Author: Franz Malten Buemann

At the end of every year, we like to read through some of the major reports on inbound marketing, content marketing, social media, and online behavior.
It’s amazing how fast things can change in just one or two years, and this year has a breadth of surprising statistics to reflect on.
This year, we’ve seen the continued importance of visual content emphasized by the changes that occurred across almost every major social network, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At the same time, videos continued to grow as powerful tools for brands looking to communicate more easily with their readers, and virtual reality (VR) is finding its place as a marketing tool in numerous businesses. 

To help you keep pace with these trends, let’s take a look at some visual content marketing statistics that demonstrate the impact visual content has on reach, engagement, and sales. You can jump to the following categories to see statistics related to that category:

General Visual Content Stats
Video Marketing Stats
Emerging Visual Marketing Stats
Infographic Stats
Social Media Stats

50 Visual Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know

General Visual Content Statistics

70% of companies invest in content marketing, which could include visual marketing strategies. (HubSpot)
The primary form of media used in content marketing is video. (HubSpot)
One fourth of marketers are investing in content marketing related to product promotions while just over 20% of investing in branded storytelling specifically. (HubSpot)

Source: HubSpot

Marketers spend the most time creating content for Facebook and their own company website, respectively. (HubSpot)

Design and visual content is the biggest challenge for 23.7% of content marketers. (Adam Enfroy)

49% of marketers rate visual marketing as Very Important to their marketing strategy, and 22% consider it Important, and 19% say that their strategy is nothing without visual content. (Venngage)
49% of marketers primarily use visual content on blogs and websites followed by social channels such as Facebook and Instagram. (Venngage)
When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (Brain Rules)
40% of marketers predict that between 51% and 80% of businesses will heavily rely on visual content into 2021. (Venngage)

Video Marketing Statistics

Mobile video consumption has increased 17 fold since 2012. (Cisco)
Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022. (Cisco)
70% of YouTube viewers watch videos for “help with a problem” they’re having in their hobby, studies, or job.  (Think With Google)
Globally, YouTube is consumers’ leading source of video content, at 83% (Facebook is second, at 67%).  (HubSpot)
Video streaming has increased significantly in the last several years. The live-streaming platform, Twitch, saw year-over-year growth of 14.3% in 2020 and boasted up to 1.645 billion watch hours per month. (eMarketer, The Verge)
In a 2018 HubSpot survey, 54% of consumers wanted to see more video content from a brand or business they support.  (HubSpot)

Source: HubSpot Research

Emerging Visual Marketing Trends

In 2019, 42.9 million people in the US used a VR product, and 68.7 million people used an AR once monthly. (eMarketer)
Spending on VR for business is expected to reach $9.2 billion by 2021, outpacing its use for leisure. (FinancesOnline)
A quarter of VR users believe it has a strong potential for brands and marketers. (GlobalWebIndex)
64% of consumers say VR has the most potential in gaming, while 52% recognize its potential in Film and TV. (GlobalWebIndex)
57% of marketers used live video in 2019. (Social Media Examiner)
Facebook lives generate 10 times more engagement than traditional videos. (BloggingX)
90% of all video plays on Twitter take place on mobile devices.  (HubSpot)
73% of videos are two minutes or less in length. (Vidyard)
85% of adults consume content on multiple devices at the same time.  (Think With Google)
According to the Lowes home improvement store, how-to videos that were shown in virtual reality (VR) had a 36% higher recall by viewers compared to people who only viewed the YouTube video.  (HubSpot)

Infographic Stats for Visual Content Marketers

Infographics are the fourth most used type of content marketing. (HubSpot)
Infographics have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers in the last four years — now at 67%. (Content Marketing Institute)
People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations. Take content marketer Ryan Robinson’s guide on how to start a blog as an example, where he teaches readers the process of building a blog through a combination of text, illustrations and infographics.  (Springer)

Source: NeoMam

Social Media Stats for Visual Content Marketers

In a general survey of over 250 consumers, 70% said they watched Facebook Stories more often than Instagram or Snapchat Stories. (HubSpot)
Over 500 million Instagram accounts use Stories every day, and 4 million businesses use Stories ads every month 58% of people surveyed say they have become more interested in a brand/product after seeing it in Stories.. (Instagram Business)
As of January 2021, the largest demographic of U.S. Instagram users were between 25 and 35, making up 33.1% percent of Instagram’s user base in the U.S. (Statista)
In 2019, Instagram accounted for approximately 31.8% of Facebook advertising revenues, up from 13.2% in 2016. (Statista)
Of the Instagram Story formats people prefer most, 35% say they engage with short narrative-styled Stories most often, followed by interactive Stories centered around quizzes and polls. (HubSpot)

Data Source: Lucid Software

According to Verizon Media, 69% of consumers watch online videos with the sound off. (Forbes)
In a poll of over 300 consumers, 56% said they “sometimes” watch social media Stories with the sound on, while 29% said they “always” do this. (HubSpot)
72% of teenagers use Instagram and nearly as many (69%) use Snapchat. Both have increased by more than 20% since 2015. (Pew Research)
Tweets with video get 10 times more engagement than those without. (Twitter Business)
In an analysis of over 1 million articles, BuzzSumo found that articles with an image once every 75-100 words received double the social media shares as articles with fewer images. (Buzzsumo)
Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images.  (Buzzsumo)

Source: Buzzsumo

There are more than 500 million Instagram users active every day. (Statista)
15% of all Facebook content is video – an increasing percentage. (Socialinsider)
The optimal video length for better engagement on Facebook is between 2 and 5 minutes. (Socialinsider)
Snapchat had 249 million daily active Snapchat users as of 2020. (Statista)
Advertisers can reach more than 169 million people on Pinterest. (Hootsuite)

Source: Hootsuite

Revenue from Pinterest shopping ads grew by 100% in 2019. (Pinterest)

Pins that show a product or service in action are 67% more likely to drive sales. (Pinterest Business)
YouTube reaches more 18+-year-olds during prime-time viewing hours than any cable TV network.  (Think With Google)
Half of YouTube subscribers between the ages of 18 and 34 would drop whatever they were doing to watch a new video from their favorite channel.  (Think With Google) 

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s well established that video has been one of the breakout trends in the marketing world for the past decade.
But how is that assertion standing up to the twists and turns of a global pandemic? 
The challenges — and changes — brought about by this most surreal year have affected us all. 
At Wyzowl, we’ve released an annual State of Video Marketing survey every year since 2015, charting usage, spend, channels and opinions among video marketers and consumers. 
We recently released our seventh State of Video Marketing report and, in light of the chaos of the past year, it’s perhaps our most fascinating set of findings yet.
Our research suggests:

Video remains a key priority for marketers with usage and spend both, overall, increasing slightly throughout 2020, and plans to increase again in the next 12 months.
The pandemic has impacted the video marketing landscape in contrasting ways — while video is generally seen as a more necessary tool by both marketers and consumers, many have seen budgets restricted and plans shelved.
The pandemic has overwhelmingly increased the amount of online video people watch.
Marketers feel more positive about the return on investment offered by video than ever, as it continues to strongly influence traffic, leads, sales, and audience understanding.
Consumers continue to use video as an integral part of their journey with brands, and are excited to see even more video content in the year ahead.

About the Survey
Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing Survey is an annual report, now in its seventh iteration. Every year, we ask a range of questions — many of them the same from year-to-year — to evaluate how the video marketing landscape is changing and growing. 
This time round, our survey was taken by a sample of 813 unique respondents (our highest ever sample) consisting of professional marketers and consumers.
The key findings …
86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, increasing slightly from 85% in 2020.
This is the high point in a general story of video usage growing which can be traced back to 2016 (the first time we asked this particular question in this way).

What’s more, 93% of marketers who use video say that it’s an important part of their marketing strategy — an increase from 92% in 2020, making this the highest percentage of any year since 2015.

Perhaps most strikingly, 87% of video marketers reported that video gives them a positive ROI — a world away from the lowly 33% who felt that way in 2015. This could well be attributed to greater understanding of how to use video, as well as how to track and quantify its impact. 
Most marketers feel that video is a great investment for lead generation. 84% of video marketers say video has been effective for generating leads, up 1% from 2020. 
Nearly eight out of ten marketers feel that video has a direct, positive impact on sales. 
94% of marketers agree that videos have helped increase user understanding of their product or service, with 43% reporting that video has reduced the number of product support calls their company has received. 
On measuring success, most marketers (63%) consider video engagement the top metric. Views or plays were a close second (58%). 
While only 29% of video marketers consider sales as a measurement of success, 78% report that video marketing has improved their company’s bottom line — meaning that videos will have a positive impact even if the focus remains on other metrics. 
Pandemic Impact
So what about the impact of the global pandemic? 
Let’s begin with the fact that 91% of marketers feel the pandemic has made video more important for brands.
A fairly considerable 40% of video marketers said their plans to create video were affected by the events of the last year — with around 74% of these saying they were more likely to use video, and 26% saying it was less likely. 
Around 60% of video marketers say they expect their budget to be affected for 2021, with around 70% of those people expecting a higher video marketing budget, and the other 30% expecting it to be lower.
68% of consumers say the pandemic has impacted the amount of video content they’ve watched online, with the overwhelming majority (96%) saying this has increased.
Looking forward …
All the signs suggest that usage and spend are on course to continue their growth in 2021.
More than 99% of current video marketers told us they’ll continue using video in 2021, and 96% plan to increase or maintain their spend (again, up slightly from 95% last year).

What’s more, from the people who told us they don’t currently use video, 69% told us they expect to start in 2021. (This is 10% higher than last year’s figure of 59%.)
The net result of this is that we can all expect to see more noise and competition for audience attention in the coming 12 months. 
In fact, 92% of marketers feel this way, with 51% agreeing that companies will make more videos because they’re easier than ever to create in-house. Nearly half say that competition will be tougher because the pandemic made video a necessary investment. 
Of course, while oversaturation is a challenge, it isn’t an insurmountable one. It simply raises the bar in terms of content quality. Your videos will need to be well-planned, and very well-executed.
The big opportunities …
You’d be forgiven for looking at these numbers and feeling that video might be on the verge of reaching saturation point. Most of the data around usage, spend, and consumer opinion are in the 80s and 90s — where they’ve held, consistently, for a number of years.
But the good news is that there still seems to be underutilized opportunities for marketers to explore around video.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube and Facebook are the most widely used platforms among video marketers — used by 89% and 70%, respectively. 
But some of the lesser-used video tactics also seem to be reaping real results for video marketers.
Explainer videos have seen huge success. An overwhelming majority of people (94%) report watching explainer videos to learn more about a product, with 84% being swayed to make a purchase. 
The product doesn’t have to be physical, either. Eight out of ten people say that they’ve been convinced to purchase an app or piece of software because of a video. 
Most notably, perhaps given global events and an increased desire for remote connection, 2020 seems to have been the year of the webinar.  In our 2020 survey, we found that just 46% of marketers used webinars in 2019 — but in our 2021 survey, this number rose significantly to 62%.

What’s more, an overwhelming 91% of webinar marketers say they’ve been a success, making it the most effective video marketing channel of all those listed. 
As a result, more than half of video marketers plan to continue using webinars for their company. 
To Sum Up
The events of 2020 did, and are doing, little to slow the rise of video.
Nearly nine out of ten people report wanting to see more videos from brands in 2021, making video an excellent tool for lead generation and brand awareness. 
In many ways, with people being isolated in their homes, and some teams working with less budgeting and resources than pre-pandemic, the demand (and consumption) of video has been accelerated.
Video looks set to continue its ten-year overnight success story into the coming decade. These stats paint a picture of a media type that’s almost universally popular among both marketers and their audiences, helping achieve a number of incredibly important goals.
You can check out the full report — with plenty more data points — and get a downloadable version by visiting Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing 2021 page.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2018 and has been updated to reflect the latest data.

It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.
You’ve spent weeks perfecting your resume and crafting the perfect cover letter, and you’re finally ready to submit your application for your dream job.
But when you scan the company’s careers page, panic starts pouring over you. The job you wanted to apply for is no longer open. It’s gone. And as you stare at your laptop screen in shock, you can’t help but think you’ll never be able to join your dream company.
What should you do in this situation? You can’t just put your job search on pause until the company opens the position again. How do you express interest in joining a company when the position you want isn’t currently available?
One of the most effective ways to grab a hiring manager’s attention and get your foot in the door is by writing a letter of interest to the company.

What is a letter of interest?
A letter of interest lets a company know that you want to work for them in a role for which they’re currently not hiring. In hopes that the company will contact you when they do open this position or another relevant position, your letter of interest focuses on how your skills can benefit the company, not how the company can benefit you. You can send a letter of interest at any time, regardless of whether the company is actively hiring.

Sending a letter of interest is a great way to introduce yourself to a company, and it shows them you’re willing to take the initiative to proactively reach out. This can keep you top-of-mind when the company starts recruiting for the job you inquired about. If hiring managers are particularly impressed, they might even create a position just for you.
Other times, sending a letter of interest can lead to a coffee chat or an informational interview with the hiring manager of the team for which you want to work.
Writing a letter of interest sounds like an easy way to get your foot in the door at any company, but it’ll only pique a hiring manager’s interest and elicit a response if it actually resonates with her.
To do so, we recommend following a formula called problem-agitate-solve. It’s modeled after an old copywriting framework and has helped one job seeker skyrocket her cover letter response rate from 0% to 55%. We’ll flesh it out below.
How to Write a Letter of Interest
To compel a hiring manager to read your letter, respond to it, and consider you for a job, there are four crucial elements you need to include in your letter of interest:
1. Hook the hiring manager with proof that you understand her problem.
Hiring managers don’t hire people just to be nice. They hire people to help them run their team better. To immediately grab a hiring manager’s attention, you should show how you understand the problems she’s trying to solve, like the hook below:
“As a two-year blogging veteran in the marketing technology industry at companies like Return Path and SlideBatch, I know how hard it is to write well. I also know how challenging it is to get found on Google.”
By describing a similar experience you’ve had at your current or prior job, you can relate to her on a deep level, which will engage and prompt her to read the rest of the letter.
The hardest part of this step is discovering the hiring manager’s problems. One way to figure it out is by listing off the job’s responsibilities and asking yourself why these tasks are important to her team. If you keep analyzing until you reach a dead end, you’ll usually find her needs there.
2. Agitate the problem to remind the hiring manager she needs a solution.
How do you make a hiring manager realize how valuable a solution could be? You remind her just how painful her problems are. And to make her visualize her dreaded problem as vividly as possible, you need to be specific, just like the example below:
“According to HubSpot’s careers page, you’re not currently hiring, but, in the future, if you’re looking for someone who can not only engage an audience with clear, concise, and compelling blog posts, but also optimize them for search engines, while hitting every deadline, you can count on me.”
When she realizes how much pain she’s actually in, she’ll have more of a sense of urgency to resolve it. And this’ll push her to respond to you because you might be her fastest route to a solution.
3. Prove that you’re the solution with an example of your skills and experience.
If you’re really the solution to her problems, you must prove to the hiring manager how you’ve used your skills to solve similar paint points in previous experiences. Then, you should describe how you’ll be able to use those learnings to help solve her current problems. Check out the example below:
“Last year, at Return Path, I was the top performing blogger, writing weekly posts that averaged 7,500 views, 1,000 social shares, and 35 new blog subscribers gained. The year before, at SlideBatch, I devised and implemented a new keyword strategy that increased organic page views for our Visual Marketing 101 blog series by 15%.
I’ve read HubSpot’s blog every day since I started my content marketing career, and I’m inbound, content, and email marketing certified, so I strongly believe I’ll be able to hit the ground running if I were to work on HubSpot’s blog team one day.
Whether I’d be uncovering high opportunity keywords or crafting blog posts to support and develop your team’s new pillar cluster model, I’m confident my skills and experience can help your team crush their goals.”
By quantifying your accomplishments and researching the company’s pain points, you’re proving your worth. But if you just list your skills and work experience, you’re only proving to the hiring manager that you’ve failed to make an impact.
4. Confidently request to move on to the next step.
At the end of your letter, you should express your interest in exploring upcoming opportunities or ask her to keep you top of mind when an opportunity opens up, like the call to action below:
“I’d love to learn about any upcoming roles on your team or be considered for a position later down the road. My resume is attached, and my contact details are listed in my email signature below. Thank you for your time! It was a pleasure connecting.”
These call-to-actions are crucial because they tell her how to get the ball rolling. If you don’t tell the hiring manager what to do next, then nothing will happen.
Letter of Interest Example
All together, a successful letter of interest looks like this:

Hi Greta,
As a two-year blogging veteran in the marketing technology industry at Return Path and SlideBatch, I know how hard it is to write well. I also know how hard it is to find get found on Google.
According to HubSpot’s careers page, you’re currently not hiring, but, in the future, if you’re looking for someone who can not only engage an audience with clear, concise, and compelling blog posts, but also optimize them for search engines, while hitting every deadline, you can count on me.
Last year, at Return Path, I was the top performing blogger, writing weekly posts that averaged 7,500 views, 1,000 social shares, and 35 new blog subscribers gained. The year before, at SlideBatch, I devised and implemented a new keyword strategy that increased organic page views for our Visual Marketing 101 blog series by 15%.
I’ve read HubSpot’s blog every day since I started my content marketing career, and I’m inbound, content, and email marketing certified, so I strongly believe I’ll be able to hit the ground running if I were to work on HubSpot’s blog team one day.
Whether I’d be uncovering high opportunity keywords or crafting blog posts to support and develop your team’s new pillar cluster model, I’m confident my skills and experience can help your team crush their goals.
I’d love to learn about any upcoming roles on your team or be considered for a role later down the road. My resume is attached, and my contact details are listed in my email signature below. Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure connecting!
Sincerely,
Clifford Chi

Letter of Interest Template
Hi [Hiring Manager’s First Name],
As a [X]-year [Your Profession] veteran in the [Space You Work In] industry at [Most Prominent Companies You’ve Worked For], I know how hard it is to [Pain Point #1]. I also know how challenging it is to [Pain Point #2].
According to [Company] careers page, you’re currently not hiring, but, in the future, if you’re looking for someone who can not only [Solution for Pain Point #1], but also [Solution for Pain Point #2], you can count on me.
Last [Specific Timeframe], at [Current or Old Company], I was the best performing [Your Profession], [List Your Responsibilities and Describe the Impact You Made]. The [Specific Timeframe] before, at [Current or Old Company], I [List Your Responsibilities and Describe the Impact You Made].
[Show Hiring Manager that You’re a Voracious Learner and You Regularly Keep Up with Company News], so I strongly believe I’ll be able to hit the ground running if I were to work on [Company] team one day.
Whether I’d be [What the Team is Working on Now], I’m confident my skills and experience can help your team crush their goals.
I’d love to learn about any upcoming roles on your team or be considered for a role later down the road. My resume is attached, and my contact details are listed in my email signature below. Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure connecting!
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
Featured Resource: 5 Professional Cover Letter Templates
Download These Templates for Free
Steps to Take Before You Send Your Letter of Interest
After you finish writing your letter of interest, you need to make sure the company will actually open it. So before you send your letter, it’d be ideal if someone on the team personally knows who you are.
To do so, ask your connections or alumni that work at the company to introduce you to the team’s hiring manager. If you can’t do that, you could add the hiring manager on LinkedIn, tell her why you want to connect, and send her your letter of interest.
Getting your foot in the door will ultimately help you stand out from the crowd of job seekers who are all sending the same “hire me” pitch to her.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in May 2018 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

 

In high school, one of my friends was determined to find the perfect time to post her Instagram photos to maximize the amount of likes she got. She was surprisingly scientific about it, posting at different times of the day and jotting down each of her posts’ “likes per minute.”
After weeks of testing, she figured out which post time raked in the most likes, and, from then on, she could easily get 200 likes on all her Instagram posts.
My friend’s rather scientific method to maximize her Instagram likes still makes me chuckle to this day. But since I’m a marketer now, her desire to build a strong Instagram presence also resonates with me.

To build a sizable Instagram following, you need to create compelling content that your audience actually craves. But if you don’t post your content at the right time, most of them will never see it.
So how do you figure out the optimal post time for your specific audience?
The best way to find an ideal posting time is by testing the timing of your posts to see which post time generates the most audience engagement.
But if you don’t have enough resources or time to conduct your own tests, Sprout Social, a social media management platform with over 20,000 customers, has you covered. Last year, they analyzed their customer data to see what time and day their social media posts generated the most engagement. They also segmented the data by social network and industry.
Looking at their aggregate customer data for Instagram, you can see that the following days and times — in Central Daylight Time (CDT) — are ideal for generating the most engagement on the social network:
As stated above, although 10 AM – 3 PM is considered the best time of day to post on Instagram, the day of the week on which you post can change how much engagement you actually get from 10 AM to 3 PM.
Why? Think about the little differences in your daily mood and routine — the ones you might not realize you have — and how they affect your behavior. The same goes for everyone following your Instagram account. Here are some additional insights about optimal post timing from data by Sprout Social to show you what I mean:

Posting at 7:00 AM CDT from Wednesday to Friday generates some of the highest engagement — people usually check their phones right when they wake up.
Posting from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM CDT during the weekdays also generates a lot of engagement — people usually check their phones during lunch or when they start to run out of mental energy toward the end of the work day.
If you want to post on the weekends, post on Saturday around 10:00 AM CDT when people eat brunch or hang out with their friends.

So, when Instagramming, don’t go by this time range alone. Consider both the day of the week and the industry you’re in (we’ll talk about the latter in just a minute).
On average, here are the best times to Instagram during the week within each time zone globally:
* = particularly high levels of engagement
Want some easy marching orders based on this data? Post to Instagram between 9 AM and 4 PM from Monday to Friday. You’ll get the most consistent engagement that way. 
Need a visual to strategize around? Check out this Sprout Social chart which shows Global Instagram Engagement hotspots.

Source: Sprout Social
The general data above about optimal post timing is a great starting point for growing an engaged Instagram audience. But if you want to get more granular, here are the best times to post on Instagram if your organization is in the technology, B2C, education, healthcare, and non-profit industries, according to Sprout Social’s research.
Best Times to Post on Instagram for Technology Companies

Best Time: Wednesday at 6:00 AM and 9:00 to 10:00 AM CDT, Friday from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM

Most Consistent Engagement: Tuesday evening through Wednesday afternoon, Friday from midnight to 10:00 PM CDT

Best Day: Wednesday

Worst Day: Sunday

Best Times to Post on Instagram for B2C Companies

Best Time: Wednesday at 3:00 PM CDT

Most Consistent Engagement: Tuesday through Friday from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM CDT

Best Day: Wednesday

Worst Day: Sunday

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Educational Organizations

Best Time: Friday at 10:00 AM CDT

Most Consistent Engagement: Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM CDT

Best Day: Friday

Worst Day: Sunday

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Healthcare Companies

Best Time: Tuesday at 8:00 AM CDT

Most Consistent Engagement: Will depend on audience location and business niche

Best Day: Tuesday

Worst Day: Saturday and Sunday

Best Times to Post on Instagram for Non-Profit Organizations

Best Times: Tuesday at 1:00 to 3:00 PM, Wednesday at 2:00 PM CDT

Most Consistent Engagement: Monday to Friday from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM CDT

Best Day: Wednesday

Worst Day: Sunday

Every brand’s audience is different. To build a sizable, engaged Instagram audience, you need to know who your followers are. And one of the best ways to get to know your audience and capture their attention is by knowing exactly when they like to surf the app. 
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2018, but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness January 28, 2021.

Even though Field of Dreams is one of my favorite movies, the saying “If you build it, they will come” sadly doesn’t apply to content marketing. Too often, we forget that content marketing consists of two separate words — content and marketing. Creating content is usually the most fulfilling and enjoyable part of a marketer’s job but, distributing that content is just as important.
After all, if no one sees your content, they definitely won’t come. 
This is why it’s important to understand marketing channels and which ones you should use to leverage your content marketing goals. In short, marketing channels are the different tools and platforms you use to communicate with your target audience. While the decision to use specific channels should come from your audience insights, it’s essential to understand different channels’ value. 
In this post, we’ll discuss different marketing channels to consider using that will amplify your reach, resonance, and revenue, all while prioritizing what matters most: your customers.

1. Word of Mouth Marketing
70% of consumers say that trusting a brand is more important today than ever before. Unfortunately, consumers also trust brands and the paid content they create less than ever before. So, what’s a marketer to do when the very people they need to persuade don’t trust them? They need to rely on their customers’ recommendations of their brand to inspire other customers to make purchases, also known as word-of-mouth marketing . 
People trust other consumers over marketers because marketers have an agenda. They promote their products and services to generate sales, but customers will only rave about a product or service if it truly benefits them. If you’re skeptical, consider the following research findings: 

Consumers report that a person like themselves (another consumer) is 14% more credible than a brand employee.

39% of consumers build trust in a brand from peer-to-peer conversations than 23% from a brand’s paid advertising. 

9 out of 10 consumers read reviews when making purchasing decisions. 

Word-of-mouth marketing doesn’t just have to be a face-to-face conversation, though. Satisfied customers will post about you online, tell their roommates they like your service, and leave positive reviews on your product pages. Only one of those examples involves an actual, in-person conversation, but they all include consumers vouching for your brands’ credibility and authenticity to inspire others to purchase your products. 
You can encourage this type of marketing by creating a customer experience that meets your audience’s needs and providing top-notch customer service. In other words, you need to serve your customers’ needs before your own.
2. Podcast Marketing
55% of the U.S. population aged 12 and above listened to podcasts, and 37% listened in the last month for an average of six hours per week. The demand for audio content has exploded, so it’s worth considering podcasts to meet your audience where they already are. 
Featured Resource: How To Start a Podcast For Your Business
Not only is demand high, but podcasts and their hosts can help you develop a unique relationship with your audience as episodes feel conversational and share a more human side of your business.
Podcasts also create more opportunities for interaction, as customers aren’t restricted to listening while staring at their phone screen. For example, your ideal listener can play an episode in their car during their morning commute, while walking their dog, and while they’re cleaning their house. 
According to researchers in the neuroscience field , storytelling is one of the best ways to capture attention and resonate with consumer emotions. The human brain is programmed to crave, seek out, and respond to a well-crafted narrative — that’ll never change.
3. Email Marketing
Wasn’t email supposed to die this year? And last year? And the year before that? As much as marketing gurus claim the final nail of email’s coffin is forthcoming, the data says otherwise. 91% of American internet users in 2019 used email, and Statista predicts that global email usage will grow to 4.48 billion users in 2024, a 580 million increase from 2018. 
Encouraging users to subscribe to your online publications is a great way to keep them up-to-date with your latest news and stories. And, since it takes an average of six to eight touchpoints to generate a qualified sales lead , encouraging people to subscribe to your emails will generate more leads and revenue for your business. 
While you may only associate email marketing with newsletters, you can use it to send personalized communications to your target audience, promote time-relevant content like product launches and sales, and nurture leads . Also, email is an owned media channel — nobody is dictating when, how, and why you can contact your prospects (but keep in mind that customers will unsubscribe from oversaturation). 
Featured Resource: Email Marketing Planning Template
4. Social Media Marketing
3.6 billion people worldwide were using social media in 2020, and Statista predicts this number will grow to 4.41 billion in 2025. So, chances are, your customers are already on social media, meaning that it is an essential channel for your marketing efforts. 
Consumers report using social media to escape everyday life, entertain themselves, connect with friends, and interact with the businesses they enjoy. Marketers use social media to generate brand awareness, foster relationships with their audiences and advertise their products. 
A large number of social media platforms may make it a daunting channel to leverage. Still, the beneficial aspect of social media is that each platform offers different, unique audiences ready and able to interact with your content. 
As mentioned above, these users also use social media for various purposes that likely align with your marketing goals, like researching brands and products of interest . Granted, using many of the platforms requires a significant amount of daily effort, but it will undoubtedly pay off: 

73% of marketers say that social media marketing is effective for their business . 
Instagram ads have the potential to reach 928.5 million users . 
Twitter ads are 11% more effective than live-TV ads during live events. 
TikTok’s average engagement rate across all follower levels is higher than both Instagram and Twitter .

All in all, if you take the time to create a social media strategy that is tailored to each of the platforms you use, you’ll likely find success on the channel and meet your audience where they are. 
Featured Resource: Social Media Marketing Course
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing
Search engines are arguably the best marketing channel for acquiring attention. In fact, search engines are the primary source of discovery for new products and services among all internet users . This has big implications for businesses using the channel for advertising, especially since people make 89,144 searches on Google per second. 
Search engines are also one of the highest converting marketing channels . Since people actively search for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems on Google, they’re likely to download your offer or sign up for a free trial if you can provide them with what they’re looking for. 
This means that optimizing all of your business’ existing channels will likely bring traffic and increase conversions. While a website may be your first thought when optimizing for SEO, this also applies to your YouTube channel , Google Maps Google My Business profile, your blog , and even your podcast episodes . 
To build a thriving organic presence online, consider implementing the pillar-cluster model into your blog. Using this strategy, you’ll create a single pillar page that provides a high-level overview of a topic and hyperlinks to cluster pages that delve into the topic’s subtopics. This signals to Google that your pillar page is an authority on the topic.
Hyperlinking all of the cluster pages to the pillar page also spreads domain authority across the cluster, so your cluster pages get an organic boost if your pillar page ranks higher, and your cluster pages can even help your pillar page rank higher if they start ranking for the specific keyword they’re targeting.
 

6. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is when a business partners with a relevant, popular creator in their industry to put out advertisements or specific pieces of content. It’s a valuable marketing channel, and 71% of marketers say that the quality of traffic generated from influencer marketing is better than other ad formats . 
Leveraging influencers to meet your marketing goals can be beneficial in terms of generating brand awareness , as well as increasing social proof . 
As mentioned before, consumers are trusting marketers less and less, and they shy away from sales-to-drive leads type content. They trust influencers more, as they view them as a person like themselves, especially when they share common interests. The content that influencers create is a form of user-generated content , a.k.a word-of-mouth marketing. 
In addition, 93% of marketers are already using influencer marketing. Your competitors are already sharing this high-trust and high-return content with their audiences, and you should be too. An added bonus is the return on investment (ROI) for influencer marketing, with every one dollar spent totaling $5.78 ROI.  
Featured Resource: The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing
7. Video Marketing
If you’ve yet to consider using video marketing , now is the time to do so. Video can boost conversions, improve ROI, and help you build relationships with audience members. In addition, 69% of consumers prefer to learn about what a brand offers through video. 
Video is also a non-restrictive form of content advertising. On some channels, you may only be able to incorporate text, some only allow for images, and others prioritize audio, but video can be all three. You can also create product advertisement videos, how-to demonstration videos, or even live videos to answer customer questions and troubleshoot customer questions. 
The videos you create can be repurposed for various channels you may already use, like social media and email . In a sense, you’re creating video content for one channel and repurposing it to meet the needs of your other channels.  
Featured Resource: The Ultimate Video Marketing Starter Pack
Consider Using a Multi-Channel Approach
Different marketing channels bring various benefits, but most businesses can find a way to use different channels in their marketing strategies to meet business goals. 
After all, your audience is likely diverse and spread out, so using different channels creates multiple points of contact which, in turn, nurture leads and increases conversions.