Marketing Collateral: What Is It and How Can It Benefit Your Business?

What is marketing collateral?

While you’re scrolling through social media, you run across three different posts from three different companies, none of which you know. The first two are ads attempting to push products on you, but the third is simply a link to a helpful blog post.

Out of those three posts, which one will earn the click? Most likely the third one. Given that you’ve never heard of any of these companies, you may not be interested in buying from any of them right now. But a simple, informative blog post? Sure!

That’s the idea behind marketing collateral. When you’re first introducing yourself to your audience, you want to use more informative content to earn their trust and pique their interest.

What is collateral in marketing, though, and how can you benefit from it? Read on to find out. Then subscribe to Revenue Weekly for more digital marketing tips from the agency with over 25 years of experience!

The marketing collateral definition: A term referring to marketing materials used to promote your business. Specifically, though, it relates to content-based materials.

So, if you run a paid ad that pushes users to make a purchase, that doesn’t fall under marketing collateral. Instead, marketing collateral would be something like a newsletter or article — something that promotes your business but does so in an informational way.

As far as marketing strategies go, this means that marketing collateral is essentially a form of content marketing. You can get it to users through various methods — ranking it in search results, sending it in emails, posting it on social media — but it always retains that content-based element.

Why do you need marketing collateral?

Marketing collateral is so useful because it can help you reach the people that aren’t ready to buy yet. 

You can benefit from marketing collateral at almost every stage of the marketing funnel, but it’s especially advantageous for people who haven’t heard of you before. It’s extremely unlikely that those people will make a purchase right out of the gate, but they will be willing to read some content.

Even at other stages of the marketing funnel, marketing collateral is excellent for helping you establish credibility for your brand. When you spend a lot of time talking about the finer points of your industry, it shows that you’re an expert, making people more likely to trust you.

5 types of marketing collateral

Now that we’ve covered the basics of what marketing collateral is, we can look at some specific types of marketing collateral. What materials can you use to draw in users?

There are many options to choose from, but we’ve listed some of the best ones below. Read on to learn about some of the best forms of marketing collateral!

1. Blog posts and long-form content

One of the most common types of marketing collateral is blog posts and long-form content. This content involves writing pages on your website to draw in users.

Blog posts are fantastic for attracting first-time site visitors. 

Let’s say you provide pest control services. You could write a blog post on how to prevent pests in your home. That’s something people often look up, and when they find your post, they’ll establish a connection with your brand.

Long-form achieves a similar purpose by covering various topics in your industry with the purpose of educating users. This content goes more in-depth than blog posts, so it’s a great option to provide a lot of information about a topic.

2. Ebooks

Blog posts and long-form content are excellent for attracting first-time readers. But for people who are deeper in the marketing funnel and have already established an interest in your content, you can aim to provide even larger pieces of content, like ebooks.

Ebooks tackle similar content to long-form pieces, but provide a much more in-depth look at the subject matter. Rather than putting this up on your website, you can offer ebooks to users who wish to sign up for your emails or possibly even purchase the books.

3. Infographics

If you haven’t used any infographics in your marketing before, try it out — they can be incredibly effective! The reason for that is because they’re very visual, meaning they’ll draw users in, but they’re also packed with useful information.

Infographics are helpful for reaching people who might not want to read paragraphs of plain text. If those people see an infographic, they’ll be drawn in by the images and colorful designs, and still get valuable information in a format easier to digest than a full blog post.

You can display infographics in various places, including your website and different types of social media.

4. Case studies

Few forms of marketing content are more likely to convince users of your credibility than direct evidence of how you’ve helped your past customers. That’s why case studies are so valuable.

This type of marketing collateral is most valuable for businesses that offer services rather than just products, particularly business-to-business (B2B) companies. You can write case studies to explain what you’ve done for your past clients and how it helped them.

With case studies, you still get to talk about your services, but it’s in an informational way. Furthermore, you get to demonstrate to your audience exactly what you’re capable of doing for them.

5. Newsletters

The final type of marketing content on our list is newsletters. In today’s world, the best way to send out newsletters is by email, though you can also post them on your site for everyone to see if you choose.

Newsletters offer information relevant to your industry. Your newsletter should primarily point users to helpful information in the industry, much (or all) of which can come from your blog or website. Additionally, you can provide a bit of information about the latest news within your company.

You can offer newsletters on your site, and users can submit their email addresses to sign up for them. That way you can establish a link to your target audience right in their inbox!

Watch this video to learn more about newsletters and email marketing:

WebFX can boost your content marketing strategy to new heights

Ready to kick your marketing collateral into gear? WebFX would love to help you! We’ve earned over 1020 client testimonials speaking to our expertise and professionalism in digital marketing.

With our content marketing services, you can get help creating each of the types of content above and more. We can also help you send emails and perfect your search engine optimization (SEO) to get your content where users can see it.

To get started with us, just call 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!