Predicting the Future of Content Marketing 

Analysis shows that 5% of branded content garners 90% of total consumer engagement.

The Art of Content Marketing

In the marketing business, everyone wants to future-proof their content and create high consumer satisfaction. The amount of significance content is getting, no wonder it has become the king of all strategies. However, it also puts a lot of pressure on the kind and format of content that businesses adopt. 

Storytelling is one such form that is engaging huge numbers with its intricate and effective techniques. Organizations are indulging in producing stories around and about their brand that is helping them connect with the audience while also conveying their brand value with a simple message.  

With a future that holds manifold trends and strategies for content marketing, let’s see if we can predict it on our way in this blog. 

Current Affairs of Content Marketing

Given the current circumstances in the content marketing industry, its popularity and growth have led to: 

• High demand leading to a surplus amount of content on the internet 
• More content means more competition among the content creators and customers being spoiled for choices
• High content standards being set by bigger brands with marketing budgets. 

Four Performance Pillars

With the plethora of content flooding on the internet, there has to be a base on which the performance can be measured. These are the four pillars that can help you gauge the performance of your content:

Strategize 

A definite strategy and goal is the key to any successful plan. However, not all plans lead to victory. Every content has a different reaction from the audience. What can give you some reassurance is the user data. If your plan is backed up with demographics and behavior patterns of audiences instead of hunches or instincts then you are on a safer side of success.    

Thus, the data analysis of your channels, content and target audience should be your strong suit.

Automate

Marketing automation is the next big trend that is changing how content is distributed and consumed by the audience. There are numerous applications and devices (for example, the combination of Hubspot and Drupal) that are now helping you streamline your data and content with a blueprint that is integrated and optimized in a targeted manner. You can set up campaigns, extract revenue reports, measure your success in comparison to the competitors, and assess the overall marketing trend with the advent of automation.  

Promote

Once you know the art of content creation and have the automation power at your disposal, the next thing you need is the right kind of promotional strategy. A piece of content is just an ordinary content until it hits the market at the right time and spot. An intelligent, insightful and strategic promotion funnel is what makes it reach it to the right eyeballs. Basics like cross-promotion, tagging the relevant people, optimizing the influencers should be your go-to.

Analytics

The last hit in the cycle is the analytics. It makes you listen to your audience and gives you a report of your content activities. However, looking at the right data is also important. Above the basic analysis, build your own custom reports and add dimensions that are relevant to you. Only in-depth monitoring can give you the right kind of metrics and reports. 

Primary Target: Value

Every experience that we encounter creates a value that can be shared. And the content is no different. In order to drive value from the audience, you need to first give value to and in your content when delivering experiences. 

2020 is only looking towards meaningful content and how much value can be derived out of it.

The search engines will not rank you higher for the keyword stuffing or the fluff content that you produce. 

Let’s understand the term ‘value’ by breaking it into context: 

Utility of the content

Content that aids the potential client in making a decision. When your content provides exactly what the audience needs to listen to or know about your brand, it helps them establish trust with your services or products. Publish your content with a certain level of authority and people will come back looking for more.   

Information 

Educate the user about your values, goals, mission and ultimately your services with your content. The aim of the content should be to teach the customers and potential customers how you can help them achieve their objectives. 

Entertain 

Amidst the utility and information-based content, keep the spark of fun alive. Try to design your content in a digestible manner that can interact with the audience in formats like gifs, videos, memes, and others. Indulge in the art of viral content that can create value on the global level and yet communicate your message at the end. 

5 Predictions on the way 

#1 CMSs will be content repositories

Currently, the content management systems act more like a publishing tool for the users and aid the distribution of the content. Experts predict that the CMSs will serve as content repositories in the near future. They will store the database in various formats of multimedia, text, graphics and more. 

With headless CMS the content is now available to any front-end system via API calls.   

#2 Extensible and Modular Content

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have given way to voice assistants like Alexa, Google Home, and other emerging voices. Being too recent in the content sphere, experts believe that most of the content will be absorbed via voice assistants by 2020. There’s already a growing dependency on them for consuming information like weather forecasts and sports news. These newer devices are doing away with the written format of content completely. 

#3 Better Content Creating Tools

What backs up the upcoming formats is the advent of new tools. There are efforts being made in the sphere to producing software that can further push the content to the next level. For instance, Thunder is an open source software based on Drupal 8. You can create thrilling multimedia content and access a wide range of additional functionality on the offer.

#4 Machine Learning & AI

The constant change in the content marketing world is being decoded by machine learning now. Artificial intelligence is deciphering how the user data can be optimized and more content can be generated. From chatbots to custom algorithms, you can almost predict the next trend in the industry. AI also increases lead scoring as it allows marketers to fast-track the sales process and convert them depending on their past behaviors and history.

It is truly an exciting time to be in the content industry!

#5 Context-aware Content 

The future will empower the audience with more autonomy on when and what type of content to consume. It will challenge the content creation process further but also narrow down the content for better. The creators will focus on designing for the opportunity of experience and this is how content-aware content management will take place. 

The customers will give insights for different platforms and interfaces that will lead to relevant content generation and managing a contextually aware content platform.

How to Prepare for the future?

Like every trend that alters and gets replaced, the content marketing strategies also change. We can only predict the direction in which the content can go and the path of evolution it might take, but we cannot determine the accurate courses of the future. 

Technology evolving in parallel with the content also plays a pivotal role in determining the future.  

The idea is to adapt to change and be ready to embrace any kind of transformation that technology or culture around the world can stir in your content. 

To get ahead of the competition, try exploring new dimensions of your business that can be presented in different content formats and tactics. 

The idea is to publish less and publish meaningful content that adds value to the already existing content out there on the internet. 

Concept of Evergreen Content

Any content that doesn’t lose its value over time is termed as evergreen content. It does not come with an expiration date and does not compete with the ‘temporal’ content that has short-term relevancy. 

Though both are important in the realm of content marketing, what generates lead and adds more value is the evergreen content. 

Emerging Technology and Content

Zenith’s Online Video Forecasts 2018 predicts that worldwide online video consumption is estimated to grow 9 minutes/day by the year 2020. 

Video has made remarkable progress in content marketing. It has sky-rocketed the analytics by huge margins when compared to text. With small bytes of stories produced with a simple and effective message at the end gives a lot for the user to take back home. For obvious reasons, visuals have a higher retention rate for the information shared and a strong call to action. 

Statistically, people spend 88% more time on a website that has video.  

Video serves as a powerful tool to grab eyeballs and hit the target audience. With a lot of streaming channels and platforms emerging, it seems to be a format that will remain in business for long. Even Google ranks websites with videos higher as compared to others.  

Conclusion

From a simple SMS to video sharing, indeed the content marketing has truly evolved in the last decade. The ever-changing habits of content consumption will see many more changes down the line. Improving your content and always revisiting your strategies in terms of relevancy is the key. 

Being a part of the content marketing game is like always being on the hook. You can either play it safe or embrace the change as it comes. 

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