Content marketing trends depend on the industry you’re in. However, the buzz surrounding content marketing is only growing as Internet marketing continues to outpace traditional marketing methods. Some trends are going in a direction that any quality content marketer can capitalize on.
What makes for quality content is an important question to ask, and a question that needs answering. Here are six ideas worth exploring.
Participation-Based Content Marketing
Participation-based content marketing is the process of co-creating content, and one of the top content marketing trends. This co-creation can happen with influencers, peers, fans – in short, it’s content built via the participation of your industry’s community.
By allowing your fans, followers, and consumers to directly participate in the content creation process, you can provide a more interactive, exciting and engaging exchange. This propels active engagement beyond hitting the mere “like” button. Co-creating content with your targeted audience allows you to develop relationships with your customers. It’s a proven fact that consumers are more likely to do business with companies they’ve built a relationship with.
Personalize-at-Scale Content Marketing
As mentioned above, engagement is a critical component of any quality content marketing campaign. What better way to engage with your audience than with personalized exchanges between the brand and the individual?
Technology is allowing companies to develop methods for enabling such mass personalization. It sounds like an oxymoron, but in reality, such personalized attention makes consumers feel special. Personalization can produce five to eight percent return on investment. However, this tactic is best reserved to those who really can pull it off. If the consumer finds the effort phony or intrusive, it could actually have the opposite effect. That said, do your homework and make your strategy as authentic as possible.
Social Media Star Content Marketing
Brands are starting to collaborate with those successful individuals lighting up the social media scene – AKA Influencers. By partnering with such well-followed talent, companies hope to leverage their own brands with the hip vibe of these multi media trendsetters. This builds credibility with the younger generation.
Social media stars tend to exert tremendous influence. By aligning yourself with these powerful new talents, you’re thinking outside the box in regards to celebrity endorsement. Such thinking is an ingenious way to develop support and brand recognition.
Conversion-Based Content Marketing
Conversion is the goal of all marketing. In today’s online world where virtually all individuals are linked regardless of geographic location, ignoring the purchasing funnel when creating quality content is a huge mistake.
Conversion-based content marketing develops a diverse set of creative content and methods that link directly to various components of your purchasing funnel. This process leads to higher return on investment while enhancing awareness and recognition of your brand.
Video Content Marketing
People are visual by nature. By incorporating video into your content creations, you will greatly increase your exposure and engagement.
This trend has led to massive growth in online video. In many cases, video content is replacing traditional television as a means of entertainment. With this in mind, many major brands are moving their marketing dollars out of television and into online video resources such as YouTube and Vimeo.
Great content is all about storytelling. Video offers a tremendous medium for compelling storytelling. By not taking advantage of all this rich resource has to offer, your brand can fall behind the pack. One thing is for certain, with the growth of video technology, video content is on the rise and not going away anytime soon.
Data-Driven Content Marketing
Data provides key actionable insights to gauge how your targeted audience acts, and what they respond to. In this unique way, you can create content in a more refined, educated way to produce the most beneficial results. In other words, such data driven content provides the right thing at the right time. The thought process behind this is, by given the consumer what they want, when they want it, they will return the gesture with higher conversion rates and more sales.
Content Marketing Trends Will Change
Content marketing is perhaps the biggest marketing technique in today’s interconnected world. It’s here to stay. Paying attention to the changing trends, as well making decisions that influence this important strategy, is integral to any brand development regardless of size or type.
