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How to grow your business with content marketing that isn't blog posts

Content marketing is a go-to strategy for every entrepreneur when it comes to user acquisition. We can all understand why is that - it's free, it's engaging for the customers and it can be really fun to make.

We recently got our first paying customers and we did it only with content marketing.

The most common content marketing strategy is to create engaging blog posts, and that works - it really does BUT there have to be other ways of doing content marketing, right?

Let's dive deeper together, and explore some of the other options for content marketing.

If you want to see more examples than i provide in this blog post, i created a short PDF with more of those - you can download it here for FREE.

Video

Video

Okay, this is a low hanging fruit so i want to get it out of the way first. Creating good videos can be a really great way of attracting an audience around yourself. Just take a look at your favorite Youtubers, if they released a product you would definitely check it out.

Creating videos doesn't necessarily mean growing a Youtube channel, although i think this might be a great choice. You can publish these videos on social networks, for example, you can create content specifically for LinkedIn or Instagram - this way you might avoid some competition but the potential might not be as good as on Youtube.

Youtube is the second search engine, so right after Google people look for the answers to their troubles on Youtube - so if you can answer them you will definitely earn their attention.

Creating video content is a great channel if the price of your product is a bit higher, and if the buyer needs some re-assuring before committing and buying your product. With video content, you are building a reputation and proving that you actually know a thing or two on the topic your product is tied to.

You don't necessarily need to ALWAYS record educational content, it can simply be fun sometimes and that's fine too. A mix of educational and fun is probably the best one, take for example "Startup Forensics" from SlideBean - it's really fun to watch and there is a lot to learn in those videos.

Here are a few good examples of companies publishing great video content:

HubSpot
Ahrefs
Slidebean

Downloadable content

Content

These can be really useful, if you do them correctly you can even charge for them but the usual way to do these is a free piece of content while the user leaves their e-mail.

Usually, these come in the form of a guide, it can be an e-book, a spreadsheet of some sort, an ULTIMATE HACKS OF LIFE pdf or something of that sort.

If you think you can help your users solve a certain problem that they have you should definitely create a guide for that. These should be detailed, don't rush these because the viewers will feel disappointed and betrayed - if they leave their data they expect a certain level of quality.

Apart from guides, you can also create templates, - in case of Plainly, i could create a few After Effects templates for a promo video and upload them as downloadable content. I would also include a short brief on how to use it, and maybe even a few examples.

You should look into your product and see what's the tiniest bit you can offer for free, or if not straight out of your product then something that complements it so you still engage the right kind of audience. In the case of Plainly i wouldn't be offering e-mail templates, for example, that just wouldn't make sense.

Here are a few great examples of these:

Hubspot - Webinar Planning Kit
Backlinko - Link Building for Seo
Wyzowl - Video Marketing statistics

Podcasts

podcasts

These have been getting more and more popular over the past year - it seems like everyone is hosting a podcast now but it's for a good reason. These can be amazing - i listen to them every day on my commute to and back from work, i have them on pretty much anytime i go out.

Podcasts are very similar to video content in terms of format - they are often educational, fun, or both. Some companies even decide to record a video podcast, take out the audio, and publish it separately - that gives you two separate pieces of content without doing double the work.

Similar to video content these can be great to build relevance in the community and to set yourself as an expert on a certain topic who guess what - has a product that helps them solve a problem related to that topic.

A great thing about podcasts is that you don't even need to be the one who talks, you can bring in people who are knowledgeable and ask them questions - this is also a great way to learn about a topic that you wanted to learn more about.

Here are a few good podcast examples:

IndieHackers
IT Visionaries - SalesForce
Intel Chip Chat

Mini Products

mini products

Aaaaaaand this is by far my favorite type of content marketing. Now, i am not completely sure if i can call this content marketing but i'll risk it.

Creating mini products can be a great way to attract users, these can solve a real problem that occurs often or they can be funny, like Pigeon Mail by Veed. These are almost always free but require e-mail or in some cases to create a free account.

I don't think enough people think about this, it might be that it's because some of these take time to make but if made properly they can be a huge acquisition channel. These mini products can be really simple, like a calculator, a spreadsheet generator or something along those lines.

The main point that you should think about when making these is that it provides enough value that you tell everybody about it. For example, i recently discovered about HubSpot E-Mail signature generator and was blown away - so naturally, i told everybody about it and HubSpot now has probably 10 more e-mails on their mailing list.

Here are a few good examples of mini products:

Veed Webcam Recorder
Hubspot Email Signature Generator

Recap

If you want to see more of the examples, download the free PDF with more of those! You can do it here.

A lot of us think that you should be an expert in order to create content, and that's not true. There is always somebody who is a step after you and who you can help. One more thing is that you will actually learn while you create content, as you do your research you will naturally pick up more and more things about a topic.

I love content marketing, it allows me to express my creativity and it's waaaaaay more fun that doing sales but creating blogs can be a bit boring sometimes, that's why i will try to create more and more of these alternative types of content - they separate you from the masses and they are often more fun to make.

This was shared as a part of our blog (plainly.shop/blog) but i thought it might be helpful to my fellow IndieHackers so i adapted and upload it also here. While we are on the topic of Plainly - if you want to create stunning promo videos for your product in a matter of minutes - check out Plainly and generate a video for free.

Thanks for reading!

  1. 2

    100%. Podcasts are huge right now. Thanks for sharing!

    1. 1

      Yeah, and they can be really good to! Glad you found the post useful Maeva.

  2. 2

    Great post! Informative and helpful.

  3. 2

    Any recommendations on how to best use video? I have a personal webpage and a youtube channel. But haven't decided how to leverage my youtube channel on my webpage

    1. 1

      Hey Marty, video is the best way to prove your relevance in the industry.

      For example, when i was doing full-time freelance motion design i was doing one video a week talking about animation and things related to it. These were edited, 3-6 minute videos with graphics and stuff and they were posted only on LinkedIn, simply because there is no competition there.

      It resulted in me being "the animation guy" for some people and when they needed that they either came to me with projects or with questions.

      Now you should try and see how can you apply to your business. You need to build relevance over time proving that you know a thing or two about a topic relevant to your product and then people will start coming to you. You can do this by creating engaging videos.

      Hope this helped, i am here if you need any more help!

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