November 8th, 2019
According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing converts six times higher than traditional marketing efforts. Personalized content also improves brand recall, which ultimately raises trust and increases engagement.
However, content marketing continues to evolve. Some of the content marketing strategies used last year are no longer as effective this year. Here are some content marketing trends that marketers and businesses alike should watch out for:
1.Video Content Will Continue to Rise
Video content has been around for a while, but it caught fire in 2015 and 2016. In 2015, video content accounted for 70% of internet traffic and is expected to grow to 82% by 2020. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are putting more emphasis on video. On Facebook, video content and Facebook Live videos are usually at the top of users’ news feeds. This raises engagement and delivers higher ROI compared to other forms of content such as text and images.
2.Increased Focus on Valuable Content
As Facebook and other websites crack down on fake news, click-bait articles, and other dubious strategies for driving traffic, Google continues to refine its algorithm to rank valuable content higher on its search engine. Google also accounts for content engagement such as likes, comments, and shares to measure how content is adding value to consumers. Valuable content is simply useful and well-targeted content. This means that businesses and marketers should focus on delivering informative, and often, long-form content that is relevant to their target audiences.
3.No Stopping the Switch to Mobile
In the US, 71% of the time spent on the internet is via mobile. This is a significant increase from 53% in 2013 and 65% in 2015. However, many businesses are still getting left behind with websites that are not mobile-friendly and content that is not optimized for mobile. According to HubSpot, mobile users engage more with social media posts and videos whereas desktop users consume more news articles and less social media posts.
4.People Trust People
In today’s internet landscape, content abounds while trust is scarce. Trust is what determines whether a post will be liked, a link will be clicked, and content will be consumed. According to AdWeek, 85% of users trust content made by other people rather than content made or published by brands. That’s why more and more businesses are publishing under an employee’s or an influencer’s name rather than via their official company accounts. For example, one of the leading social media sharing platforms, Buffer, publishes most of its content through its content creators’ social media accounts rather than its own social accounts. Brands are also using influencer marketing by reaching out to influencers both big and small to create content or review their products.
Email is (Still) King
Friendster, Multiply, and MySpace are all gone — or at least, they are not what they used to be. Twitter, arguably one of the most important social media platforms today, recently sold its developer platform to Google, raising some concerns regarding the future of the platform. While social media may come and go, email has remained the same over the decades. Email remains to be the most personal mode of communicating online and it allows businesses to deliver content to consumers without getting lost in the social media chatter. According to the Content Marketing Institute, email was rated as the number one success metric of content marketing. After all, it takes a tremendous amount of trust in order to get people to sign up to mailing lists.
“Smart Content,” not just more content
Purplepatch Services believes in employing a “Smart Content” strategy for our clients. We focus on creating targeted content, and not just flooding audiences with more content. As your prospects’ content needs change throughout their Buyer Journey, we can help you plan your content strategy to ensure that it remains responsive to their changing needs. We take pride in delivering informed creativity that helps our customers truly achieve growth by being relevant, sensitive, and inspirational to their markets.
Download our free ebook to learn more about why you should invest in “Smart Content.” You can also contact us to discuss how we can help you reach out to your prospects.