Content marketing is one of the best ways to promote your business. However, different audiences prefer different forms of content. You can segment audiences by the content they like to consume to visual and auditory learners. Obviously, visual learners prefer blog posts, infographics, and videos while auditory learners enjoy podcasts.

Ideally, you should mix various types of content marketing but it’d be a mission impossible to cover every single form of content marketing (blogs, videos, eBooks, case studies, social media posts, podcasts, webinars, success stories – the list goes on and on).

So, today we’re talking about the 5 most powerful forms of content marketing you can use to really make an impact instead of having to juggle a dozen of different strategies.

We singled out these 5 forms based on the effort-impact ratio, which means that these can help you expand reach, grab attention, build trust, and increase sales without overinvesting your time or resources.

1. Blogging

No, blogging is not dead, and here are just a few fresh stats that can prove this claim.

• Blogging is a part of the content strategy for 89% of marketers,
• Blogging makes the primary content marketing strategy for roughly 53% of marketers,
• More than 20 billion blogs are read each month,
• Almost 45% of buyers go through a couple of pieces of blog content before making a purchase.

Does this seem powerful enough? Oh wait, there’s more…

Blogs can truly help you build brand awareness, especially elaborate and detailed ones, and get you heaps of passive links. However, contrary to the popular belief that long-form content blogs typically do much better than short-form content, the truth is that 75% of readers prefer shorter, under 1000-word articles. The best thing of all? You need just a little more than 4 hours to write a good 1,000-word blog.

2. Newsletters

Many people would say that email marketing is dead, too, and guess what? They are so wrong! Yes, email marketing is old-school but it’s still one of the most effective strategies out there.

More than 37% of brands have started increasing budgets they are investing in email marketing and the engagement rate with newsletters has increased by 77% in the past 12 months.

Sending newsletters can help you create stronger bonds with your audiences than, let’s say, posting on Facebook where most people just casually read and scroll. Also, people are more likely to start paying for a subscription after they’ve been subscribed to a free newsletter first.

Newsletters can help you reduce churn rates and increase the chances of people actually buying your product once a free trial expires. However, stick to 3 to 5 newsletters per week since, otherwise, you’ll risk that your audiences will unsubscribe.

Finally, it takes just about one hour to write a good, engaging and informative newsletter. 

3. Social Media Content

Almost 2 billion people use Facebook, almost 1.5 billion people use Instagram, and almost 250 people million use Twitter on a daily basis. Do you know what that means? You have a chance to get to tens of thousands of people every day or million people every month by simply posting content on social media.

Sure thing, you should nail your positioning and do proper research on which channels your target audience uses in the first place. For instance, Gen Z spends most of their time on Instagram, Millennials prefer Facebook, etc. Then, create a strong mission statement, think about the messaging and the tone you are going to use for captions and craft posts accordingly to make your content relatable.

For instance, if you want to appeal to a professional base of users, you’ll, naturally, use LinkedIn in the first place. The business community is all about professional development, networking, discussing business ideas, business growth, generating leads, and hiring the best talent so you should definitely focus on creating business-related, educational and inspirational content to tap into the right audience.

Do this positioning and messaging thing right, and you’ll drive genuine engagement, boost brand awareness, and have tons of sales!

When it comes to writing content for social media, it’s totally up to you to decide how much of your time you want to devote to it. It can take 5 minutes a day (provided you are posting short captions) or a couple of hours per week (provided you prefer creating content in batches and long-form captions). 

4. Influencer-Generated Content

Influencer marketing has been gaining the edge over paid ads lately. Having influencers share your content, whether it be a blog, photo, or video, or post unique content about your business can help with increasing reach, boosting awareness, and getting more sales. However, it is crucial to work with influencers from your niche if you want to reach people potentially interested in your products or services.

• 93% of marketers have used influencer marketing at least once. 
• 65% of viewers visit websites and shops after watching influencer-generated content.
• 46% of viewers actually end up purchasing from a brand that is being promoted by an influencer.

If you don’t have a large budget, you can partner with nano micro-influencers who charge $100 to $500 per post and still get amazing ROI.

5. Videos

Video content has been booming lately. Shorts, Stories, Reels, and TikToks – users are consuming at least 100 minutes of video content per day. In 83% of the cases, videos can help with generating more leads, while 84% of customers make purchases right after watching a video.

Once your customer base starts growing significantly, we highly recommend you start using a CRM solution so that you retain those people and turn them into recurring customers.

Ideally, do both short-form, 60-second explainer videos and demo videos to show or tell how your product or service can help your potential clients. Don’t be afraid to hop on trends related to your industry and create quick social media clips but also do some storytelling and create long-form content from time to time.

After all, videos provide up to a 1,200% increase in reach compared to single-photo posts. This is the way to go if you want to see results, and you want them fast. Indeed, making videos can take from 30 minutes to several hours but this strategy is totally worth the time. 

Summary on Content Marketing

It’s super important for you to figure out which content marketing form would make the most sense for your audience. You can achieve great results by doing SEO and traditional marketing or you can invest in paid content. Whatever your choice is, remember that content marketing is a long-term play and your initial numbers will be growing bit by bit if you are persistent enough.

Author: Nina Petrov is a content marketing specialist, passionate about graphic design, content marketing, and the new generation of green and social businesses. She starts the day scrolling her digest on new digital trends while sipping a cup of coffee with milk and sugar. Her white little bunny tends to reply to your emails when she is on vacation.