Content marketing grew significantly in the last years, and sometimes it seems that nearly everything has been done already. Do we Marketers have to reinvent ourselves for 2019? Content is supposed to surprise and engage new audiences in new ways, better ways.
What will be the new trends in content marketing for the coming year and how can we make the most out of it?
2019 will be the year of continuous testing and trying new approaches. Marketers will need to keep on focussing on their target personas and make sure to not disappear within the vast quantities of content out there. You still have to SEO optimize your content and make sure you are targeting the right family of keywords in every piece, ensure that you are
not spamming or keyword stuffing. Duplicated content or feed content imported from product feeds will not work in 2019. Also, small modifications or changing the order of content will only have adverse effects on your content marketing campaign.
Content Marketing Trend #1: Innovation
One of the critical aspects of your content strategy in 2019 should be innovation. Think about what new ways and ideas can make your content stand out from the competitions? What new format will make your content especially attractive?
So we are not just talking about the great articles you’ll write in 2019, it’s about the content to promote these materials. New formats, animations, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, Live Streams. There’s so much going on right now. 2019 is the year to get started with these new formats and adapt business strategies accordingly.
Examples: Daily updates published on Instagram Stories etc.
Build, test, repeat and optimize is the way to go! This innovation within your content activities will have an initial cost but it might be worth it at exceptional content will generate the engagement you need to promote your brand.
How brands should react: Implement new channels. Think about hiring an influencer or dedicated person to actively document (live and in public) the activities of the business or brand according to your brand guidelines. Test new channels and plan long-term – don’t abandon after a few months.
Content Marketing Trend #2: B2B Content Marketing
B2B Content Marketing will continue to improve and increase in 2019. What was once a more B2C dominant approach to marketing has grown to full channel that steadily developed during 2017. Sure, each professional business needs a Blog nowadays, but this is more, we are talking about serious efforts to deliver value to potential customers and spread a confident, influential voice throughout the community. One article for a particular matter is only a small piece of a whole set of content used to engage, promote and more importantly to tell a story.
Example for new formats: The Webinar could be a Live Stream.
Why not set up a Live Stream instead of a Webinar?
Content Marketing Trend #3: Content Marketing Budgets increase, but the quality does not.
As everybody is jumping on the content train in recent years and with many proven success stories that content can make the difference for the business if done well and with a long-term strategy in mind, content marketing will continue to grow, especially in B2B. One problem is, that many companies are overcomplicating things by either being too technical, too specific and not focussed on the target audience and the other big issue is just quality.
Firms who are only focusing on ROI, CPA and Return on every dollar in their Marketing budget are often the types of companies who will not stick with content strategies in the long term, lose interest or “not see the value” and drop out.
If the quality of your content is low, there will be no content marketing success, neither short nor lon.g-term. Businesses need to understand that higher budgets need to be spent correctly, they also need to make sure they invest enough to be able to produce all the content they need. So what could be the upcoming content types for 2019? Which are the channels and platforms your business can use to kick ass in 2019?
– Instagram Stories
– LinkedIn Videos
– Facebook Live Streams
– Facebook Videos
– eBooks
– Case Studies
– Influencers / Sponsorships
– Social Media Account Takeovers
Content Marketing Trend #4: Videos are more important than ever!
Videos are the most ambitious and maybe most difficult content to create, but video content can also be the most engaging, entertaining and “convincing.” Videos are easy to consume, they impact different senses “Listen, See, Hear,” and if done well they can leave a long-lasting impression or deliver a message in a way no other medium can.
For businesses, this means they might want to hire a person dedicated to video production and choose video as one of their forms of communication or documentation of the companies activities. Videos allow you to get a message across quickly, and many users have access to smartphones now, which is one of the factors why online videos are growing at such a rate.
You can combine videos with content and release edited transcripts as articles to get the most out of the videos, and they will help you to increase engagement on your social media channels. Advertising Videos is a lot cheaper than conventional ads as there’s still a low competition. Facebook has added features to its advertising tools that allow you to create videos from photos,(which is not a high-quality content video btw) which can be the first step towards advertising with videos on Facebook for example.
Content Marketing Trend #5: Interactive content
Interactive content is becoming more and more interesting as technology is improving. It might be that interactive email you’ll send during 2019 or that interactive Lead Generation page which allows you to determine precisely the needs of a customer before even getting in touch with him directly.
Interactive content will be more important as users engage with the brand and create a specific relationship which is very important. According to the CMI Report on Interactive Content, 79% of the marketers plan to increase their usage of interactive content over the next year.
With increasing content budgets and the increase of static content, people demand interactive content, and we can see more of that already on many of the big media sites by including interactive elements to their blog posts (like polls, questions, quizzes). I am sure that during 2019 interactive content will be more critical and I am keen to see more of it.
Content Marketing Trend #6: Testing new ways of content distribution
To get your highly valuable content in front of the right audience (your target audience), you have to distribute it. Make sure you or your brand dedicates enough resources to the distribution process. There are many ways to promote content without spending vast amounts of ad dollars, but maybe you want to boost that specific piece your team was working on for so long. Some businesses seem to have great success with platforms like Taboola to promote their articles, but these probably will become less effective during 2019 if no improvements and spam prevention happen. To be honest, there are so many BS contents out there that get promoted with the likes of Taboola, and I doubt that users still believe headlines like “Millionaires in Spain want us to delete this article: How the mother of 2 makes 900$ a day.”
I think in 2019 we’ll all look for new ways of content distribution, especially with the ongoing shift towards mobile we might want to rethink our approaches to distribute content and think about more modern ways like Push Notifications to promote articles. Also, micro influencers and relations with specific people will be more important to make sure your content reaches the right people.
What is your Content Marketing Trend #1 for 2019? Answer in the comments!
– Innovation
– Higher Budgets
– B2B Content Marketing growth
– More Video
– Interactive Content
– New ways of distribution
