With ChatGPT’s invasion of the content realm and the audience’s decreasing attention span, businesses must look beyond blogging and explore different content formats for more engagement, traffic, and lead generation.
In other words, gone are the days when you put all the eggs in the blogging basket.
Here, we spotlight seven different baskets (read: content formats) beyond blogging that businesses should focus on in the new calendar year.
1. Infographics
You can turn your popular blog into an infographic or craft one from scratch. Repurposing your blog into an infographic helps people remember most of your content. Simply put, while reading a blog post, readers can retain just 3% of your content, while in infographics, people can retain 65%.
According to data scientists @ Contently:
- Infographics have a wider reach than blog posts
- Infographics have a better, i.e., 73% completion rate over a blog post with 66%.
- The cost to reach one reader for an infographic was $0.04, while for a blog, it’s $1.77
2. Short-form Videos
With audiences’ attention spans dropping drastically, content that captures user attention quickly will be trending. Short-form videos are perfect for generating quick, bite-sized content. Such videos are easy to consume, enjoy, and share. TikTok users consider videos longer than a minute stressful.
According to a Hubspot report, 90% of marketers intend to maintain or increase their investment in short-form videos in the future. Not surprisingly, brands have shown active interest in short-form videos by creating reels and videos and live streaming them on social media.
3. Podcasts
If your brand is not sure of Podcasting, then it’s time to experiment. No doubt, a dime a dozen podcasts are available, and your podcasts may go unheard of. Sure, the risks are there, but since it’s a pocket-friendly marketing tactic and you don’t have much to lose, it’s better to experiment and see whether or not it works for you, considering there are about 546.7 million podcast listeners worldwide, a 7.85% increase y-o-y. By 2027, the number of podcast listeners will touch 651.7 million. So, it is better to add Podcasts to your marketing arsenal before it’s too late.
4. User-generated content
User-generated content earns the same level of trust as a personal recommendation. Nearly 49% of consumers trust reviews as they trust personal recommendations.
So, like it or not, use UGC content in all content marketing formats, as it helps build social proof and trust. For example, you can add it to your email campaigns, podcasts, webinars, presentations, and more. And, most importantly, add it to your homepage.
Also, if you don’t have many testimonials to display, ask your customers to leave reviews right after the purchase while it’s top of mind.
5. Interactive Content
Unlike traditional content, interactive content grabs the audience’s attention and engages them at a deeper level than passive consumption.
Interactive content includes quizzes, calculators, ebooks, videos, and animated infographics.
For instance, if you are running a mobile app development company, you can add a cost calculator for businesses to calculate the app cost based on the size, operational system, programming language, etc. The cost calculator will not only not drive traffic, but it can also increase leads on your page.
6. Webinars
Webinars are yet another form of interactive content where the audience interacts in real time. This is a powerful content format for attracting leads and displaying your expertise. Through webinars, you can discuss business trends, answer the audience’s questions, and contact potential clients.
Keep your webinars short—less than 60 minutes to ensure they remain effective. Provide actionable content and ask quality questions that keep the attendees thinking and commenting. Finally, leave enough room for Q&A, and don’t make it rushed, as the audience can sense hurry in your voice and perhaps avoid their active participation in your webinar.
7. Whitepapers
White papers are in-depth reports that address challenges faced by businesses. They offer solutions based on the company’s expertise, offering valuable data and expert opinions to support your decision-making. For example, a whitepaper title like “ How to reduce content marketing cost?” will share different content marketing ideas and tips to reduce the marketing cost. Such white papers establish your credibility as a thought leader in your business niche.
8. Ebooks
If you think ebooks are dead, think again. According to Netline’s report, ebooks are still popular, with a 34.5% increase in registration y-o-y. You can have ebooks for the Top-of-the-funnel-content, Middle-of-the-Funnel-Content, and Bottom-of-the-Funnel-Content, depending on the issues you want to address for your target audience.
For ebook ideas, you can look at existing blog content, webinars, customer interviews, and interviews with subject matter experts, who can give you ideas on several topics for different funnel stages.
Wrapping Up: Change is the name of the game in content development. Businesses need to keep experimenting and exploring new content formats so that they can survive and even thrive in these uncertain times when marketers are unsure how much AI will affect their lives. So spread yourself thin and roll up your sleeves to experiment with the seven different content formats discussed above.