There is nothing called stagnation in content marketing. Individuals, brands and marketers either fall behind or drive ahead. It all depends upon getting hold of the latest trends and adapting smartly to them in time. Significant developments in content marketing bring new challenges and limitless possibilities ahead.
What is Content Marketing?
The meaning of digital marketing terms stretch until it breaks into two. Thanks to the dynamism of the web world! Until recently, content strategy and content marketing could be used interchangeably.
It is no more so!
These two areas have now diverged in their meaning and practice, though they remain complementary.
Let’s see what content marketing means in 2023.
In simplest terms;
content marketing is the creation, publication, and distribution of reliable and valuable content. Selling is not its direct, but ultimate aim.
It is geared towards educating and informing consumers. So, its immediate purpose is to attract organic traffic by spreading transparent and honest information through different channels.
Why content marketing agency would require new strategies in 2023?
Content marketing strategy is the homework that a content marketing agency does before setting out for content creation. It is intended to drive product and service sales. Basically, it revolves around the following questions:
- For what is the content to be created?
- What should be the different marketing mediums and channels used?
- What should be the content types?
- Where the content should be published and distributed?
- How should the informational and promotional content be linked and integrated?
Content strategists would have to adjust to new realities in 2023 depending upon where they stood in 2022. Technological improvements, fiercer competition, and changing content consumption trends are the main reasons for it. In fact, these three factors feed into each other, demanding greater creativity from content marketers.
Before we delve into the technical details, let’s take an overview of how the content marketing environment has changed.
- Firstly, the web world has become dominantly visual. To be precise, the importance of video content is rising swiftly.
- Secondly, technological developments have changed the way people search information, products and services. Content consumption preferences and overall user attitudes have also changed.
- Thirdly, Data is revolutionizing everything around us. Content marketing is not untouched by these massive changes.
So here’s the list of top 5 content marketing trends for 2023.
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Writing that is Easily Digestible
Content Writing has evolved. Partly owing to the changes in consumer attitudes, and partly to the competition from other content forms.
Nevertheless, blog posts remain the most popular marketing channels.
Each leading content writing company in Delhi is set to focus on:
- Facilitating user experience: As more users are shifting to mobile phones, content that is easy to consume on a smaller screen boosts organic traffic. This can be achieved by:
- Use of short paragraphs.
- Use of sizeable proportion of short sentences.
- Breaking down the article with headings and sub-headings.
- Engaging and Informative Content: A blog post dryly stuffed with information will not help. It should be written in an engaging and friendly style. The written content should interest the reader down to the very end or ‘the call to action’ part. This becomes all the more important as we are gradually entering into the age of long-form content.
- Images and Infographics: Visuals grab 90% of reader’s attention on screen. Text supported by infographics increases the retention rate by 50%. Infographics added merely for the sake could work negatively. They should help the text in a natural way. They can be used to highlight certain points, summarize information, demonstrate comparisons, explain processes and present data, etc.Images contribute to the visual appeal of the text and help its meaning and feel.
https://infograph.venngage.com/ps/BclJnjUr8NE/content-marketing-statistics
- User Intent-based Content: There are 4 types of searches that users make. Informational, navigational, investigational and transactional. Google directs the search results depending upon the type of search made. Ideally, textual content should take into account each type of query. Every reliable content writing company in Delhi is fine-tuning its content strategy for user intent-based content. Read Content Writing Tips.
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Videos, Livestreaming and AR-backed Videos are Transforming the Content Marketing Landscape
To say that visual medium is transforming the digital marketing world would be a slight understatement. Much of it has already undergone a radical makeover. However, it is still not late to catch-up! Let’s take a closer look.
- Videos: Videos have become a norm in content strategy. They offer maximum audience engagement time amongst different content types. 80% of audiences would prefer video over blog post if they convey the same information.
Informational videos from experts and educational videos from leaders can boost content marketing efforts. However, it is the video reviews from customers that can do wonders. The trend of publishing videos on platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn is gaining momentum. Snapchat and Tik-tok videos can also be creatively integrated into online marketing strategies.
- Livestreaming: This is soon to become a norm. Audiences prefer live-videos amongst all varieties of video content. Over the last 3 years, there has been a 60% increase in live-video consumption time across the globe. It will rise further as better technologies hit the markets. The benefits of live-streaming in marketing strategy are multi-dimensional.
- Many Content Forms: Live videos can take several forms. Webinars, interviews and Q&A sessions can provide insights to audiences. Behind-the-scenes videos evoke intrigue and interest. Demos of latest products can be really impactful.
- Ready-made Video Content: Recordings of live-streamed videos can be edited and added to the video content repository.
- Audio of the live-streamed video can serve as a by-product for marketing.
- AR-backed Visuals: Use of Augmented Reality is gradually gaining a foothold.
AR allows users a taste of the real world from their mobile phones. It induces a fresh and emotional touch to marketing, backed by a bit of surprise. It is projected to be the next big thing in the user/customer engagement. It has the potential to lead the information seekers towards sales and customers towards brand loyalty quicker than any medium. Those with mobile-centric marketing strategies can benefit immensely from it. It is a relatively untapped medium, and thus the possibilities are endless. These uses of AR are sure to impact marketing in 2020.
- Virtual Tours
- Dynamic Sales Presentation for B2B
- Virtual Assistance
- Product Demos
- Branding materials augmentation
- Try before you Buy
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Let Data drive Marketing Strategy
Underestimating the utility of Data in deciding content strategy would be risky. Data-driven mentality has to become an essential attribute of content marketers in 2020.
Data-driven insights can be crucial in understanding trending topics, audience preferences, competing influencers and user attitudes. Data brings greater accuracy into marketing content by taking out marketer’s intuition and replacing it with consumer expectations.
User expectations, audience preferences and consumer behaviors change rapidly. Data ensures their continuous tracking. This means higher value and relevant content for a targeted audience that ensures engagement. Choosing the relevant Data metrics is more important now. Integrating the Data insights into content strategy is now essential to design user-centric market campaigns.
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Conversational Marketing has Grown
This is a step ahead of Data-driven hints regarding ‘knowing the audience’. Conversational marketing is about real engagement with the audience. Email marketing and Facebook conversation marketing are now conventional. The most important development is that Chatbots are gradually replacing live humans in terms of engagement.
Technologies driven by Artificial Intelligence are revolutionizing the content marketing space. AI-driven Chatbots and virtual assistants have already beaten humans on friendliness parameters. AI companies are working hard towards infusing greater depth and variations to conversational experience.
To make the most out of AI-driven technologies in 2020, marketers will have to focus on:
- Creating scripts that carry the brand voice, quality information and great conversational flow.
- Stronger Chatbot library of data.
- Real-time simulation of conversations.
- Greater integration of Chatbot with content.
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Dynamic and Personalized Content is going to Next Level
People are increasingly looking for personalized experience. Dynamic content means that all users are not presented with the same set of content. Instead, they see and receive content that is relevant for them depending upon their needs and interests.
Dynamic content tools will become more complex but more productive for content marketers in 2020. Their influence will deepen and expand throughout the marketing channels. This will lead towards the automation of content development and delivery of high-quality content for each individual content consumer.
Dynamic content is not just about delivering the information that the consumer wants. It is about encouraging and persuading consumers to take the next step towards becoming a buyer!
Content marketing can be highly challenging but equally rewarding this year
These are just the 5 major trends that will shape online marketing in 2023. By no means is the list exhaustive! Closely related to these trends is the use of voice search optimization which marketers are still adapting to. Micro-moments visuals can make a huge difference too. Designing content that speaks in a distinct brand voice could also help in outdoing the competitors.
However, paying heed to these developments would be a sure pathway to online marketing success in 2020.
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