Effective content marketing: Determining what is right for your brand

According to Social Media Today, companies are pursuing content marketing more passionately than years before, with 76% of B2B and 77% of B2C marketers creating more content than they did a year ago. It’s no secret that in order to see your business succeed and grow, it is important to be investing time and resources into your content marketing strategy.

There are many different options for content marketing material—from blog posts to infographics. How do you determine which content is right for your business and its channels?

Most effective content marketing methods

The Content Marketing 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report broke down the top content marketing tactics for both B2B and B2C marketers. Some of the most popular options included:

• In-person events
• Webinars
• E-newsletters
• Social Media (specifically visual channels and visual elements on social media)
• Infographics
• Blogs
• Articles
• White papers
• Case studies

Which methods are right for you?

In order to determine which content is right for your brand, ask yourself a few questions:

1. What are the benefits of the leading content types?
2. What is our general theme, format, length and volume?
3. How difficult will it be to produce the content we want?
4. What do we need to do to make our content perform more effectively?
5. How much time and resources do we have to put towards our content?

Reviewing these questions will help your business figure out which content marketing materials will effectively help you reach your target audience. For instance, if you are short on time, maintaining a blog may be a difficult option for your business. However, if you have the resources to outsource, you could have a third-party write blog posts for your business in order to establish your brand as a thought leader. Infographics are also a popular content item that is often shared through social media, but you will want to have a member on your team who has strong design skills in order to create high-quality visuals.

It is important to understand what time and resources your business has in order to create effective content. The next step is to understand what content has the most effective reach within your target audience. After considering those factors, businesses can narrow down which content marketing materials their brand should be creating. Content marketing training is a great option for businesses who are looking to create effective content and increase their ROI.