3 Kinds of Content that help you plan your content marketing strategy

2m to read / 

Content marketing is still quite the favorite marketing tool for most brands – so here are three types of content that you should be planning for. These content buckets really cover the kinds of content that you need to create and publish regularly to stay on top of the content game.

1/ Bursts or Topical content

Topical content is planned and created in a timely manner and built around events. It is usually short form content, and it has a short shelf life. It is very much the here and now content that attracts immediate attention. These 'bursts' generate quick traffic – and often lead to your longer form 'stock' or 'evergreen' content.

Topical content consist of every day posts, tweets, quick reminders, news caps, pointers to happenings around your brand or just something that your target audience is interested in. Tweets that lead to an article on your blog or web page are typical 'burst' content. The actual article is the 'evergreen' content.

2/ Evergreen or Stock content

Your brand's stock content – which is meant to have longer shelf life (thus 'Evergreen') is what your brand or product or your proposition is really all about. This kind of content provides real value to the consumer or customer. This is usually what your audience is after when they go and search for a solution. These can be how to articles, best practices, examples of product use, learnings, fixes, hacks etc.

Stock or evergreen content is meant to stay and be of continuing value. It doesn't have a sell by date – there's no real expiry. These always should provide some value which your audience is looking for and will appreciate. This is what makes your overall content sticky.

3/ Curated or aggregated content

This is a bucket for content that provides value to your audience – but you don't create. You aggregate and collect useful content, and curate and publish. Here your brand plays an useful role as a resource. When you regularly create good, useful curated content, your brand is recognized as a 'go-to' destination for information, references, learnings and knowledge. Curating isn't easy, it requires time spent on knowing what your audience is looking for, and then providing a collection of content that will resolve their needs.

Overall, you'll need to figure over time, what your typical target audience is really after, so knowing that ahead of time, as you plan your content calendar is very useful. Yes, you need to be flexible. You should not have a mathematical formula for the three content types, but instead go with a plan to deliver content that is balanced, useful and valuable.

Please share this with your friends and colleagues, and please comment below if you have something to add.

Now read these related posts:

• Content Marketing Strategy: What kind of content should you create?

• 6 Simple Steps to Win with Content Marketing

• Winning Content Strategy: Always share something valuable and useful