Content marketing has indeed come of age. A decade ago, very few businesses used it as their core marketing strategy. Things today have changed drastically. Content marketing is a part of almost every business’s growth marketing plan. According to studies, the number of businesses using content marketing increased from 70% in 2019 to 82% in 2020.
High-quality content marketing teams are an integral part of most growing businesses. Let’s look at some key content marketing trends that can help fetch website traffic and turn your small business into a robust content brand.
1.Tell Stories
What’s your story? How did you start your business, and what was your purpose behind starting up? Telling a story is the best way to hook your audience and get them to come back to you for more content. Storytelling engages the readers and builds trust in your brand. In a crowded content landscape, storytelling is the best way to get your content to stand out from the crowd. Furthermore, storytelling makes your content more human and authentic. To tell stories that matter, marketers can take the help of expert ghostwriters—professionals who would help craft unique and original brand stories.
2.Create Remarkable Content Experiences
Simply put, a content experience is how you deliver branded content on a specific platform or device. For instance, is it easy for the audience to interact with your content?
By creating content, you need to offer a rich experience to your target audience—an experience that’s consistent across devices and content platforms. Moreover, you need to align branded content with a unique brand voice and your target customers’ expectations. And finally, most online users prefer brands and media companies to personalize content according to their needs, preferences, and location. Hence, personalized content is an integral part of a holistic content experience.
3.Focus on Two-Way Interaction
Businesses that generate high-quality leads get the audience to interact with their brand. They go live on social media. They organize webinars and “Ask me anything” sessions to make content a two-way communication. Successful content marketers are increasingly using content formats like polls and quizzes to gamify content and make it more accessible and fun to the target audience. Besides that, you can focus on building a community on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Communities get like-minded people together and encourage them to participate by creating helpful content. Finally, user-generated content is a terrific way to get the audience to participate in the content creation process.
4.Content Updation and Repurposing
Do you often struggle to keep up with the high content demand? Most content marketers do. And yet, some play it smart; how? Old content has lots of dormant value that you can unearth by simply updating it to the latest happenings in your industry.
Another challenge that most content marketers face is to publish content in many formats and on several platforms. The solution to that problem lies in content repurposing. You can repurpose your content ideas into many formats and keep distributing them to the platforms that work best for your business.
5. Host Fusion Events
Getting the leads to keep flowing can be a huge challenge as a content marketer. Many content marketers are now using the power of virtual and live online events to collect leads for their business.
But there are times when you need to host in-person events and build a deeper connection with your target audience. That’s when hybrid events become essential. A hybrid event is a content format that combines the benefits of an in-person event and a virtual one. For instance, you can organize an in-person trade show to allow virtual participation. In addition, the content format gives marketers access to a more extensive database of prospective customers and offers improved returns on the content investment.
6. Tap Into Voice Search
Optimizing for voice search may not be on your priority list, but going forward, it’s vital for getting the desired content visibility. Since more and more online users are switching to voice search, you need to optimize your content for long and conversational voice-search queries. Adapting your content for natural language search terms is the best way to get your content to rank for such search queries.
7. Focus on Searcher Intent
Searcher intent remains as critical as ever. The best way for a content marketer is to document the key target audience personas and align them with user search intent. It’s the right strategy for publishing content that your audience deserves. Focusing on the audience’s informational needs will help you get more people to consume and share your content.
Final Thoughts
These trends can make a big difference when it’s about succeeding at content marketing. In a dynamic content marketing landscape, making the best use of the ongoing trends can almost guarantee that you’ll meet your upcoming content marketing goals. And lastly, don’t forget to be persistent in providing lasting value to your target audience this year and the years that follow.
