Content formats

Discover what marketers are throwing into their content mix—and why.

Marketers are relying on well-worn, short-form content formats.

Email newsletters and social posts are the most common formats, while more than a third of marketers are still using PDFs, despite the format’s poor engagement when compared to interactive documents like this one.

The most popular content formats

Email newsletters (used by 79% of respondents)
Social media posts (used by 73% of respondents)
Influencer posts or videos (used by 51% of respondents)
PDFs (used by 35% of respondents)
Interactive documents (used by 28% of respondents)
Other content formats (used by 2% of respondents)

But successful marketers have a more vibrant content mix.

Marketers with very successful content strategies are less likely to be seen pulling together newsletters and social media posts, and more likely to be spotted commissioning an influencer video or interactive content piece.

Why does interactive content (like this report) outperform a PDF?

Watch Mike Follett, Managing Director at Lumen Research explain.

And they’re creating longer content.

Very successful content marketers aren’t just using a greater variety of formats. On average, they’re creating longer content pieces.

Our average piece of content marketing is…

481 words

Very successful content marketers

338 words

Not very successful content marketers

Which content formats should we include in our next survey?

Infographics
Learning courses
LinkedIn carousels

So, why aren’t more marketers going long?

Whenever a marketer told us their average piece of content was less than 999 words long, we asked them why.

Many said they found short content to be effective, but others told us they found it easier to personalize the content (48%), and easier to automate the content’s design (31%).

This suggests many marketers still don’t have the platforms they need to create and personalize engaging long-form content like eBooks, white papers, and reports at scale.

What if your eBook or white paper was a Turtl Doc?

Just send us the PDF. We’ll show you how amazing your long-form content could be!

Submit PDF