Great content is the cornerstone of any successful marketing strategy in today’s digital-first landscape. So, it’s no wonder that content marketing is an essential piece of the puzzle. Creating and sharing content that your audience can relate to and gain value from is what’s going to keep them coming back to you – all as it feeds in nicely with your other marketing efforts.

With our handy guide to content marketing, we’re giving you the ins and outs of how it works, the main benefits, and all the types of content it involves. We’re also sharing our content strategy template if you need some help steering your content marketing plan in the right direction. 

Quick links

• What is content marketing?
• Exploring types of content marketing
• How does content marketing work
• Understanding the content funnel
• Benefits of content marketing
• Download our free Content Strategy Planner Template

What is content marketing?

Marketing is all about attracting and retaining your target audience, so content marketing is the (sometimes) simple act of consistently creating and distributing relevant, valuable content that serves your audience’s needs. Of course, that all comes with plenty of benefits brands are aiming for, from boosted brand visibility to building long-term customer relationships and trust.

Although content marketing works alongside your other digital marketing channels, the main difference with it as an approach is that you’re inviting users to come to you, rather than pushing messaging towards them. With the likes of paid and email marketing, these are often outbound, whereas content marketing is inbound. This simply means that customers who are searching for the products and services you offer are likely to happen upon your content via their own searches.

Exploring types of content marketing

Many brands will use a combination of content marketing formats to engage different audiences at various stages of the user journey. From written to audio content, let’s explore some examples of content marketing and when they might come in handy.

Written content

Written content is often viewed as the most traditional type of content marketing, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less useful in an increasingly visual, bite-sized digital landscape. Some examples might include landing pages, blogs, articles, eBooks and whitepapers, approaches that lie at the core of any successful content marketing strategy. Whether you’re optimising product pages, writing how-to blogs or collating industry research to share, these can fit in any point of the user journey, making written content a powerful tool.

Visual content

Visual content is just that – material and assets that bring a visually exciting aspect to your content marketing. Infographics, photography and data visualisations are just a few of the different types of visual content used. These can easily be combined with other content types to enhance the message and make it more engaging, but they can also be used as standalone content.

Video content

Videos are a popular form of content, combining visual and audio storytelling. Longer-form YouTube videos, short-form social media posts and webinars all fit into this category, so there’s plenty of opportunities for you to reach your audience wherever they naturally spend their time.

You might use this for a how-to demo on a product page, or you could even share user-generated content reviewing a product on your social media.

Audio content

Audio is another storytelling format that favours longer-form content, although it can also include shorter snippets. From podcast episodes on relevant subjects for your brand to audio snippets of an audiobook you’re selling, audio can help drive users at various points in their journey.

Interactive content

Want to get users engaged in your content? Nothing gets their fingers moving like some interactive elements. Often used early in the journey to help users get to know your brand personality, things like quizzes, calculators and tools might be used alongside blogs or landing pages to create personalised experiences that convert to leads.

How does content marketing work?

The success of your content marketing strategy will largely depend on your ability to put the customer first. At the heart of this channel, you should be creating a welcoming space for your target audience through cherry-picked content that finds them at the exact right moment. In other words, your content should be tailored to their interests, needs and pain points through the channels they prefer.

If you’ve never delved into the world of content marketing, it can be hard to subvert your usual marketing thought process of interrupting the user journey to push your products and services. But that’s where skilled content marketing professionals come into their own – they can use customer data to execute a strategy for planning, creating, optimising and distributing content that not only supports the needs of your target audience, but also helps you hit marketing goals.

The content funnel and your customers’ intent play important roles in content marketing, and we’ll help you understand these concepts in the next section.

Understanding the content funnel

The content funnel is essentially a framework for delivering relevant content based on the buyer’s journey. Working through the funnel from top to bottom, your content should:

• Attract customers
• Get them engaged with your brand
• Turn them into high-quality leads
• Ultimately, end in conversion and customer retention

There are three levels of the content funnel, which we’ll take a trip through below…

Top-of-funnel

The top of the content marketing funnel is where most users will be introduced to your brand and content. Content at the top should aim to secure users by bringing in as much brand awareness and interest as possible, allowing you to drive them down the funnel.

First impressions matter, so whatever content you choose to push at the top of the funnel, the most important thing to remember is that it must be engaging, interesting and push users to want to know more.  

You can use many different content types here, but here are just some examples:

• Social media posts
• Industry reports
• Blog posts
• How-to written guides

Middle-of-funnel

Content in the middle of the funnel should target users in the consideration stage who might be trying to learn more about your brand and what you offer. It’s likely that they’re already aware of who you are, so your job is to create content that nurtures high-quality leads while staying true to your brand personality.

Middle-of-funnel content might include:

• FAQs
• Whitepapers
• Infographics
• Newsletters

The trick to driving them down the funnel? Dropping in educational content about your products or services should help. 

Bottom-of-funnel

Bottom-of-funnel content is mainly focused on creating conversions. At this point, you’re working with users at the final decision-making stage who just need to be steered in the right direction to complete their purchase of your products or services.

Some examples of bottom-of-funnel content might include:

• Product landing pages
• Case studies
• Product demos
• Product or service comparison content

Users might reach this stage within minutes, or it can take weeks to hit the bottom of the content funnel – it’s your job to know how best to deliver this content for your audience.

Benefits of content marketing

What benefits and results can you expect to see when investing in content marketing? Let’s go through some of the biggest advantages:

Increased organic traffic

Within content marketing, you should be creating content that targets search terms from audiences at different stages of the content funnel. In turn, this improves your ranking in SERPs, ultimately driving more users to your site and increasing engagement. 

Quality leads

Strategically driving users to your site and directing them down the content funnel doesn’t just boost organic traffic – it can also increase the number of high-quality leads your site receives.

Improved conversion rates

With more high-quality leads from content that serves users at every stage of their journey, users are far more likely to be led to conversion. A consistent tone of voice and branding that builds trust can also be helpful if increased conversions are the end goal. You can also reduce the number of dead ends or blockers for users to drop off.

Stronger brand authority and trust

The content being created and distributed within your content marketing strategy should share your brand’s expertise and show authority in your sector. The more you can home in on this, the more your brand’s personality should shine through and build trust with your audience.

Customer retention and loyalty

When users are being fed valuable and relevant content that serves their needs, increasing brand trust isn’t the only thing you’ll benefit from. A content marketing strategy geared towards your audience will also boost metrics like retention and loyalty, allowing you to keep a consistent flow of traffic coming to your site.

Download our free Content Strategy Planner Template

Want to get started with setting up your own content strategy? Our free-to-download template will keep you on track for creating and sharing consistent, valuable content that works for your brand’s target audience.