Content Marketing Trends You Need to Know to Be Successful in 2015
Consider what is trending in content marketing before developing your strategy to avoid wasting time and money.
Content marketing is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website. However, without a strategy in place, your business will not achieve the desired ROI.
Only 35 percent of marketers surveyed said their company had a documented content marketing strategy, according to theContent Marketing Institute’s October 2014 B2B Content Marketing 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report.
Consider what is trending in content marketing before developing your strategy to avoid wasting time and money. Here are the five content marketing trends to follow in 2015:
1. Creating more content.
The Content Marketing Institute found 70 percent of B2B marketers surveyed are creating more content than a year ago.
How can you create more content without reinventing the wheel? Repurpose current content for different channels.
Did you recently feature a Q&A on your blog? Record a short video with the interviewee for a behind-the-scenes look. Have you launched a new product? Use apps like Periscope and Meerkat to livestream how the product works. Was one of your blog posts super successful? Write a whitepaper that digs deeper into the topic.
2. Spending more on content marketing.
The Content Marketing Institute discovered 55 percent of B2B marketers surveyed anticipate spending more money on content marketing this year.
Content marketing receives 28 percent of a company’s marketing budget, according to the marketers surveyed by Content Marketing Institute. Decide what you want to accomplish and determine if you can handle the workload in-house or need to hire a consultant (or two).
Would it be cheaper to handle the work in-house or outsource it? Do you have the expertise to complete the work in-house, or would you have to hire? Would it make more sense from a time commitment perspective to outsource the work? These are just some of the considerations when approaching your content marketing budget.
3. Designing better visual content.
No one is going to read your well-written content unless you include an eye-catching image. Think of the posts you see on your Facebook newsfeed. They capture your attention largely because of the visual.
Don’t skimp on the time you spend creating visuals to accompany your written work, and create different images for each social platform.
On Instagram, give your viewers a behind-the-scenes look at your company. On Facebook, create images that encourage fans to answer questions like, “How does our product help make your day easier?” Or, ask them to send pictures of themselves using your product.
Design and edit your images as part of a consistent business brand. This helps readers identify your content no matter where they see your image online.
4. Storytelling builds trust.
Instead of briefly discussing a problem and how your company’s product solves it, storytelling creates trust with the reader by providing specific, real-life examples.
Use actual customer stories. While your business may understand common problems customers have, only a customer can accurately describe how they feel your business helped solve their issues.
Ask one of your success stories if they are willing to be featured on your website. Either write a blog post as an interview or write a case study to give readers your customer’s authentic experience using your product.
Don’t forget to ask for a testimonial! Testimonials that say, “After seven months of trying to keep track of my employees’ timesheets, Company XYZ’s easy-to-use app allowed me to cut the amount of time I spend on payroll each week in half” will do a better job of building trust than anything you could ever write about your own product.
5. Personalizing and targeting content to all your audiences.
Track visitors’ actions when they visit your website and use their behaviors to create content they want.
Develop a loyal brand following by posting content that keeps customers coming back to your website after they’ve made a purchase. Include ways for the reader to stay updated on your latest content by offering subscriptions to your blog and eNewsletters. Host webinars and provide demos to demonstrate how to get the most out of the product your customer purchased.
Content that attracts non-customers to your website is also necessary. Write blog posts about the problems your product solves. Include checklists so readers can easily scan and share your helpful information.
What other content marketing trends do you anticipate being successful in 2015?
