3 CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS THAT YOU MUST KNOW IN 2018

Whether it was the beginning of the digital era in the 1990s or its booming period in 2018, the ‘content’ was and still is the king in the entire domain of digital marketing. 

According to the 2017 reports of Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs (CMI), more than 62% of B2B marketers state that their content marketing strategies are more effective than the previous year. Similarly, in the year 2016, 34% of marketers thinks the same compared to the 30% of them in the year 2015.

There are numbers of factors which contributes to the success of any digital marketing campaign such as Content creation, strategy development, content distribution, management etc. But most of the factors revolve around the term ‘content’ only.

Content is the main drive in the buyer’s journey. If you analyze as many marketing tactics you know, you will find that almost none of them could stand on their own without content.

No doubt that you are already overwhelmed with so many articles on this topic of ‘content marketing trends of 2018’. In fact, this massive abundance of stuff is not exclusive to content marketing as a topic.

The whole world is publishing content at a very great pace. This is what gets published in 1 minute…

Thus monitoring and anticipating these changes in the content trends and audience’s behaviors can help you to make or change your tactics and content marketing strategies to make your campaigns successful.

Here are some biggest content marketing trends that will rule in 2018:

# 1 MASSIVE CONTENT TO BE PUBLISHED THIS YEAR

The infographic above explains it all. According to the reports of CMI, there is not a single year when marketers did not create more content than the previous year. So how this massive content is going to help the marketers, publishers, and customers.

• Marketers: The greater amount of content implies a greater number of jobs that will be required to manage it. Thus, the widespread use of content analytics and other related software is expected.

• Content Creators: If the content marketing will be producing results, then there will be the need for more content but not for the just selling stuff only. In words of Neil Patel,” rather than producing content to boost customer’s acquisition only, you should try to help in every stage of buyer’s journey (basically includes after sales supportive content, FAQs, how to use guides etc.).

• Customers: The customer simply can’t digest this amount of information. So they will be looking for the ways to get rid of it. Like subscribing for more personalized content and blocking the fluffy and promotional content. Or using the filtering tools to avoid promotional and paid stuff.

• Fewer Engagements:  The recent analysis of BuzzSumo shows that greater the content gets published on a particular topic, the less engagement it receives. However, this does not apply to every niche, but still, you can’t expect high engagement rates if you don’t create some exceptional content.

     

 #2 Text-based content will continue to lose its charm 

If you are still thinking that hiring a cheap freelance writer will solve your most of content problems, then you are dead wrong. We are not saying that blogs are not useful anymore. But if you are doing only text-based content, it will be better for you to change your strategies right now.

Videos sessions, live videos to be specific, are going to be the most audience engaging marketing trend in 2018. Nowadays with evolving technology, there are new and various ways in which customer get the information. Like voice-based search devices such as Alexa, Google home, Siri etc. Don’t ignore them as well. Besides this, the growing popularity of images can’t be missed to promote your campaign. Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. provides various interactive tools for lead generation.

#3 Trust is the key ingredient.

‘Trust’ or ‘transparency’ whatever you may call it, the sales and marketing dies or lives on the basis of trust. And trust is very hard to form too. If your customers believe in you, then your many mistakes can be spared, but if you fail to win the trust of your customers then you cannot run a successful campaign even with the best content marketing practices.

There is the trust you build or burn by deciding to teach or sell to your customer through your content. Customers are getting worn out of even best-branded content, and we are not simply discussing the years that has been painted with a wide brush. Brands attempt to tie everything into "cause marketing," however vigilant customers are beginning to see this sort of promotions as edgy. A few users just feel the organization is being dishonest.

Then there is inherited trust by customers from other user-generated content (reviews, feedbacks, shared photo, word of recommendation etc.) 

That’s why many successful digital marketers know the value of trust especially when it comes from the mouth of the word. 

The massive increase in sales of Xiaomi phones in India is one best marketing example which shows the benefits you get over others when your customer becomes your promoter.

CONCLUSION

Well, the trend-talk is fun, however, we trust you're investing this time of year not simply hurling around trend talk and tasting lattes. You ought to talk about all these content marketing predictions and use them in your best content marketing campaigns. 

Having a written strategy is really one of the content marketing predictions some of our experts have made. What's more, we trust it's valid. As per one study, "Marketers who document strategy are 538% more prone to report success than the individuals who don't." 

So perhaps put down every one of these content trend articles and go write your content strategy for the year.

OVER TO YOU

So, what will be the biggest marketing trend of 2018 according to you? Please let us know in the comment section below: