Marketing strategy is evolving every day, thanks to new tools and technology that are inspiring creativity in marketers. This is also creating new standards for consumers, who are expecting more content from their favorite brands, as well as more ways to consume that content.
Regardless of what changes come along, however, content marketing is here to stay. As marketing guru Seth Godin has said, “Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left.”
Here are five important trends that you should make sure you’ve evaluated for your content marketing strategy.
Content Has Become The Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel is shifting to a cycle of engagement and customer experience through interaction with content on a variety of platforms, and marketers now have the ability to use their content to guide consumers through a process of awareness, evaluation and decision making that is more tailored and measurable than ever before.
A consumer that reads an article on your blog today, can be strategically presented with a video on Youtube tomorrow, leading them down a path that’s been thoughtfully designed to achieve specific marketing objectives.
Smart businesses will use their content strategically to continuously engage their customers, build trust and form genuine relationships, all done with a sharp eye on ROI.B
Be Omnipresent
Omnipresence is the strategy of capturing and keeping your customer’s attention by ‘being everywhere’. While that may sound exhausting and expensive, it’s really not that hard.
Today’s remarketing capabilities give every marketer the ability to quickly repurpose content across a variety of platforms, ensuring they stay in front of their customers wherever they may go.
If you don’t commit to omnipresence, your competition certainly will!
Authenticity Beats Big Budgets
The fact that just about every person on the planet is now carrying around a very high-quality video camera that is connected to the Internet means that content is leveling the playing field.
Entrepreneurs with even the leanest of budgets can’t compete with much larger competitors by leaning heavily on one content strategy: Authenticity.
Consumers crave content that is authentic and raw, giving advantage to the smaller business that’s willing to truly personally connect with their audience.
Content to Drive Conversation
Smart marketers will stop thinking of content purely as a tool to achieve sales goals, and realize that content has a higher purpose: to create a community of engaged fans.
The best content is no longer just being delivered in one direction to the consumer like a carefully-staged Super Bowl commercials, but is rather the start of an ongoing conversation between the business and the consumer.
Content combined with the community building power of social media allows brands to engage with their fans and create relationships that have much more value than short-term revenue figures.
Voice is Making a Massive Comeback
Many of us thought that the days of listening to content were disappearing as video became so easy to create and access, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The rise of podcasts and smart speakers have not only ensured that voice is sticking around, but many experts think that voice is the future.
Why?
One major reason is that it’s the only way to consume content that can be done completely passively while doing other activities, like driving or walking on the treadmill.
Another is that it’s very easy to perform searches by talking to a speaker rather than typing on a keyboard, and anything that’s easy gets adopted.
Make sure you are prepared to distribute your content in an audio format, or risk losing ground to your competitors.
These Content Marketing Trends Are Here To Stay
We’re confident that these trends are actually going to prove to be long-term fundamentals of winning at the content marketing game. Plan for them in your content marketing strategy and take action today!
