Most businesses know they need to create content but they struggle with one critical question: should content educate, entertain, or directly promote? The answer depends on your audience, your goals, and where your customer sits in the buying journey. The strongest strategies do all three strategically.
Why Businesses Get Stuck Creating Content
Many businesses run into the same wall: they know they should be posting consistently, but they are unsure what to say. Over time, content becomes random, rushed, or repetitive. Some businesses only post promotional updates. Others chase trends that have no connection to their brand. Some stop posting altogether because they feel like ideas have run dry.
The issue is rarely a shortage of content opportunities, it is a lack of strategy. When content is created without a clear plan, it may generate activity, but it rarely creates meaningful growth. A strong digital marketing strategy clarifies what to say, where to say it, and why it matters to your audience.
Educational Content: Build Trust Before the First Call
Educational content helps your audience understand something better. It answers questions, solves problems, explains your process, and builds confidence before a customer ever reaches out. This is especially powerful because most buyers research online extensively before making a decision, they want to compare options, understand pricing, or simply feel more informed before contacting a business.
Educational content also directly supports search engine optimization. Every page that answers a real customer question is another opportunity to appear in relevant search results and bring qualified traffic to your website over time.
Examples of Educational Content
- How-to guides and tutorials
- Frequently asked questions
- Service explanation pages
- Industry tips and insights
- Case studies
- Before-and-after breakdowns
- Blog articles and long-form content
Entertaining Content: Earn Attention First
Entertaining content is designed to capture attention, and attention is the currency of the internet. It helps your brand feel more human, more memorable, and more approachable. While educational content builds trust, entertaining content helps people notice you in the first place.
This does not mean every business needs to post jokes or viral trends. Entertainment can be simple: a behind-the-scenes look at your team, a satisfying project transformation, or a moment that shows your brand’s personality. For many businesses, professional video and photo production is what elevates everyday moments into content that feels polished and on-brand.
Examples of Entertaining Content
- Behind-the-scenes videos
- Team moments and culture clips
- Project highlights and reveals
- Event recaps
- Short-form video (Reels, Shorts, TikTok)
- Industry humor and relatable moments
- Visual before-and-after transformations
The Best Content Does Both
The strongest content usually does not fall strictly into one category, it educates while keeping people engaged, and it entertains while delivering real value.
A roofing company creates a short video showing storm damage while explaining what homeowners should look for. A restaurant shares a behind-the-scenes kitchen clip while telling the story behind a popular dish. A professional services firm breaks down a common customer mistake in a way that is simple, visual, and easy to understand.
This hybrid approach works because it respects the audience’s time while still providing substance. It gives people a reason to watch or read, and it moves them closer to trusting the business. When both elements work together, content stops feeling like marketing and starts feeling like value.
Match Your Content to the Customer Journey
Not every piece of content should serve the same purpose. Someone seeing your brand for the first time needs something very different than someone who is comparing services or ready to contact you. Mapping your content to the right stage makes every post work harder.
Awareness Stage
People do not know your business yet. Lead with entertaining, visual, or broad educational content that earns attention and introduces your brand in a memorable way.
Consideration Stage
People are comparing options and learning more. Lean into educational content here — service pages, FAQs, blog articles, project examples, and comparison-style content that builds confidence in your business.
Decision Stage
People are ready to act. Testimonials, strong calls-to-action, and clear contact paths close the loop. Your website plays a central role at this stage, it must turn content-driven interest into real inquiries.
How to Decide What Content to Create
If you are unsure whether to educate or entertain, start by asking what your audience needs most right now. These questions form a reliable foundation:
- What questions do customers ask before buying?
- What problems are they actively trying to solve?
- What misconceptions exist in your industry?
- What makes your business different from competitors?
- What content has performed well for you in the past?
- What action do you want people to take next?
From there, a proven starting point for most businesses is a balanced content mix:
- 70% educational content — builds trust and answers real customer questions
- 20% entertaining content — captures attention and shows brand personality
- 10% promotional content — directly highlights offers, services, or calls-to-action
This ratio can shift depending on your industry, platform, and goals, but it gives your content a clear direction instead of relying on random posting. The promotional 10% feels earned when the other 90% has already delivered genuine value.
Content Strategy Beats Content Volume
Posting more often does not automatically create better results. A business can post every single day and still fail to generate leads if the content has no strategy behind it. What matters is not output, it is purpose.
Strong content is created with intention. It supports the brand, answers real customer questions, improves search visibility, and gives people a clear next step. Analytics close the loop: reviewing performance helps identify what drives engagement, what brings in qualified traffic, and what actually leads to conversions. Over time, that data makes your strategy sharper, not just more active.
Final Thoughts
The choice between educating and entertaining is not an either-or decision. Educational content builds trust. Entertaining content earns attention. When used together with a clear strategy, they help your brand become more visible, more memorable, and more useful to the people you want to reach.
For businesses in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, content should do more than fill a schedule. It should be part of a larger digital marketing strategy that connects awareness, trust, engagement, and conversions into a system that drives real business growth.
If your business is ready to build a content strategy with real purpose, reach out to the Link Creative team. We’ll help you create a plan that connects your content to measurable results.