Variety is the spice of the life and you can get bored if you do, wear, or eat the same things 365 days a year. The same is true of your content marketing. If you’re posting blog posts and only blog posts all year around and those blog posts follow the same format and focus on the same topics, your audience is going to get bored. Having a varied content marketing mix lets you change things up when it comes to format. It can also mean changing the voice or tone based on the type of content and audience at whom it’s directed.
What Goes Into a Content Marketing Mix
As the Content Marketing Institute points out, a content marketing mix can focus on the way your content is presented to the audience such as in the form of videos, blog posts, or graphics.
It can also focus on the goal of the content. For example, some of your content pieces can be purely for entertainment. Meanwhile some can be educational, and some can be designed to provoke discussion or thought.
Depending on the brand and its overall goals and tone, a content marketing mix might contain forms such as:
- Blog posts
- Written how-to’s or tutorials
- Video how-to’s
- Infographics
- Ebooks
- White papers
- Podcasts
- Photo essays or slideshows
- In-person demonstrations or seminars
Many forms of content can have a range of purposes. Others primarily have a single goal in mind. A blog post can be purely entertaining or it can be informational or educational. If a person walks away from a how-to video or article feeling entertained but not educated, then there was likely something wrong with the how-to.
Another thing to consider when it comes to a content marketing mix is the voice or tone of your brand’s content. You want some content to be “expert” content, meaning it comes from someone in a position of authority who really knows his or her stuff. But it’s also worthwhile to have content created by users or audience members. According to Nielsen, people put the most trust in the opinions of family and friends. Having your audience’s “friends” speak to them from time to time isn’t a bad idea.
How to Mix It Up When it Comes to Content Marketing
You can put together your content marketing mix using a variety of tactics. For example, you can focus on the form of the content you create, deciding to produce X percent blog posts, X percent infographics, X percent video, and so on. But focusing purely on the form of your content mix doesn’t really go far enough. You need to know why it’s better to use an infographic in some cases or why a video might be the more effective option in others.
To do that, you need to focus on your content marketing goals and your typical audience. You also want to pay attention to where your audience is in their buying journey.
According to Pardot, social media posts and infographics are usually best used when you’re getting to know an audience or when they don’t know much about you. Once someone has turned into a lead, they are likely to be more into the details-heavy content, such as a white paper, ebook, or case study. They want the information that will help them decide whether to commit to your brand or move on to something else.
Why Mix It Up When it Comes to Content Marketing
What’s the value in creating a content marketing mix? For one thing, it lets you reach more people at different phases of the buyer’s journey.
For another, it can help give you an idea of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to content marketing. Some brands assume content marketing means blogging. When their blog doesn’t take off or provide the type of results they anticipated, they decide to throw in the towel.
That’s a bit like taking a tiny bite of a meal at a restaurant and deciding all the cuisine is no good. Blogging might not work for your brand, but videos or infographics might. It’s also possible that the tone of your blog posts was all wrong. When you’ve got a lot of ingredients in content marketing stew, you can figure out what’s adding value and what’s detracting from it. Distinction allows you to adjust accordingly for the future.
Steps to an Effective Content Marketing Mix
Set a goal for your content marketing
First, think of your content marketing goals. What do you want your brand’s content marketing to achieve overall? Are you looking to increase awareness of your company? Do you want to get new customers, encourage existing customers to come back, or something else?
Set a goal for your content
Once you know what your overall goal is, think of a goal for each piece of content. Do you want to be entertaining? Do you want to inform or spark discussion? Knowing the goal of content will help you choose the appropriate form and tone. You can have several goals at this stage. It can be helpful to rank each goal. Would you mostly want to entertain or be educational?
Create an editorial calendar
Once you know what you want your content to do, create a calendar that will help you achieve that goal. You might decide to publish one funny or entertaining video a week and four informational how-tos weekly. If you want to spark debate or discussion, you might also publish an op-ed every week or bi-weekly.
Figure out who will create the content
Are you going to use expert content only or do you want some pieces created by amateurs or users? If you’re going to have experts create the content, will they be people at your company or will you outsource content creation to freelancers?
Evaluate results
Once you’ve got a mix of content published, take a step back and examine how it’s performing. Is one form of content more popular than the rest? Do more people read the user-generated content compared to the expert content? Are the traffic sources different depending on the type of content you’re publishing?
You can get away with publishing the same-old, same-old type of content day in and day out. Once you mix it up and try different forms, tones, and voices, you’re likely to find your content marketing really comes alive and is better able to help you reach your goals.
