It’s easy to get tied up with old ways of thinking when engaging in content marketing. When you think of content marketing it’s likely your first thought is to write a blog post. Well, you should write blog posts, but content marketing is so much more than just daily or weekly blog posts. Content marketing encompasses all the forms of content that can get information out about your offerings to your clients, as well as informing the type of products you create for your audience.

In order to get out of the box, start seeing content as more than just a blog post. See it for all the forms it can be.

• Text
• Images
• Audio
• Video

When you do not limit yourself to just textual content, the whole world opens up and you cannot get too far out of the box. If you’re not sure how to do it you can start with a “how to” blog post you’ve already written. Find some images to illustrate your post adding in the images to make the blog post more interesting.

Take it even farther by offering a podcast version of your image filled how to blog post. Perhaps some of your audience likes to listen while they are on the road. They can download your content from iTunes.com and listen while driving to work. To go the distance, now you can create the how to blog post into a how to video, post it on YouTube.com and your website. Then share each type of content that you’ve created about the How To Blog post with the appropriate social network.

Finally, consider curating other content from complementary sources that relate to the topic you wrote the “How To” blog post about. Now you’ve created many different from of content for your audience on different levels. Your audience can consume all of it, or choose which way they want to receive the content. Now you’ve got something special that’s different from what everyone else is doing.

Content marketing is one of the most important elements of your business goals. This is true whether you have an online business or offline business. It’s also true whether you own a service based business or a product based business. Content is how you will get the message of your offerings out to your audience. Don’t hold yourself into a box and limit the types of content you offer your audience or the locations in which they can consume it. Be creative and let your imagination take you to new places.

Use social media, newsletters, your website, blog posts, eBooks, press releases, videos, infographics, white papers, webinars, podcasts, in person events, and even print magazines to get the word out about your offerings to your audience. If your audience is there, be there too. Don’t let convention keep you from trying something that might work for your business with your audience. So, how far can you go getting your message out?