Content Creation: The Ideal Mix
Updated: Aug 27, 2019
If you want to keep captivating your target group, then it is important to make a mix of different types of content. Which ingredients your content creation mix contains depends on the goals you have.
A workable method to make the right content mix is to determine how much you use of the four types of content that are available:
1. Informative content
2. Service-oriented content
3. Inspiring content
4. Entertaining content
By determining how much you use of these four types of content, you create content that produces the desired result. To this end I indicate per type first what it means so that you can see if you already use this type. Then we go into the composition of the ideal mix.
1. Informative content
The term is self-explanatory, with informative content you provide people with certain information. Here you can think of everything, for example:
Knowledge and insights from your profession
Information about the industry in which you operate
Facts and figures, as current as possible
Explanation why and how something works (or does not work)
Knowledge with which your intended customer can get started
Information about situations before and after the purchase
Explaining benefits for the buyer, user
Informative content is predominantly rational in nature and can quickly appear rather dry. It is therefore not recommended to limit yourself to informative content in content creation. More about that later.
2. Service-oriented content
With service-oriented content you increase the service level of your company and you are helpful to people. You can think of:
Using demonstrations
Offering manuals as a download (PDF, video or audio)
Opportunity to ask questions by e-mail, telephone or social media
Using tips to get more out of your product or service
Usage tips and experiences from other customers
Referring to useful tools that people can use
Service-oriented content is also fairly rational. If you do it well, it will also increase the satisfaction with your customers and give you a positive, emotional charge. And the way you present it can also evoke positive emotions, even if the content of your message is not at all positive. Just think of the online team of the NS that can bring delays and other discomfort with a lot of humour. But the core of this content is still rational.
3. Inspiring content
With inspiring content you focus more on the feeling of your intended customer. You try to challenge or evoke certain feelings. For example with:
Views of a nicer or better (work) life
Unexpected (funny) results or uses
Funny, positive or moving reviews from customers
Personal stories from customers and non-customers
The personal story of you as an entrepreneur and your company
Personal stories from your company (your employees & situations)
People love stories and inspiring content makes full use of this. The form in which you offer something can also contribute to the inspiring nature of your content. This way you can also give extra content to the more rational content.
4. Entertaining content
Entertaining content does nothing but that: entertain. It is mainly emotional in nature, although there may sometimes be a practical, more rational undertone or component.
But in fact it is content that makes people laugh or move them to tears. This content touches people in heart, soul or belly and is very suitable for making a connection with your intended customer.
Entertaining content can also contribute to your name recognition, because this form of content is shared a lot, which increases your reach enormously.
With entertaining content, it is important to note that there is a connection between the content and your company. Movies with babies, children and cats have a high touchability factor, but if they have nothing to do with your business, this content will also mean nothing for your company.
Often there are cross-pollinations between the four types of content
For example, inspirational content may overlap with informative and service-oriented content. By showing extra possibilities and benefits of a product or service (service-
oriented content) you can offer people a perspective on a more enjoyable life or more pleasant work and that is certainly inspiring.
Sharing knowledge can be packaged in an entertaining form in which people barely realize that they also learn something. It is a short turn to make a strict division between the 4 types of content, but using the 4 content types as a guideline for yourself creates a successful and varied content mix.
Content creation: combine the 4 types of content
With content creation it is important to put together your own mix of different types of content. There is not an unambiguous recipe for this because every company, every target group is different and the ideal mix is partly determined by the objective you have in mind:
Do you want more traffic to your site?
Then you need good findable content that others want to share for you. Choose the type of content that your audience would like to share.
Do you want to show your expert status?
Then your focus is probably on sharing knowledge and thus on informative content. That works, but also add (emotional) content that people allow you to go to, so that they really want to accept the knowledge you share.
Do you want to generate leads?
Then you need content that is special and valuable enough that people want to give their data price. The nature and packaging of that content and the balance between emotional and rational content depends on the nature of your business. People expect different content and a different tone from a coffee specialist than from a supplier in
business software.
Do you want to set up a sales funnel?
Start with leads generating content, but also add service-oriented content that facilitates the purchase.
Creating an ideal content mix requires a strategy for customization and a period in which you test the mix and adjust it where necessary.