We all know that content creation is one of the most important techniques in the marketing toolkit. It allows us to take customer pain points and to address them in a way which adds value to them whilst simultaneously encouraging them to take some sort of commercial action.
When most people think about content, they immediately start to think about blog posts, e-books, whitepapers, social media updates and other written content. That’s probably because this kind of content is usually the easiest to create and because it’s also easier for search engines to process, which increases the odds of them bringing in new people.
But focusing solely on written content will do your brand a disservice and potentially lead to you missing out on potential customers. That’s because in the same way that we all learn in different ways, we also all prefer different kinds of content. Some people love to read long form blog posts that dig deep on a specific subject, but others don’t have the time and would prefer videos or even audio clips so that they can consume them on the commute.
The content mix
As marketers, we hear a lot about the marketing mix and the need for us to use a variety of different techniques. The idea behind the content mix is the same, except it refers to the different types of content that we need to create if we want people to notice us. Creating only written content is like only using direct mail or relying entirely on email marketing or some other approach. It might work a little bit, but it’s not going to be as effective as using a mixture.
The good news is that you can repurpose your content ideas to bring different formats together. For example, let’s say that you host a webinar for the purposes of lead generation. You could then take quotes from that webinar and turn them into visuals or you could take the transcript and use it to create a blog post. You could even re-edit the audio and use it to create a podcast.
The main thing that you need to remember is that it’s all about providing the type of content that’s most relevant to your customers. If you have different types of customers or you’re targeting people of different demographic groups then you’ll need to use different content types to cater to them.
Conclusion
Content marketing is here to stay and we could argue that the industry is already mature. That means that using different types of content is no longer an optional extra but rather that it’s absolutely necessary if you want to keep up with the competition. People are crying out for different content types. They’re waiting for you to cater to them.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.