Content marketing is a vital part in building brand awareness. By providing good, useful content to a targeted audience, companies are able to promote their brand and earn sales. According to TMG Custom Media, 90 percent of consumers find this kind of specialized, custom content useful.

Content marketing takes many forms. It's important to understand your market and use the formats best suited to its needs. Whichever methods you choose, you'll need to offer new content on a regular basis — and here are a few ways to do this.

1. Blogging

A company blog is a great way to provide your audience with information about products, services, industry and company news and trends. This content should be focused and relevant to your audience in order to establish your blog as an authority in its field. According to eMarketer.com, almost 150 million Americans or 60 percent of Internet users read blogs.

Leverage your own blog to inform customers about your company's news, industry news and to display trends you're seeing in the market to highlight your brand's authority.

2. Infographics

For many, it's easier to scan images than to read text. Infographics combine images with text and data to tell a story or deliver a message. By adding photos, illustrations or graphics to the text, the visual display captures the attention of more people.

This makes for a more engaging experience that people are more likely to share. By adding the company logo or brand name on the infographic, you also increase brand awareness.

3. Free downloadable content

Downloadable content like e-books, white papers, podcasts and special reports can be offered to an audience for free in exchange for their contact information. The most effective content provides solutions to your target market's problems or challenges.

Although free content is often used for business-to-business marketing, it's also useful for business-to-consumer marketing. This strategy also helps you build an email list for lead generation.

4. Videos

The popularity of YouTube among content marketers shows that video is a great way to increase traffic to your website. Garnering viewers will undoubtedly help your brand awareness.

What kind of videos work? Those that tell a compelling story and educate your target audience. Although making a great video can be expensive, if done correctly, the video will leave a memorable impression on the viewer. This type of video is frequently shared with others, so the return on your investment can be worth the extra work.

5. Social media

Social media is an effective way to engage with customers online. Websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are also useful for promoting your other content strategies such as blog posts, videos and infographics.

By creating a company profile on several social media networks, you can create brand awareness. With useful and relevant tweets or Facebook posts, you can ask questions, get feedback and communicate directly with your audience. The only investment is your time.

With so much competition today and with little difference between most products and services, brand awareness is one of the best ways to stand out. Remember: content's benefits in brand awareness is equal the effort you expend.