Content marketing is constantly changing. It’s not something that can be set and forgotten, especially in an era when all marketing is going digital. Content has become the stuff of brand building, lead generation, and even inbound and paid channels for sales campaigns thanks to one thing in particular: its effectiveness.
Better entrance to data and a better knowledge of buyer choices will enable you to continuously improve your appearance in content marketing.
For those who want to see what’s now, what’s working, and what’s coming, we share new trends in content marketing that have been gaining popularity recently. Find out why they are important and how you can implement them into your overall content marketing plan.
Trend 1| Personalised content
As customers become savvier, they need a more sophisticated way of communicating that speaks to them on an individual level. This is important because expectations have changed and it’s important to be relevant to what shoppers want to know.
Personalization also gives you an edge over your competitors. The data backs this up – a Demand Gen study showed that sales opportunities increase by 20% when brands use personalized lead generation.
It’s called a trend because it has become so widespread. According to a Forrester report, 92% of marketers have seen an increase in personalized marketing.
Personalization is almost entirely based on data. So the more data you have about your customers, the more likely you are to create a more meaningful message. You need to decide what information you need, including demographics, preferences, objections, and how they use the information you provide.
You don’t display a lot of data, to begin with. If you get a customer who gives you their name and email address for a piece of content, that’s a start. You can find other data from third-party sources and you know what topic the potential customer is interested in.
With the name, email address, and content topic, you can create a campaign that delivers additional relevant content via email to those who match those parameters. You can then track whether they opened the email and which links they clicked on. The more they engage with your brand, the more you can personalize them.
Trend 2| Brands go niche with content
Whatever vertical you’re in, content is likely to be saturated. This means that most companies in your industry publish similar content. It’s only harder to climb the organic rankings for certain keywords.
To counter this and stand out, some brands are very niche with their content to attract more specific buyers. Finding that niche usually involves a combination of a service you’re good at, or a product that works well, and a specific industry. Rather than simply writing about the reasons why app development should be outsourced, write about why the healthcare industry should outsource app development.
This is one of the many reasons our clients rely on employee activation. Do your employees love cats? Let them write about cats. Do you have employees who like to play Dungeons and Dragons? Chances are some shoppers love cats and playing D&D as much as they do. Of course, you probably also have product engineers and customer service or salespeople who love your field and want to provide thought leadership.
Trend 3| Voice search is changing the tone of content marketing
Millions of people conduct off-screen searches every day. They simply ask their digital assistant a question without having to look at their smartphone or computer. Voice searches account for at least 20% of all searches, and that share is growing.
This is leading to changes in content because the way we speak doesn’t always match the way we type. Time needs to be spent adapting content for natural language search, which means adding questions and answers.
To write in this style, including full questions in complete sentences. Use long keywords in headings and titles. To take advantage of “near me” searches, optimize your pages or posts with these natural language search terms.
Trend 4 | Content should be short, not TL;DR
The average number of words in blog posts is increasing, while people’s attention spans keep getting shorter. Shorter content is good for organic content, but even if a page is on the first page of a search engine, will users stick around to read it? While this content is important, you can’t assume that long content is appropriate for every buyer, especially those who engage with your brand on social media.
Short content works better with millennials, the generation with the most buyers. Another Demand Gen study observed that millennials favor videos and infographics over different types of content while generating choices. These formats are colorful, tell a story, and include motion.
The best way to capitalize on this trend is to use more videos and infographics on social media and channels targeting the millennial demographic. Use any of your blogs, e-books, or white papers to create new content.
Trend 5| Diverse content brings in new audiences.
If you only publish one type of content, users get bored. It just doesn’t work that way anymore. Instead, people expect your site to use different types of media, whether it’s infographics, galleries, videos, podcasts, or something else.
Yes, it means you’ll have to diversify your skills (and maybe your team’s skills), but it has its benefits too. When you diversify how you deliver content, you don’t have to struggle as much to create new content. Often, content that has been successful in one medium can be repackaged, refreshed, and re-presented in another medium.
It works so well because most users have a preferred way of consuming media. They may prefer video, audio, or text. This means they naturally select into different groups, meaning the vast majority won’t even notice they’ve encountered the media before. Even those who don’t mind so much because you’re coming up with new ideas and presenting information in a new way. If you are looking for a content writer there are many content writing agencies that can help in developing content for your company.
