“Content builds relationships, and relationships build trust,” says author Andrew Davies. Trust leads to revenue.” This is the goal that entrepreneurs pursue; That they can achieve more revenue, but it will not be achieved without paying attention to content marketing and adapting different types of content to build trust with the audience and contribute to achieving profits and, accordingly, the success of the project.


The guide includes:

How do you choose the right types of digital content for your project?

Before choosing the types of digital content that suit you in e-marketing, you must first define a set of project-specific factors that will affect the process of selecting and publishing content on different platforms. You can learn about these factors by identifying several essential elements that will help you accurately understand your content needs: 

Project goals and your marketing goals

What goals do you want to achieve with content marketing? Is the goal to spread awareness of your brand among your audience? Or focus on increasing sales and expansion? These goals will vary over time, and there may be a desire to implement more than one goal at the same time.

The process of choosing between objectives depends mainly on the current stage of the project. The greater the development of the project, the more there is a need to change the objectives that must be achieved to suit the stages of growth. Also, choose content marketing objectives based on the possibility of their contribution to achieving the objectives of the project, and then the types of content that can help implement your marketing plan.

If you aim to increase sales, the focus will be on advertisements, through which you can convince customers of the advantages of the project, and thus influence their purchasing decisions. But if your goal is to spread and reach the audience, here marketing is concerned with increasing the percentage of visits to your website through social media, for example, and this requires choosing types of content that depend on stimulating the audience to interact.

your target audience

We prepare the content to influence the audience in different ways, and through this, the marketing goals are achieved. Therefore, you must accurately define your target audience, and think about the types of content that suit it, as it may not be appropriate to use content that is not compatible with your followers, which may lead to them losing passion for the above. 

For example, targeting the youth category is completely different from the elderly category, on the one hand, each of them has their own choices and preferences, and the content they prefer to read, which may not be similar to the other category, even with the similarity of the product or service provided in the project, so, defining the audience helps you Choosing the right types of content.

Available marketing resources

The process of choosing the right types of content for the project depends on the presence of marketing resources that you already own in your project, and that you can benefit from in producing content. These resources can be divided into three main parts: Content platforms or what is known as marketing channels such as a website or mobile applications, or various social media platforms. marketing budget; It is the budget allocated for e-marketing.

Finally, content creators are the people responsible for producing the right types of content for each marketing channel. Of course, the content production process needs specialization, especially with the constant expansion of the project, and the desire to own more marketing channels to keep pace with growth, so you can always benefit from professional writing and content marketing services provided by professionals on Fiverr.

What are the most popular types of digital content, according to the publishing platform?

The types of content differ according to the publishing platform used, as some ideas that are suitable for social media platforms may not be suitable for the website. Also, the results are not the same even if the same idea is used in two different content platforms. You find that interactive content on a Facebook post generates more comments than on a question asked in an article on the site. Simply put, every marketing channel is better suited to some types of content than others.

1. Website content

Your website can help you achieve a lot of your marketing goals, by publishing many types of content that produce highly effective results. The website mainly relies on the use of articles of various types, which are written by search engines to benefit from them in increasing visits to the site and contributing to its obtaining a higher ranking within the search engines. Article topics are preferably evergreen content, which can be read at any time.

Content marketing and social media platforms

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Listings articles

Lists are one of the most popular types of content used in articles, as the idea of ​​lists depends on different compilations that are presented to the public, and their title often contains a number, such as 21 types of content that guarantee your site a constant flow of visitors or 5 tools that inspire you with ideas for the content of your blog. This type of headline is a source of encouragement for the reader to know the content of the article. A research study revealed that headlines that contain numbers get a 36% higher average of visits compared to the rest of the other types of content that are published on the sites.

Guides and how-to articles

This type of content helps you provide guidance to your audience. It is closer to being educational content that gives the reader instructions that enable him to acquire a specific skill or reach a higher level of proficiency in it, and it is presented in the form of how-to articles or through guides, which are also known as comprehensive guides, and the difference between them is that the guide contains more specific details With content.

It is important to link the content to the products and services that you provide whenever it is available, and that it contains practical steps that can actually be implemented. Your distinction.

Case studies

It is presented in more than one way, whether it is an article on the blog or a video, and it is one of the most important types of content that contribute to building trust with the audience because it contains real success stories, it may be the success story of your project, from the beginning and through the challenges and problems that you faced, and finally, with the achievement that you achieved Indeed, the study should contain practical and inspiring steps for the followers to benefit from.

It may be a success story for one of your clients, with an attempt to link it to how the service you provided to him contributed to his success journey. For example, if you work in the field of training, and you qualify a specific individual in your fields of specialization, and then he was able to reach a good job opportunity thanks to your training, then sharing this matter with the public leads to their appreciation of your efforts and increases their confidence in the quality of your training.

electronic books

E-books enable you to present content on a specific topic at great length and deal with it from all sides, and it is one of the things that strengthen your project in the eyes of the audience, because it makes them realize how distinguished you are in your field, and for this, it is one of the most important content marketing strategies. Downloading ensures that it is always available to them, not just when they are online.

It is not necessary to write the content of these books from scratch, but you can take advantage of the articles that were previously published on your site, by collecting, formatting, and presenting them together in a book, provided that there is a relationship between them, so that the reader feels the real benefit of the book.

videos

Visual content is one of the most important types of content preferred by the public these days, and you can benefit from the videos by publishing them on YouTube, as well as including their link in your articles on the website, and they are implemented in more than one form, such as animation videos, or videos that depend on collecting images, or recording content submitted by people speaking on certain topics.

Many types of videos can be used, whether they are entertainment videos or educational videos to provide assistance to the audience. This type is also used in other types of content such as case studies, how-to articles, or other purposes that can be achieved with videos.

common questions

Your audience always has many questions, whether those related to your products and services, or how they are used and dealt with. These questions are a treasure for you in preparing a content marketing plan, as they give you a guarantee from the start that the audience will interact with the answers that you will provide, given their actual interest in these topics.

It is important to dedicate a constant part of your website to the most popular questions, so you ensure that the answers are always there, and this will benefit your future customers as well, so that they can find the answer to all the questions that occupy their minds in the transaction with you, and thus you get continuous content visits and tangible results for your content marketing plan.

Reviews and testimonials

At the present time, the public is interested in researching well before making any purchase, which maximizes the value of content marketing, specifically reviews, as they are considered one of the important types of content for the website, in terms of displaying advantages and disadvantages of products, in a way that makes it easier for the customer to evaluate the options available to him for purchase.

You can also use testimonials, that is, show real experiences of people who have already tried your product, and this makes it easier for your potential customers to make a purchase decision because the customer is interested in knowing other people’s experiences with products or services before purchasing them, and because these experiences are credible in his view, as they are from people outside the framework The project, and therefore they have no interest in misleading others, but their main goal may be to help them.

interviews

Clients always trust experts and influencers and love to follow any content they provide in their respective fields, so you can take advantage of this to produce one of the popular types of content which are interviews. These interviews can be done in the form of a written dialogue, or they can be recorded video or audio, it depends on your capabilities in implementation, as well as on the occasion with your guest in the interview.

The questions that you intend to ask must be prepared before the interview to ensure that you are well prepared for it, and you can benefit from the interests of your audience when preparing the content marketing plan, and in choosing the interview questions to ensure that they interact with the content and obtain a real benefit when they follow it, in a way that increases confidence between you and your audience, And it brings you continuous visits to your content.

2. The content of social media platforms

Types of social media content

Social media platforms help achieve many marketing goals, as they are considered one of the most important means of building a community between you and your customers, and they can also be used to achieve sales and collect customer subscriptions. There are many platforms that you can use at the moment, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Snapchat.

It is not necessary to use all platforms, but according to what is appropriate for your audience, you aim to build a community with them where they are actually located, so before selecting the appropriate platforms to create content for them, you must make sure that your audience is present on them so that you can benefit from marketing with the content that you will provide on these platforms.

Interactive content

One of the most important types of content that you can use in your content marketing plan on all social media platforms. It creates two-way communication between you and your customers, and this is one of the things that really contribute to building a good relationship with the audience. In interactive content, it is important to motivate customers to interact, so you can link it with the events taking place around you, as this makes the possibility of participation greater, provided that your participation in the event does not cause you a problem.

  • Games: Everyone loves games in all their forms. They can be presented in the form of puzzles that they think about solving. Always try to connect what you offer with the game so that your project sticks in the minds of the audience. For example, if you are working on something related to books, you can make a puzzle about reading, or use important icons in reading within the puzzle, such as a book, a pen, and others.
  • Contests: Winning and getting an easy prize is an option that many people prefer. Therefore, competitions are widely used among the types of interactive content, as they guarantee the participation of a large segment of the audience wishing to win and obtain the prize. One of the most famous examples of competitions is to predict the outcome of a specific football match, and then the prize is a free product from the company's products.
  • Questions: Questions help you create a real dialogue with your audience, and motivate them to express their opinions. You can ask them questions related to your field of work or your product, and start listening to their answers and discussing what they say. This strengthens the relationship between you and the audience because they see how you value their opinions and respect their posts with you.
  • Opinion polls: The survey doesn't need to include many questions. On Facebook, for example, you can make use of the reaction icons in posts and select an icon for each answer. You can also make use of the “Poll” option to present your question and select two answers from which the audience can choose. The easier the method of participation, the greater the number of participants, and thus the greater the interaction.
  • Comics: One of the types of interactive content that has spread in recent years, and is very suitable for young people, as it is considered part of the language they use in their daily interaction on all social media platforms, and therefore there is a great possibility that they will interact with it in your publications.

Thumbnails

The content published on the website is based on the use of articles of at least 500 words. However, this content is not suitable for the audience of social media platforms, who always prefer quick browsing of content. So you can use the same types of content as on the website, but in a simpler form on social media platforms. This is done by reformulating the content, but while preserving the value that the audience gets.

external links

One of the most popular types of content is used to link social media platforms with other platforms. Basically, it is preferable to link with your own platforms, as the audience is referred to an external link on your site or from your YouTube channel, for example. This contributes to increasing the rate of visits to these platforms and can be used to improve the performance of ads as well. It is important when using this type that it is not enough to put the link only, but rather a sentence must be written that motivates the reader to enter the link, so what will motivate him to do so if his attention is not attracted? 

Infographic

The infographic is considered one of the most powerful types of visual content used, mainly on social media platforms, and it can also be included in some articles on the website, as the infographic consists of a design that contains specific statistics or data, or perhaps some advice, that would receive interest from your audience. Instead of content written in many lines, it will be possible to understand all of the content by design.

If the design is professional enough and able to attract the audience, then its spreadability increases, and with it, more people can know about your project, so if you have an idea that you think is suitable for implementation in the form of an infographic and you do not have enough experience in how to do that, you can use the design services that Provided by professionals on Fiverr.

videos

You can use the videos that you created on your YouTube channel by uploading them again on social media platforms, or by adding the link and referring followers to the channel to follow up, but as is the case for light articles compared to those published on the site, it is important that the videos used on social media platforms In a shorter period to suit the nature of the audience on it.

You can also take advantage of the “Live videos” feature, which is one of the most powerful types of video content these days, in communicating with your audience. Statistics indicate that 80% of the audience prefers to watch a live broadcast rather than read a post or article. You can also provide broadcasting through specialized sites such as Zoom, linking it to Facebook, and then using the data that your customers have registered to communicate with them permanently in the future.

It is not necessary to provide all the content of the videos yourself, but you can seek the help of some experts to do so, so your audience will feel that you are providing them with more benefit through your keenness to communicate with specialists who can benefit from their expertise and experiences, on the other hand, you will gain new followers for you from the audience of these experts who They are always keen to follow all the news they present on various platforms. You can also link the live broadcast with competitions, and announce the names of the winners in a live broadcast, as some of them confirm the transparency of the selection, and some of them achieve greater interaction with the audience interested in knowing the winners.

stories

This feature is available on some platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, and recently YouTube, and the advantage is that it only lasts for 24 hours and then disappears, and therefore it can be used in making quick offers to attract the public to interact with it, or it is possible to document daily work and photograph the work team and the way to perform tasks This builds trust with the audience and makes them follow your work closely and not forget your presence, as these details affect their purchasing decisions in the future.

Stories can be used in the form of images or videos, and in the case of the video, its duration must match the platform. For example, Instagram allows a maximum duration of 15 seconds, while Facebook is 20 seconds, and Snapchat is 60 seconds. Each platform has its own specific system that must be adhered to. Stories are also among the types of interactive content with the audience, for example, some options on Facebook and Instagram allow you to ask your question to the audience and provide them with a field to answer the questions, and you can share the answers with the audience for all to see.

GIFs

GIFs are widely used on social media platforms these days, whether to explain how to use a specific thing with the steps that appear sequentially, or through which images of the audience’s opinions and comments can be collected and put together, and some are used as a means of entertainment as they ask the audience to install the image at a specific snapshot, and then save the image And share it in the comments.

Quotes, tips, and steps

Quotations are considered one of the most powerful types of digital content that affects the audience, because everyone loves to read them and benefit from them despite the simplicity of their content and mostly few words, especially when they are from successful and influential personalities who love reading their words, so they feel as if they represent a source of inspiration for them. You can also take advantage of “Tips & Tricks”, which help your audience acquire a new skill without having to read long content each time, but rather rely on adding value to your audience in simple sentences.

Experiences and customer opinions

Customers always like to read the experiences and opinions of others who have already tried your service, so you can take an interest in asking those who have tried your product or service for their opinion and ask their permission to share this with your audience because word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful strategies that contribute to spreading your project. You can take advantage of the recommendations option for pages provided by Facebook, and every time you collect these opinions and publish them on your website or on various social media platforms, which gives an impression of your excellence and continuity in work, and thus the possibility of attracting new customers to buy.

ads

While most of the aforementioned types of content aim to build a lasting relationship with the audience through content marketing and gain their trust, the presence of content to sell directly is an indispensable thing on social media platforms, and this type is represented in writing ads. Ads aim to highlight your unique selling point in your business, which answers an important question the customer is asking: Why should I buy from you over other competitors?

You can use stories and “storytelling” in this type of content, because stories have a greater ability to influence individuals, and thus can be used to persuade them to buy. You should not be satisfied with mentioning the characteristics of your product or service, but rather clarify the benefits and advantages that the person will receive upon purchase, and how your project can help him solve a specific problem that bothers him or treat a point of pain that negatively affects him or even gain a measure of pleasure and luxury in his life.

3. Content of podcast platforms

The podcast is one of the types of digital content that has been very popular during the recent period, as many people prefer this type of content and use it in their content marketing plan for their businesses. This is due to the possibility of listening to it in different circumstances and investing time instead of wasting it, such as transportation time or while carrying out other tasks.

There are many platforms on which audio content can be produced such as Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, and Sound Cloud. You can upload your content on more than one platform to ensure that it reaches a large segment of the audience, while benefiting from the content after publication, by distributing it to other marketing channels, whether it is included as part of some articles on the site, or by publishing the link on social media platforms.

4. Email content

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Owning a website means that you can take advantage of an important marketing channel, which is e-mail marketing, as through this channel you can acquire new customers, or maintain your existing customers and strengthen your relationship with them, by sending them a newsletter at specific times.

Recommendations from the site

One of the most popular types of digital content used in newsletters is to send recommendations from the site, in this case directing the reader directly to the site, whether to read articles published on your blog or to download a new e-book. This type helps connect the audience with your website, as it constantly depends on including links from the site in the newsletter, ensuring that the audience moves to the site to read the content that you have nominated, and thus increases the rate of visits to the site.

interconnected chains

Threads are a powerful type of content in newsletters, as they motivate your audience to wait for the next content, thus ensuring that they are always engaged with the content. These threads can consist of a set of ongoing tips that are tailored to your audience, or a showcase of different experiences either for yourself or for some of your clients. It can continue to be presented for a long time, as there is no rule on the length of time for the series, but this does not mean that it will continue with any content. Rather, the quality of every word in the newsletter must be ensured, to ensure continuity of follow-up from the audience. 

word templates

Your audience is always facing various problems while they are working, and they are definitely looking for solutions to them. One of the things that help him reach solutions and facilitate his work is the presence of ready-made work templates that he can use to carry out the tasks required of him. Therefore, the use of work templates is one of the common types of content in e-mail marketing, as it can be sent to customers in different forms. Proper action steps.

offers

This type is similar to the ads that are used on social media platforms, but with increased reliance here on the offers and discounts that you can offer your customers from time to time. You can send a newsletter that contains your latest products, for example, or the best-selling products during a certain period, and with it, you announce offers and discounts that the public can benefit from if they decide to buy within a specific period. Unlike other types of content in email marketing, offers are aimed at increasing sales for your business, and thus their presence is important to generate profits.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the use of content marketing will help you achieve your marketing goals, but it depends on good planning and proper use of the capabilities available to you. Therefore, you must understand the importance of each type of digital content and its impact compared to the rest, as well as which types are suitable for the marketing channels that you currently own, and accordingly, employing what suits you in the next content marketing plan, which can lead you to successfully achieving your project goals.