Well, it’s another new year, and at the top of everyone’s list of resolutions is supercharging their content marketing strategy. 2015 promises to be a great year for content, both for SMB’s and for providers.
According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends, 69% of businesses are producing more content than they were just a year ago, and 59% plan to increase their content marketing budget in the coming year. Yet many organizations are still struggling to find their way, unsure of which content works best for them, doing a poor job of measuring the effectiveness of their marketing, and searching for the best places to hire copywriters, bloggers, and other content providers. Content marketing is still a mostly undiscovered country, which makes this an exciting time to be in on the exploration.
As always, there’s no lack of those who have gazed into their crystal balls, rolled their bones on the ground, or gazed into the entrails of some poor small animal, to foretell what’s in store for content marketing this year. Here are five prophesied content trends for 2015.
- Social media will become an even more important vehicle for content distribution. Just when you thought social media couldn’t be more used as a marketing tool, this year promises even more emphasis, especially on paid advertising, promoted posts, and new social platforms. Yes, even more ways to waste your time, unless you’re a marketer, of course.
- Personalized content will increase. Designing content based on individual preferences, location, time online, and devices used increases engagement, and will give an advantage to those embracing this underused strategy. It’s still a complicated process and requires a significant investment of resources, but look for new automated solutions to appear on the scene.
- Hyperlocal content will be more in demand. For those unfamiliar with the term, hyperlocal simply means content written by someone who lives in the general vicinity of the business being marketed. Think restaurants, car dealerships, plumbers, etc. looking for local talent to write their stuff. It makes sense, and Google likes it too.
- Multimedia content will be all the rage. Ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but with the ease of creating videos, podcasts, photographic content and infographics, and their proven effectiveness, multimedia is definitely trending upward this year.
- Content marketing measurement software is coming to the rescue! One of the biggest problems businesses report with their content marketing strategy is measuring how it’s working for them. Only 21% of respondents to the Content Marketing Institute’s aforementioned study report success at tracking results, and another 15% don’t even bother trying. Obviously that’s a major problem, so look for software developers to step up to the plate with new solutions in 2015.
Bob P is an expatriate Hoosier currently living in the wilds of Appalachia. He enjoys books and reading, hunting and fishing, wildflowers, and finely crafted brews like Blatz, Old Milwaukee and PBR. Sometimes all at the same time. He’s available to write content for a small monetary consideration. Or a chicken.
