Content marketing grows by leaps and bounds each year, and with good reason. The internet surfing public is tired of companies forcing products in their faces when they're all looking for help solving a problem.
And that's precisely where content marketing enters the picture. When you want to give your readers the information they need without pushy marketing speak or 15 pop-up ads getting in the way, combine that sense that you're there to help with a robust social media presence helping direct even more readers to your site. You start to understand the power of a strong content marketing strategy.
Along with all this growth come some growing pains. Content marketing has to pivot on occasion, just like any new business area, which can lead to confusion when you're just looking to get started. Going beyond content, whether you're in that "new on the scene" category or a seasoned pro, we've got you covered with marketing trends to watch for. Content first:
Content strategy
At first glance, this may seem self-evident; however, the numbers would suggest otherwise. Back in 2017, a survey by the Content Marketing Institute concluded that a staggering 63% of businesses that use content marketing don't have an actual strategy. That means that over half of the content being put out is neither good content nor has any purpose other than bulking up the company's page count.
That's terrible news for those companies but great news for you. Do your research, look at your competitor's sites, and see if you can find the strategy behind their content. Chances are there isn't one, so take some of the topics they're covering and cover them better.
The rise of the micro-influencer
We're not saying the days of the influencer are over, just that it's time to scale down. Instead of getting yourself mentioned by one of the few big-league influencers (think of the Kardashian of your industry), focus your attention on someone a little more right-sized.
Every industry has a selection of heavy hitters, and every heavy hitter starts at scale. Find the people in your sector who are just starting to make waves, keeping it appropriate for your company's current size and scale, and go after them. Not only will they be easier to get a hold of, but they'll also likely be more open to discussion, given the exposure you can offer.
#4: It's time to think about video
With the increasing availability of high-bandwidth connections, especially from mobile devices, a correlated uptick in video content has come. People like being entertained, and when they're sitting on the bus or at lunch, looking at their phones, this increasingly means they like videos.
Just remember to keep it short and to the point. People watch videos to stave off boredom, so don't turn around and bore them with overly lengthy video content. Even if you aren't interested in making your videos, consider incorporating them into your content (like this).
#5: It's also time to think about voice search
With the rising usage of voice assistants, more and more consumers are using voice search for their internet needs. This means businesses need to do more than pay attention to long-tail keywords since they're built around historical text search data and not how people speak in the real world. It means optimizing your SEO for the grammatically incorrect spoken sentences people will use when asking Siri to find information.
Mobile-friendly sites will continue to dominate
Closely related to the last item, more and more people are using mobile devices as their primary internet device (at least for non-work related use). So while optimizing your content for easy voice search, put some time into ensuring everything renders correctly on smaller screens—bonus points for this one since Google ranks mobile-friendly sites higher.
It's time to go omni
Omnichannel refers to integrating your presence on social media, your site, and anywhere else you exist in the virtual world. Ensure your brand voice is consistent on all channels, that your logo is the same and easily identifiable no matter the screen size, and that you always link to all the right places. Thought about experimenting with a podcast or live-streaming? This is the time to do it!
You better be able to prove your worth
Metrics are on the rise, and with more and more companies wanting to tie revenue results to their content marketing efforts directly, they've never been more critical to the content marketer. Brand awareness is still a thing to consider; however, it is no longer the be-all-and-end-all it once was. Now you have the complex data to back up your assertions about the worth of your team's efforts. Engagements and interactions are the metrics of choice for the future.
AI is coming for you
Just kidding. Well, mostly. Chatbots, automated posting tools, and the like are set to revolutionize the content marketing world as they have done in customer service and other areas. These tools won't be replacing you or your team any time soon. They will make your jobs much more accessible by taking the rote, mundane, repetitive tasks off your plate so you can focus on the creating side.
The technologies underpinning AI, specifically "natural language processing," has advanced so that transactional and FAQ-type interactions can be fully automated. Often without the customer even realizing that they're talking to a bot.
Remarketing to improve conversions
When someone visits your site, the cookie includes information on which specific article they read and what terms they searched to get there. Then, if you're participating in a remarketing program, they will be shown ads for other content related to that initial piece.
It's important to remember that it takes, on average, 6-8 touches before an ordinary site visitor converts to a viable lead. Remarketing is a fantastic way to up that touch count without much extra work since you already have the user data to set up a remarketing campaign.
Considering these trends, a reference to the old standbys that aren't going anywhere is often missing. Things like refreshing and publishing new evergreen content and optimizing for SEO are stalwart habits that will continue to serve you and your content marketing efforts well going into the future.
Balance is critical to everything, and that's just as true for content marketing as every other aspect of life. For all the "tips and tricks" articles, you can find at least two others contradicting whatever they say. The real trick is balancing trying the latest and greatest and sticking with what you know works.
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