When Amazon first started selling books, no one had any inkling that the entire world of publishing would be flipped like a pancake thanks to eBooks. However, thanks to their insight into what their online site could do in terms of marketing eBooks, Amazon joined forces with Microsoft in 2000 to revolutionize reading. The rest of the publishing world is still trying to play catch-up. Translate that marketing success into website writers producing content. While blogs, videos, and infographics are all the rage for 2015, what will 2020, or even 2025 look like?
Content Becomes a Conversation
The days of door-to-door salesmen are fastly fading as doors get slammed and “no soliciting” signs stare back at them. People no longer want to feel like someone is marketing to them. Content marketing is moving in that direction. Rather than having websites blatantly selling their products or services, users will expect to literally converse with the content. What the heck? According to Fast Company, “the majority of content will be user generated instead of branded.”
As a writer and marketer, this is a chilling prospect. After all, it takes control away from companies. Yet it will be those companies that loosen the reins of content control, which in turn allows their content to become a conversation. There are tricks to making this work in the business’s favor.
- Companies Create Positive Vibes
Getting the consumers to communicate in a positive manner will take some tact. The first thing companies have to do is create a solid foundation of set values and goals. These must be transparent for the consumers to digest and decide whether or not they are supportive of the company’s foundation.
Consumers who connect on this deeper level are going to develop a strong attachment and be supportive. This is the goal for a business that is going to depend on conversational content coming from the consumers themselves. Things like the Dieselgate are a promise of things to come as businesses that are shady will get the boot. People are not going to blindly follow businesses like sheep. Instead they are going to read between the lines and show their dissent through consumer-centric marketing efforts, which can make or break a business.
- Tech Tidbits
Some of the more technical changes marketers can look forward to include:
- The wholehearted use of virtual reality on websites
- Interconnectivity on every level from using smartphones, wearables, lights and glasses to explore web content
- Online news sources producing content that is custom-fitted to a particular audience, i.e. Vice
- The disregard of all things social, as social media will become completely ingrained in marketing campaigns
For content marketers of the future, the challenge will be in creating more personalized content incorporating open-ended conversations with consumers. We can already see a snip of this with review sites like Yelp where user reviews are challenging or supporting brands. For businesses this is a cost effective way to gain content, but they have to be completely transparent for it to work in their benefit.
Miranda B loves all things dystopian and has been a future problem solver since the 5th grade.
