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Seth Godin says that content marketing is ”the only marketing left.” Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. It is authentic, useful, and perfectly suited for the internet. People on the web search for relevant information, and content marketing provides just that.
In today’s society, people are annoyed with advertisements. Business are struggling to get their messages noticed because they don’t want to be associated as a nuisance in consumers’ minds. A study conducted by the Custom Content Council showed that more than 70 percent of users preferred to get their information from articles rather than from corporate advertisements. Now, a large number of business are relying on content marketing to reach their target audience.
Consumers
Today’s consumers rely on the best information, but they are quick to resist a “hard sell.” Most of us research a product or a brand before making a decision – whether it’s for a car, clothing, or even toiletries.
People are looking for good content that will help them make the best decisions – without being sold. Traditional advertising is dying because consumers aren’t responding to it. This is true for B2B and B2C customers. A Roper Survey of business decision makers learned that 70% of people think content makes them feel closer to the company and 60% say content helps them feel better with their purchases.
Search Engines
Consumers search online for the answers they need. If Google can showcase your content, you have a bigger chance to gain more customers.
Search engines, like Google, are constantly changing their algorithms. Now, Google is rewarding quality content and punishing those with poor quality. Google also rewards those with up-to-date content. This is why it is essential to produce new and original content regularly.
Google can punish you if it deems your content as “spammy” or overly optimized. One example of over optimization is keyword stuffing. This is when someone uses the same keyword too often in an article, and it adds no value. Basically, if your sentences sound awkward and repetitive when you read them aloud, Google will probably think so, too. Always write for the reader, and then read it over to check for keywords. This way your content will be user-friendly and SEO-friendly.
Business
Effective content marketing can help your business build customer relationships. You are able to showcase your subject-matter knowledge and gain consumers’ trust. Producing more unique content allows you to also build your brand in the process. You will gain a higher reputation.
Great content can draw traffic to your website and social media, give you higher rankings on search engines, and give audiences the opportunity to share your content with others. Company websites that contain blogs attract more inbound links and more visitors.
Content marketing is beneficial to pretty much everyone you are trying to reach as a marketer, but it is also essential for your business’ brand. Strategies are constantly changing, but content will always be relevant. The only thing that will change is the way content is produced and the way people will access it. Here’s what you can expect for this year:
Content Trends for 2017
Mobile
Google says 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site if they have trouble accessing it, and 40% of those people will visit a competitor’s site instead. Mobile-friendly content isn’t an option anymore – it’s a necessity. With users accessing information on mobile devices, text should be short, to the point, and engaging. Videos and photos also need to be able to perform well on mobile phones.
Influencer Marketing
84% of consumers say that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, so getting someone your consumers are familiar with to showcase your brand is a great tactic for creating new, engaging content that they’ll respond to. When consumers see someone showing off your brand, it will feel more authentic to them than an advertisement.
Personalization
Even though you have a target audience, every consumer is different. They have different preferences and fall into different demographics. Users can find exactly what they are looking for because there is so much content available to them. With all this content out there, you need to find a way to stand out. By putting a segmentation strategy into place, users can easily find highly relevant and personalized content.
Interactive
Marketing professionals were surveyed by the Content Marketing Institute. Their studies found that 75% said they anticipated that their company would increase their use of interactive content marketing in 2017 and the years to follow. Interactive content adds more value to the user experience and more opportunities for consumer engagement.
Virtual Reality
Some companies have already started to use VR to showcase their products with experiences that consumers will remember. This can be a powerful, yet expensive, tool. This probably won’t be useful for small to medium-size businesses within the next year, but it eventually can be if this technology progresses and becomes cheaper.
Social Media Commerce
When social media grew, brands flocked to social media and found a new way to do business online. When brands and customers began using social media outlets for e-commerce transactions, social commerce emerged. According to Statista, spending on social media platforms will equate to around $17.43 billion by 2019.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, the biggest challenge that companies are facing to try out content marketing is lack of time and opportunities to produce enough content. Digital Marketing Sapiens is an internet marketing company in San Antonio that provides content marketing for companies of all sizes. For more information, visit www.DMSapiens.com.
