40+ Different Content Types To Promote Your Products, Services & Business

Did you know 97% of marketers say that content marketing is part of their overall marketing strategy?

Plus, 57% have a documented content marketing strategy to succeed in their marketing game. However, coming up with new content types and ideas can be difficult.

That’s why we have come up with a comprehensive list of 40+ different content types that you should try & include in your content marketing strategy. But before we get into those, let’s understand the importance of different content types:

Why Different Types Of Content are Important for Your Content Marketing Strategy?

The key reason to include different content types in your content marketing is to provide information and entertainment at the same time. They serve your business and its goals and objectives to improve traffic, leads, conversion, & ROI.

Incorporating different content types help you explore new channels and develop multiple streams of revenue generation models. However, keep in mind to only include those content types that go well with your brand.

That said, let’s get into different content types for your marketing:

What Are the Different Types of Content Marketing?

Each type of content has its unique value and proposition. Let’s see how they can add value to your business:

Textual Content Types

1. Blog Posts

Blogs are the most popular content types in use. Most common blog types include Articles, How-tos/Guides, Product/Service Feature Announcements, Listicles, Round-ups, Guest Posts, Industry News, Resources, etc.

Best Practices

• Write & publish high-quality blogs consistently
• Include relevant keywords
• Cover trending topics & questions users want answers for
• Tools for blog creation include Google Docs/MS Word, Grammarly, Plagiarism Checker, CMS, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Writing consistent blogs helps build credibility & reputation in your niche along with generating qualified traffic, leads, and customers.

Best Platforms for Promotion: Medium.com, Quora, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter

2. Case Studies

Case Studies are excellent social proof showcasing how you helped your clients. They are data-driven reports describing what you do, how you did it, and what results were produced for your clients.

Best Practices

• Start with a summary of the project & expected outcome
• Explain the challenges clients faced
• Describe your plan to help them overcome those challenges
• Report the outcomes clients achieved from your solution
• Tools for creation include Google Docs/MS Word, Grammarly, Plagiarism Checker, CMS, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Case studies are essentially the success stories of your brand and inspire others to give your business a try.

Best Platforms: Medium.com, Quora, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter

3. Product/Service Description

Product descriptions provide valuable information and help boost sales for your business. A well-written and informative product/service description is likely to sell off quickly.

Best Practices

• Start off by explaining the benefits of using your goods. Here’s an example:

• Answer important questions users have in mind.
• Focus on buyer personas while writing descriptions.
• Tools for creation include Google Docs/MS Word, Grammarly, Plagiarism Checker, CMS, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Enticing and informative product descriptions not only boost conversion but strengthens your brand voice and trustworthiness.

Best Platforms: Google Business Profile, Facebook, Amazon, Craigslist

4. Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs answer the most common queries your target market has before they give your business a try. They work well as users want a quick resolution of their doubts.

Best Practices

• Research or interview past clients for common queries they had.
• Dedicate a section on your product or service page to answering FAQs.
• Further, write FAQ blogs periodically answering common questions users have.
• Tools for creation include Google Docs/MS Word, Grammarly, Plagiarism Checker, CMS, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

FAQs offer useful info to readers before they make a purchase. It gives your business an edge over others.

Best Platforms: Medium.com, Quora, LinkedIn, Facebook

5. User-Generated Content/Testimonials

User-generated textual content such as reviews and testimonials are excellent examples of social proof and work like a charm.

Best Practices

• Encourage or incentivize users to leave a review.
• Dedicate a testimonial section on the homepage and all product/service pages.
• You can promote this content type on various social platforms.

How It Helps Your Business

User-generated content is free and showcases the customer’s success journey. This helps build trust among new users and inspires them to take the next step.

Best Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn

6. Comparisons

Guides comparing product X with Y come in handy when readers are in situations where they need to choose one product over the other.

Best Practices

• Create side-by-side comparison guides to aid users to make informed decisions.
• Compare products with similar features or with competitors.
• Explain the pros and cons of each product.
• Tools for creation include Google Docs/MS Word, Grammarly, Plagiarism Checker, CMS, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

People reading such type of content are in the consideration stage of the funnel and the right information can sway them to purchase your products.

Best Platforms: Medium.com, Quora, LinkedIn, Facebook

7. Press Releases (PRs)

Press releases are used for making company events, new product/service launches, and other related announcements. They are a great way to earn backlinks too.

Best Practices

• Write PRs on relevant topics the audience can resonate with and give it a read.
• Cover who, what, when, where, why, and how throughout your PR.
• Give users something to talk about or the latest research findings.
• Tools for creation include Google Docs/MS Word, Grammarly, Plagiarism Checker, CMS, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Press releases help you get free publicity, create buzz around your product and brand, and increase brand awareness.

Best Platforms: Linking News, Global Newswire, Business Wire

8. User Guides

User guides or manuals are written documents that help users get familiar with a particular system or a product in a seamless manner.

(Source)

Best Practices

• Write detailed information such as guidelines, troubleshooting processes, & functionalities.
• Keep the language plain and simple for better understanding.
• Write manuals for first-time customers.
• Tools for creation include Document360, Paligo, and other CMSs.

How It Helps Your Business

A helpful user guide/manual will increase the user satisfaction level and may compel them to become your loyal customers for a longer duration.

Best Platforms: Website, product listing platforms

Visual Content Types

9. Images

Pictures, images, or screenshots are one of the most engaging content types on this list. They are much more digestible compared to just plain text.

Best Practices

• Ensure that pictures and images are high-quality ones.
• Use more attention-grabbing colors when designing image graphics.
• Use people-heavy images for high engagement.
• Tools for creation include Canva, Adobe Express, Krita, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Since images tend to get higher engagement on social platforms, they can help communicate your brand message in a meaningful way.

Best platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest

10. Infographics

If useful topics are targeted with appealing and shareable designs, infographics can prove to be a complete game-changer for your content marketing.

Best Practices

• Select topics that can be presented visually.
• Pack as much value, facts, & relevant statistics as possible to craft shareable infographics.
• Try to keep the design simple yet impactful to convey meaningful information.
• Tools for creation include Canva, Piktochart, Infogram, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Since infographics are a great source of authoritative information, publishers would be happy to link back to them which will help boost your SEO.

Best Platforms: Website, relevant directories, Pinterest

11. Memes/GIFs

If you want to be quirky and trendy in your niche, include Memes and GIFs in your content marketing. They are a great way to hook your audience with your content and message. Let’s see an example:

Best Practices

• Make memes & GIFs that are relevant to your niche.
• Try to be quirky, smart, and funny with your words that do not insult anyone.
• Tools for creation include Filmora, Kapwing, Canva, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Memes and GIFs are highly shareable content types and can help your business go viral and get more attention from the relevant audiences.

Best Platforms: Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter

12. Slideshows

Slideshows and presentations are another effective way to share insights and information in a visual format. Here’s an example:

How to turn your content marketing into an online event from Authoritas

Best Practices

• Keep the design of each slide simple yet elegant.
• Create presentations that are super informative and focus on the audience’s needs.
• Tools for creation include MS Powerpoint, Productivity Office, Adobe Express, Canva, and others.

How It Helps Your Business

Slideshares are a great way to present your business ideas and even repurpose your existing content to reach a specific niche audience and push them further in your sales funnel.

Best Platforms: SlideShare, LinkedIn, etc.

13. Illustration

Illustrations such as diagrams, charts, graphs, and others are humorous as well as educational content.

Best Practices

• Use illustrations to simplify the complex data to give your audiences a visual context.
• Use illustrations like diagrams, charts, & graphs to show relations between certain events or people.
• Tools for creation include Google Drawing, draw.io, Canva, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Illustration can help give users visual clarity, communicate instantly, and improve the effectiveness to convey a message.

Best Platforms: Blogs/Articles, LinkedIn Posts, Medium.com

14. Visual Instructions

Visual instructions minimize the language barriers by providing a clear step-by-step outline of a procedure/process. Instead of written content, instructions are presented visually for higher engagement.

Best Practices

• Sequentially present the process with graphical imitations for easy understanding
• Keep steps short & use the same perspective and angle throughout the instructions
• Tools for creation include Canva, Adobe Express, PicMonkey, & others.

How It Helps Your Business

Visual instruction can speed up the learning curve of buyers and reduce product returns for your business.

Best Platforms: Product Pages, Product listing platforms

15. Comics/Cartoons

Cartoons and comics are a way to mirror feelings about certain products, business trends, and others. When content is tailored to your audience, they can easily connect and resonate with them.

Best Practices

• Narrate a story through comic cartoon illustrations.
• Use minimal texts and only where necessary.
• Form a meaning out of the combination of two or more fragmented images.
• Tools for creation include Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Toonly, and others

How It Helps Your Business

As a business owner or marketer, you can use comics and cartoons to reach and hold audiences’ attention through the comic’s artistry.

Best Platforms: Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook

Interactive Content Types

16. Competitions

Many of your users want to enter contests, giveaways, and quizzes simply because they like to win. So, hosting such competitions gets more engagement if rewards are high enough.

Best Practices

• Create intriguing and interesting content that draws customers to participate in your competitions.
• Personalize the contest content for higher participation.
• Tools for contest giveaway creation include Sweep Widget, Outgrow, Wishpond, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Competitions build hype and buzz around your products and help increase brand awareness even among people who are not familiar with you.

Best Platforms Promotion: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

17. Polls/Surveys

Most social platforms today provide a poll or survey feature to quickly get the opinions of users and followers. Further, for more detailed surveys, you can use expert tools to collect data and put them to good use in blog posts.

Best Practices

• Define the survey format and delivery method.
• Keep questions short and provide multiple options to choose an answer from.
• Limit asking multiple things in one question.
• Tools for creation include SurveyMonkey, Paperform, Qualtrics, SurveyLegend, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Survey and poll insights can help you make informed decisions and also create a range of valuable content for your future blogs.

Best Platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

18. Digital Flipbooks

Digital flipbooks are interactive online publications that look and feel exactly the same as printed page-turning publications such as books, magazines, brochures, and others.

(Source)

Best Practices

• Ensure flipbooks are more on the graphical side than the textual one.
• Embed YouTube videos, lead capture forms, etc. to create interactive digital flipbooks.
• Tools for creation include Paperturn.com, Yumpu, FlipHTML, and others

How It Helps Your Business

Through digital flipbooks, you can showcase your business portfolio and product catalog, send invitations, create brochures, and do other things.

Best Platforms: Website, Email Campaigns, etc.

19. Interactive Timelines

Interactive timelines help you display the chronological events, milestones, and procedures of using your products/services in a visual way.

Best Practices

• Convey a story that users may relate to.
• Showcase company history, roadmap ahead, or a product life cycle.
• Tools for creation include TimeToast, TimeGraphics, Preceden, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Interactive timelines can play a big role for your business in aspects such as project management or business projection.

Best Platforms: Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn

20. Data Visualizations

Data visualization takes the plain and boring data to a notch above through visual format. Visualizing the data is a compelling way to provide unique insights into your products/services. Here’s an example from Ahrefs:

Best Practices

• Use appropriate formats such as bar charts, pie charts, tables, Maps, etc.
• Integrate the right amount of stats, and data for compelling visuals.
• Tools for creation include Flourish, Datawrapper, Infogram, etc.

How It Helps Your Business

Through powerful data visualization, you can convey a strong story that supports your marketing goals and other content marketing efforts.

Best Platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Engaging Content Types

21. Q & A

Q & A sessions are one of the engaging content forms where customers get to ask questions they want answers for.

Best Practices

• Ask your audience what problems and queries they want you to cover.
• Be honest when giving opinions or advice on solving or answering questions.

How It Helps Your Business

Conducting regular Q & A sessions on the community platform will help you nurture your audience & keep in touch with them to establish your business as an authority figure.

Best Platforms: Quora, Twitter, Reddit

22. Webinars

Webinars are class apart content types that customers can watch & attend on a specific date and time. You can discuss the current trends and the future of your industry with experts & leaders.

Best Practices

• Focus on explaining the specific pain points your target audience has.
• Record your webinars & post short clips of them on social platforms to reach a wider market.
• Use tools like Riverside, Livestorm, Demio, Zoom, WebinarNinja, etc. for hosting webinars.

How It Helps Your Business

Webinars can help you connect with other industry professionals. You can use them as lead magnets to attract more customers and even raise brand awareness.

Best Platform: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

23. Workshops

In workshops, you can go a little deeper into explaining all the ins and outs of your products/services. They are the best bet if you want to teach certain skills or take online classes.

Best Practices

• Have in-depth knowledge about the skills or topic that you are going to cover.
• Prepare assignments to provide high-learning efficiency.
• Use tools like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, Teams, and others to schedule online workshops.

How It Helps Your Business

Through workshops, you can introduce new skills & ideas and inspire other participants to explore your products/services by illustrating actual processes.

Best Platform: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

Video Content Types

24. Vlogs

Vlogs or video blogs are one of the rising popular video content types to attract new customers to your brand. Vlogs help you establish your brand on content channels like YouTube.

Best Practices

• Keep them short yet pack meaningful and valuable content.
• Share interesting stories or repurpose your blog content and turn them into videos.
• Use the best video and audio recording gear for high video/audio quality.

How It Helps Your Business

Vlogs help give your brand exposure as users prefer to watch videos than read text content. Also, these types of content formats are easy to go viral.

Best Platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Dailymotion

25. Interviews

Interview known leaders or experts in your niche and have them talk about various topics such as industry trends and current issues along with some fun conversation.

Best Practices

• Introduce the guest to build excitement and anticipation.
• Keep the conversation formal and intriguing until the conclusion.
• Use best recording gears or record virtual interviews through Zoom or other tools.

How It Helps Your Business

Interviewing industry experts can help you garner not only respect but a huge amount of traffic too for your business.

Best Platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Instagram

26. Product Demos/Tutorials

Product demos and tutorials are among the most effective ways to teach users what your products can do.

Best Practices

• Keep your demos and tutorials in a story format.
• Highlight the features and benefits more often along with how to use your products.
• You can use tools such as Wondershare DemoCreator, Demo Builder, and others.

How It Helps Your Business

A stunning demonstration of your product in action can help get you more conversions and increase return-on-investment for your business.

Best Platforms: YouTube, Blog Pages, Product Pages

27. Reviews

Video reviews of your products from your loyal customers can work excellently to motivate new users to take the next step in your sales funnel.

Best Practices

• Send a video review request to your customers with topics to cover.
• Ask them to review your product highlighting what aspects did they find useful & what they’d like you to improve.
• Post them on social media, product, or landing pages for higher conversion.

How It Helps Your Business

If utilized correctly, video reviews tend to be more personal and engaging to bring up your conversion rate.

Best Platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, product pages

28. Animations

Animated videos can help break barriers of marketing typical content types and reach new market segments previously unexplored.

Best Practices

• Develop an animated video production & marketing strategy.
• Build a narrative that users are likely to resonate with and take the next step.
• Use tools such as Toonly, Doodly, Vyond, etc. for awesome animated videos.

How It Helps Your Business

Animated videos can help create more engagement for your brand and gain more social recognition that ultimately impacts your lead and conversion rate.

Best Platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram

29. Live Streams

Live streaming is another way to capture users’ attention. It provides opportunities to those who couldn’t physically be present at your events.

Best Practices

• Live stream your product launches, conferences, and other events.
• Test everything before going live and keep your stream to the point.
• Try to engage with your audience during live streams.

How It Helps Your Business

Live streaming your business events enables consumers who wouldn’t otherwise participate. It’s a cost-effective way to attract a new set of eyes to your business.

Best Platform: YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, and LinkedIn Live

30. Interactive 360 Videos

Interactive 360-degree videos are a form of virtual reality that can provide viewers with an immersive product experience.

Best Practices

• Select only the necessary products as all products are not suitable for 360 videos.
• Create 360 content that allows users to experience your products/services.
• Get the right recording gear for shooting 360 videos based on your budget and comfort.

How It Helps Your Business

360 Videos are a gateway to a new form of content marketing. They improve consumer engagement and loyalty to your business.

Best Platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Product Listing Pages

31. “A Day In The Life” Videos

Such types of videos walk users through a typical day in the life of someone like a product creator, CEO, celebrity, etc. 

Best Practices

• Create A Day In The Life videos keeping buyers’ journey in the mind.
• Videos must have a relatable protagonist that takes users through a great story.
• And at the end, tie it to the product or service.

How It Helps Your Business

“A Day In The Life” videos create authenticity and credibility for the main character. It offers anecdotal experiences about product quality that leads to more purchases.

Best Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook

Audio Content Types

32. Podcast

Currently, in trend, Podcasting is a great form of content marketing that can be developed into a full show to gain popularity over time.

Best Practices

• Think about ideas you can speak at length and audiences will listen.
• Interview industry experts, give your opinions or advice on something and discuss the topic at hand.
• Use the best audio recording gears & host them using Buzzsprout, Redcircle, or other services.

How It Helps Your Business

Podcasting is seen as an alternative to video that helps you explore audio listening audience segments and engage or even convert them.

Best Platforms: Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Spotify Greenroom

33. Audio Blog Posts

Audio blog posts are typical blog posts but with an audio recording of the same content or the content that supports the blog post.

Best Practices

• Write blogs in a conversational tone so that you can repurpose them in audio blogs.
• Elaborate and describe the topic in length to a satisfactory level.
• Use tools like Play, Blogcast, Beyond Words, etc. to convert your blogs into audio posts.

How It Helps Your Business

Converting text-based blogs into audio posts helps increase brand exposure and engagement levels for your business.

Best Platforms: Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Spotify Greenrooms

Printable Content Types

34. Magazines

Even though online magazines are gaining popularity, printed magazines are still a great way to connect with audiences who want to disconnect from the tech.

Best Practices

• Pay attention to your printing colors, images used, and fonts to appeal to readers.
• Spend time perfecting the design of your magazine covers for aesthetically pleasing magazines.
• You can go for a printing service provider that fits your brand identity.

How It Helps Your Business

Printed magazines with adequate brand messaging can work wonders for your business and accelerate growth and visibility.

35. Other Print Collaterals

Print collaterals such as Flyers, Leaflets, Brochures, and business cards help your customer get the latest information about your business.

Best Practices

• Include essential product/service information along with how readers can reach out to you.
• Use premium quality material for visually stunning print collaterals.
• You can go for a printing service provider that fits your brand identity.

How It Helps Your Business

Print collaterals such as flyers, brochures, and business cards act as a promotional tool that helps raise brand awareness and grab users’ attention.

Gated Content Types

36. eBooks

Instead of writing in-depth blog guides, you can opt for creating ebooks. They can also come in handy if you want to publish original research or content.

Best Practices

• Offer high-value content which is hard to find elsewhere.
• Use an ebook when you want to offer a detailed overview of the subject to an audience with no time constraints.
• Use tools like MS Word/Google Docs, Apple Pages, etc. to write ebooks and Canva, Visme, and others for design.

How It Helps Your Business

eBooks are an excellent lead generation tool and can be used as gated content to offer to premium subscribers or as a free download or can be listed on Amazon’s self-publishing marketplace.

Best Platforms: Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo

37. Downloadable Content

Content types such as Worksheets, Checklists, Research reports, Content Kits, Templates, and others help businesses get their content marketing off ground.

Best Practices

• Ensure that the content is original & offers tangible value to readers.
• Pack as much actionable insights & research in the step-by-step format as possible to help your audience.
• Use tools such as MS Excel, Spreadsheet, Powerpoint, and others as per content suitability.

How It Helps Your Business

Such type of gated content improves the credibility and trustworthiness of your brand in the eyes of readers, leading to more engagement and conversion.

Best Platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, Blog Post, Press Release

38. Email Newsletters

Email newsletters are one of the best and most prevalent content types that helps you nurture your ideal customers.

Best Practices

• Share the latest and buzzworthy content with your email subscribers.
• Personalize the email newsletters based on the sales funnel customers are in.
• Use tools like Mailchimp, SendInBlue, Zoho Campaigns, etc. to create your own email newsletters.

How It Helps Your Business

If executed correctly, email newsletters can help you gain the highest returns and revenue out of all the content marketing types.

39. Whitepapers

Whitepapers are a long-form content type that incorporates unique data and findings to prove the business intelligence and expertise.

Best Practices

• Create a white paper to offer a specific opinion on the subject or when launching a new product.
• Try to keep it as educational and less promotional as possible with evidence & statistics.
• Use tools like MS Word/Google Docs, Apple Pages, etc. to write whitepapers and Canva, Visme, and others for design.

How It Helps Your Business

Well researched and insightful whitepapers help establish authoritativeness and direct more eyes to your business.

Best Platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, Blog Post, Press Release

Paid Content Types

40. Sponsored Content

Sponsored content includes native advertising where you pay a publication to place a content piece on their website that looks exactly like native content.

Best Practices

• Keep the content relevant to the paid website’s audience’s needs.
• Limit using over promotional content when writing native ad sponsored content.
• Use tools like MS Word/Google Docs, Grammarly, Plagiarism checker, CMS, etc. for the creation of sponsored content.

How It Helps Your Business

Since native ads look almost identical to the publishing website’s content, they can help generate additional traffic from the source for your business.

Best Platforms: Try to find relevant and authoritative websites to pitch your sponsored content.

41. Advertising

Paid advertising such as social ads, PPC, retargeting ads, and others puts your content on top when people search or use social platforms.

Best Practices

• Try to incorporate search terms that people use when searching online.
• Build ideal user personas to target through social media ads.
• Various writing tools along with multimedia creation tools can help you create your specific ad content.

How It Helps Your Business

Advertisements not only help increase traffic but they can instantly help improve your revenue generation and returns for your business effectively.

Best Platforms: Facebook ads, Instagram Ads, Google Ads, Twitter Ads

Conclusion

Well, that was a massive list. Right? Take a moment if you have to.

These content types will help fill your content marketing calendar for at least the next 3 to 6 months or more. Remember that it’s necessary to make your content stand out from the rest if you want to succeed at your game.

We have presented plenty of options for you to choose from, and the more content types you choose the more powerful your marketing becomes.

That said, here’s an infographic to sum up all the content types we discussed till now. Save or bookmark it to easily refer it back in the future whenever you decide to incorporate different content types in your content marketing.

If that’s overwhelming, you can always take help from a marketing agency like Ronkot.

Get in touch with us to discuss your content marketing needs and get a cup of coffee from us. Cheers!