Upping the content marketing game in 2022. Ten predictions for the year ahead
By Cara van Rhyn, planner at Eleven Miles.
As the New Year begins, it’s clear to see that brand investment in content isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Last year, marketers saw a 43% increase in content budgets and 66% are preparing for it to rise again. In order to stand out from competitors, brands are having to work harder, invest more, and up their production game. This has led to a quality over quantity approach for many businesses.
In 2021, we saw more briefs that married high quality production and data-driven insights as brands became more savvy with regard to what works for their audiences beyond clicks and views. In 2022, this trend will continue to grow as data becomes a key driver for quality content. Here are 10 predictions for content marketing over the next 12 months.
1. An increase in data-driven content
In today’s world of marketing, there are countless ways to track and measure performance, so it’s vital that marketers adjust their content strategies accordingly. Updated performance insights can now be gleaned at any time, not just annually or quarterly, so it’s critical that people, processes and tools are put in place to act on this data throughout the year.
2. A rising demand for trustworthy content
Advancements in technology have led to an influx of content - both reliable and unreliable. Therefore, in order to build a strong relationship with your customers, it’s never been more important to be seen as a trusted source of information. By ensuring that your content is authentic, personal and honest you can maintain and grow your audience.
3. Video-first strategies
Video content has consistently ranked high in terms of audience engagement, but now might be the time to really put it at the forefront of your marketing strategy. According to HubSpot, 76% of marketers already consider video to be their most effective form of content. Short-form videos are leading the way as competition for our attention spans increases. Instead of creating videos as part of a wider strategy, brands are now looking at creating video first and then finding ways to repurpose it in other forms like audio or text.
4. Dynamic, visual storytelling
Visualised information has already proven to be easier to understand than written content. The visuals that work in tandem with your content need to be as compelling as possible and we’re seeing a spike in augmented reality playing a role. AR tools like virtual try-ons are a fun and engaging way for your customers to interact with your brand.
5. Engaging and interactive content
Interactive content is growing exponentially and can be utilised at all phases of the customer journey. Tools like polls and interactive quizzes are already seen as fun new ways to connect to your customers on social media, but they can also provide you with real-time insights about your audience.
6. Optimising content for voice search
Younger generations are quickly adopting the voice search capabilities of products like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and the Google Assistant. According to PwC, 65% of people aged 25-49 speak to their voice-enabled devices at least once a day. This, in turn, is changing the way we search online. Rather than searching for, ‘The top 10 content predictions’, searches are increasingly being asked in question format as, ‘Hey Google, what are the top 10 predictions for content?’. This shift in how we search is important to bear in mind when considering SEO.
7. Harnessing the capabilities of AI
Making the most of AI marketing tools can lead to better marketing strategies, save time and resources and improve customer results. This year, we’ll see more experimentation with AI capabilities such as improved spelling checks, blog optimisation, integration of chatbots, data analysis and more.
8. Educational and business focused podcasts
Podcasts have been growing in popularity for some time, but brands and businesses are starting to harness the innovation they offer to improve their content marketing strategy. Podcasts are a great platform to offer detailed and topical information to customers, creating potential to enhance content marketing tactics. While still a fairly new form of content for brands, 80% of marketers in a HubSpot survey say they will be increasing the budget for podcasts and audio this year.
9. Personalisation continues to be key
Thanks to the previously mentioned rise in data-driven content, businesses can now more easily target their audience based on the growing information they have. Hence, it’s essential to obtain the relevant information that can help you understand customers’ key requirements. Personalisation can help your business to generate higher engagement and conversion rates.
10. A shift to more empathetic marketing
Recent world events have forced marketers to take a different approach, putting their customers at the heart of their content marketing strategies and going from there. Empathetic marketing is based on first visualising the world through the eyes of your consumer and using those insights to create a content strategy that answers their wants and needs directly.
Sources:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/content-marketing-trends-2022/428673/#close