and share metrics and stats that would be otherwise unobtainable to your followers.
Types of Video Content
BTW: I’ve used GIFs as examples in this section because this many videos would make a seriously slow loading page!
Vlog
Delete the ‘B’ and replace it with a ‘V’.
Vlog’s are all the rage and are continuing to grow in popularity. Show your story, use your camera as a diary, share a new life lesson every day…
…the possibilities are endless.
And with the advancement in smartphone cameras, there’s no need for expensive equipment. If you’re reading this post, you can vlog! No excuses!
Interview
If you can convince an authority in your industry to get in front of the camera, then do it!
You don’t even need to travel, set up a live video link on Skype, or via your webcam.
And make sure you ask the questions that the audience want answered!
Webinar
The perfect way to take a live (or recorded) event to a bigger audience, is via webinar.
Webinar’s should hold tons of value for your audience, and allow them to interact with you as you go!
Tutorial
Much like the ‘how-to’ written guide and ‘visual instructions’, the tutorial video is a step up in dedication to your audience.
Creating a tutorial video for your audience is the perfect way to explain how to use your product, solve problems and demonstrate all your value.
Review
Video reviews are growing in popularity. People trust them more than the standard written reviews.
Splice a collection of customer reviews together, or create your own about something relevant to your brand.
Testimonial
Testimonial videos are amazing. They convince and convert and show your product in the best possible light.
If you aren’t receiving any organically, ask your best customers to create some for you. They will make all the difference to prospects who are on the fence.
Animation
An often forgotten video form, animated videos can be used in a variety of ways, but they’re particularly powerful educational tools. A great example of this are Whiteboard animations.
Animated videos are like moving, talking versions of your visual instructions and they aren’t as expensive as people think. Try a service like Fiverr.com to find a cheap animator.
Behind-the-scenes
People love to see what happens on the ‘inside’. It demonstrates transparency, clearly defines your culture and introduces your staff to customers and prospects.
If you aren’t brave enough to share your behind-the-scenes footage, there’s probably a problem somewhere…
…or you’re afraid! Break the chains and get involved with one of the simplest video content types.
Live Stream
What are you doing right now? Would an audience watch a live stream of it?
Hopefully you’re intently reading through this list with your eyes wide and your mouth drooling, so maybe not now…
…but maybe there’s something of interest happening later. Stream it live on social media to keep your audience engaged.
Product Demonstration
This one’s pretty simple, get in front of the camera and demonstrate how your product works! This is a great type of content to include on your buying pages.
Showing your prospects how your product works is a great convincer and form of social proof.
Screen Recording
As much as I love visual instructions, I equally love screen recorded instructions. I use the LOOM Chrome plugin, it’s Free, comes with a variety of recording options (browser only, webcam in corner, entire page, webcam only, etc.) and I’m sure it’s going to grow into an absolute must-have for all businesses and marketers.
Keep your eyes peeled to our blog for more screen recorded guides coming your way soon.
Types of Audio Content
Podcast
If you’d have asked a roomful of people what a podcast was 5 years ago, hardly anybody would’ve known…
…but ask them today, and you’ll probably find that the majority of people listen to them!
I love podcasts, they’re an amazing way to consume content whilst on-the-move (particularly driving or at the gym).
Check out my Top 5 Marketing Podcasts.
Audio Blog Post
Remember that massive written category? Go through everything you’ve written and record it!
We read as many blog’s as possible and then attach the media file in at the top of the appropriate page. I use the mb.miniAudioPlayer plugin for WordPress. It seamlessly fits into 99% of themes.
Interview
Again, the interview is a super-valuable form of content and one that can easily be transferred into audio format. Find a valued person in your niche and ask them the questions that everyone wants to hear, but preferably, not the same as everybody else asks them!
If you’ve got a video interview, why not cut the audio from the file and publish it for a separate audience?
Audio Book
Another type of content marketing that’s become so popular in recent years that a plethora of different companies have sprung up, specialising in it.
Audio Books allow people to learn while on the move. If you’ve written a book (or e-book), record an audio version and publish it!
Conclusion
If you still haven’t got any ideas after reading all that, leave this page open, take a five minute break, scroll randomly through this page, stop on something…
…and create it!
And make sure you check back to this page, these original 52 different types of content marketing will become more!
If you’ve got any ideas for our list of different types of content marketing, leave a comment or send us a message! We’ll add your contribution to the list!
Want more? Check out:
- Instagram Reach: How To Increase Instagram Post Reach (9 Killer Strategies)
- Facebook Page Likes: How to Get 1,000’s for FREE
- How I Never Run Out of Content Marketing Ideas
