Build Some Content Marketing Muscle: 7 Trends to Keep in Mind

Digital marketing is constantly changing, that’s why we write so much about it daily! When you take a hard look at online marketing, there isn’t an area that evolves quite as fast as content marketing. Telling your brand story is a centuries-old practice if you think about it. However, thanks to the Internet, we can easily share that story to many people across the world in a matter of minutes. Providing audiences with the information they seek helps create a recognizable and dependable brand and more loyal customers in the long run.

Smart Insights did a survey that asked readers to name the single digital marketing tool they thought would have the greatest impact to drive results for their business in 2015.  For this year and the previous year, the answer was the same: content marketing. 29.6% said content marketing would be their top digital marketing tool this year, topping other areas such as marketing automation, big data, social media, paid advertising, SEO, and even mobile marketing.

In fact, another content marketing trends survey revealed that 89% of companies that use content marketing say it’s successful! Yes!

So, there’s no denying that content marketing will be a huge focus for many businesses and organizations this year. Since it is constantly evolving, we thought we’d share some important content marketing trends that you can expect in the near future.

Increased Spend

Since content marketing is expected to be a top priority for most B2B and B2C companies in the private sector, expect the allocated budgets for content marketing to soar. According to one report, an average enterprise brand plans to dedicating 15% of their marketing budget to create high-quality content marketing pieces.

More Personalization

The saturation of content that we see on the web today is staring to all look monotonous. Personalization is what will help brands stand out. Thanks to more sophisticated technology and social networking sites, marketers have lots of data and insights that can make an email or website offer highly personalized to the individual.

We Have a Visual

All you have to do is scroll through a Facebook News Feed to see what we mean. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen more and more users flocking towards images, video, infographics. Visual content has a knack for demanding attention from users. It’s better at quickly telling a story than text, which means pieces such as videos, and infographics will be huge investments for companies this year.

Content Goes Local

For companies that rely on local business, hyperlocal content will be come a powerful tool. Content that is catered to the local geographical area has the opportunity to be super original, provide a new perspective, and receive tremendous results.

Content and Social Intertwine

The lines will be blurred between content marketing and social media. You can have one without the other! Social media is the best opportunity on the web for organic growth and will be heavily dependent on content to get ‘likes’ and shares.

Collaborative Efforts

While we saw brands take a step back from guest blogging in 2014, collaborative marketing efforts will continue to be important. Successful brands will be focused reinvesting their time in building mutual relationships with other social media users, blogs, websites, and industry publications. While Google will continue to crack down on spammy links and duplicate content, it’s definitely a good thing for businesses and brands to have good connections.

Break it Down

Now that Google is getting serious about websites being mobile friendly, it’s imperative that the content found on those sites is mobile friendly too!  Mobile uses take in information differently than desktop users. Content marketers will need to make the experience more meaningful for mobile users by offering brief overviews, visible call-to-actions, and blog articles broken down to several bite-sized sections.