Four Types of Content Every Business Needs

Is your content creation goal-driven or aimless? The content your business creates should be driven by what you want to achieve with your audience.

Content is used in a variety of ways depending on its purpose. It can inform people of new information, attempt to sell a product or service, attract people to read your articles or follow your social media, give your brand a personal feel, and more. Businesses can achieve quite a lot through content creation, but the question is: does your business know what it’s trying to achieve with its content?

Let’s go over the four types of content every business needs and the purpose of each.

Content to Entertain

Creating entertaining content is a great opportunity to connect with your audience in a basic human-to-human level. What is meant by “entertaining”? Something that entertains, or interests, your audience will appeal to their emotions and personality. For example, this content could use humor, nostalgia, or interactivity to spark amusement and engagement. This type of content is highly shareable and especially suited to get in touch with people who haven’t heard of your brand, products, or services.

Content to entertain helps break the ice, so to speak. It casually introduces your brand to your target audience and sparks brand awareness without pushing “salesy” copy. Establishing this “just like me” aspect of your business is important to building an initial connection and trust with your audience. Entertaining content could include:

• Quizzes or polls
• Competitions or contests
• Sharing viral content
• Games
• Branded videos

Content to Educate

A majority of content marketing focuses on audience education and general helpfulness. It focuses less on entertaining your audience and more on helping your audience solve their challenges. Educational content is poised at the beginning of your sales funnel. It should be less about plugging your products or services and more about helping your audience identify a problem or a need and offering potential solutions.

What happens when someone becomes aware they have a problem or a need? They research for a solution. If your business wants to be seen as a potential solution or an authoritative source, then you need educational content to guide their research process. Educational content could include:

• Guides & blogs
• News articles
• Resources & tools
• Infographics
• Ebooks
• Whitepapers
• Webinars

Content to Inspire

Like entertaining content, inspiring content similarly taps into your audience’s emotional response. Inspiring content aims to deeply resonate with your audience. This could be stories of success, triumph, self-improvement, and more uplifting themes. Content that inspires often takes the form of:

• Case studies
• Customer testimonials & endorsements
• Reviews & ratings
• Personal stories
• Video content

Content to Convert

Finally, content to convert is meant to nudge your audience to action, whether that is signing up for a newsletter or buying a product. Content to convert is sales focused. It is the last push your potential customers need to be convinced to try your brand, which includes answering final questions and addressing concerns. This content category uses facts, figures, and other rationale to promote your offerings. Content types focused on converting include:

• Product demos
• Product landing pages
• Case studies & testimonials
• FAQs page
• Events & webinars

Every business’s content strategy employs all four of these content types. What kinds of content does your business need more of? Contact Sun Sign Designs to discuss your content strategy and content creation today.

Want to read more about content creation? Read Creating Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey or Resources That Optimize Your Website to the Buyer’s Journey next!