There is no doubting the effectiveness of quality content in driving more clicks — regardless of what your niche is. Nonetheless, since 90% (demandmetrics dot com) of all organizations leverage content in their marketing efforts, producing engaging, just informative content is no longer sufficient to cut through the noise.
It is critical that you learn about what type of content you must create and what channel or what medium you must target to increase exposure and drive more clicks.
In 2020, as older trends taper off, and older marketing techniques are rendered ineffective (especially after COVID, the economy, and the riots) your success in marketing is contingent on leveraging current trends to push content to more users.
Here are seven content marketing trends you must watch out for in 2020.
#1. Podcasting
Image: Podcasting-Example.png
Image Source: https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/listen/
Podcasts have exploded in popularity in the past decade. As reported by Statista, the number of podcast listeners has almost tripled over the decade, and it is anticipated that the number of podcast listeners in the United States alone will rise to 132 million by 2022!
With more and more listeners tuning into podcasts across niches every day, it is crucial that you begin to leverage podcasts to expand your reach exponentially. Digital marketing podcasts are gaining momentum and a lot of experts are sharing their practical tactics to help online companies.
Creating a podcast is of prime importance if your industry demands it. Even if there are already big players in your niche or no podcasts are covering your niche at all—you must put up an informational podcast episode regularly.
Similar to blogging, consistency is key to thriving in the podcasting space.
It is also crucial that you create a podcast intentionally. Creating a podcast only for the sake of marketing isn’t going to be effective. You’ll lose traction and plateau at times, and only being passionate about your niche will keep you going.
Lastly, sticking to a particular facet of your niche is essential—since switching subjects will confuse your listeners regarding your area of expertise.
Opined Brendan Hufford of 100 Days of SEO.
#2. User-Generated Content
Image: User-Generated-content-example.png
Image Source: https://www.canva.com/
User-generated content is content created and published by unpaid contributors.
Typically, these contributors are fans that promote a brand based on their own experience with it. The brand does not promote itself. You can find user-generated content on social media, blogs, and forums as comments, images, or testimonials.
One good example of marketing using user-generated content is Coca Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign. Users would find a Coke with their name on it and share a picture of it on social media.
Although it may not seem like a huge deal, you must realize that with this campaign, the company managed to create a source of free viral content for the brand—since people were essentially showing off images with their drink.
You can leverage user-generated content from the ratings, reviews, and comments from e-commerce sites, blog posts, and social media depending on what suits your business model and niche best.
Over 90% of consumers trust the recommendation of another person, even someone they don’t know, over branded content—which is why you must find ways to leverage user-generated content.
Opined Brent Trotter of Clique Studios.
#3. Voice-Activated Content
With the adoption of smart devices proliferating, there is an upsurge in demand for content optimized for voice-activated devices. Voice-activated content opens up a wealth of opportunities for you to intervene and leverage the newly popular platform.
Many marketers are only now starting to realize the potential for profits of this trend, it is vital that you begin curating voice-optimized content right away, while you still have the upper hand. There is only one thing you must discern to make the most out of the opportunity you have now.
You must understand the nuances between how users search for content when they type and when they speak.
Gaining mastery over these subtle differences will enable you to craft better headlines and focus on including specific long-tail keywords in your content.
Although voice-optimized content must be informative and engaging (just like blog content), the style of writing must be much simpler.
Analyzing patterns and trends in voice searches—similar to what you practice when looking for keywords and content in demand—can potentially amplify your exposure.
#4. Chatbots
Image: Chatbots-example.png
Image Source: https://www.intercom.com/customizable-bots
Introducing a chatbot to your site has a range of benefits—which is why you will notice a surge in its adoption.
By setting up a chatbot on your site, you can engage your visitors in conversation. Hooking in your visitors in this way enables you to
- learn more about their persona,
- understand their intents and goals when they visit your site, and
- analyze their specific needs.
Asking visitors to fill in a form is now a dated marketing tactic and is largely considered tedious. A chatbot is a sophisticated tool that enables you to accomplish all the same objectives faster, all while keeping your visitor engaged in stimulating conversation.
Conversational marketing, in the form of a chatbot, also minimizes the downtime throughout your relationship with the visitor. This increase in efficiency, in turn, allows you to achieve the following:
- Minimize the time needed to learn about your target audience
- Minimize gaps between engagements
- Minimize the time and effort needed on the visitor’s end
- Minimize costs (since you don’t need to hire anybody)
Chatbots minimize costs, time, and effort required to understand the goals and intentions of your visitors.
They are so effective because, unlike when using forms, a chatbot makes the user feel as if they’re being treated as an individual.
Opined Daniel Cooper of Lolly.co.
#5. Augmented Reality
While AR content is an entirely new form of content, it opens up scores of opportunities for you to use it to revivify your content marketing campaign.
Companies like Starbucks, Facebook, Google, Sephora, Ikea, Apple, and Microsoft are already putting the new technology to good use.
Ikea launched Ikea Place—an AR application that improves the customer’s shopping experience by showing them exactly how a product will look and fit in their room.
Image: Augmented-Reality-Ikea-Place.png
Image Source: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/
On the other hand, Sephora has an AR-supported app that enables customers to try on eyelashes, lipsticks, eye shadows, and all kinds of other beauty products without needing to purchase them first.
AR still remains to be a largely untapped avenue for marketing, with only mainstream companies diving in headfirst.
Regardless if you blog, run an e-commerce store, or market products for others, you must remember that the only lapse in AR marketing is currently on the marketers’ end.
Almost all devices on the market are AR-ready, and adaptation to it is only increasing. With only a few companies leveraging it to market products, altering your content marketing strategy to involve AR can help drive more traffic and sales.
Opined Isaac Hammelburger of SearchPros.co.
#6. Video and Live-Stream Content
Image: Live-stream-content.png
The modern customer increasingly expects to receive video content from their favorite brand. Video content also tends to keep users engaged for a longer time than written content.
Posting videos on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, LinkedIn, and your own website is a great way of engaging customers for longer periods. While you do have their attention, marketing products and services shouldn’t be too difficult anymore.
On the other hand, you can upload short videos on platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram and supply snack-sized content with high potential to go viral.
You can also leverage these platforms to create user-generated content. Sending your products to reviewers and having them create a video is an excellent tactic that almost always brings in more customers.
You can also leverage live-streaming platforms in your content marketing campaign. Now, more consumers prefer to watch long-form video streams than read a blog post.
Holding Q&A sessions, webinars, product demos, or interviews are some of the best ways to create engaging long-form content.
Regardless of what platform or video style you decide to leverage, remember that more exposure translates to more sales.
Opined James Norquay – Content Marketing Director Prosperity Media.
#7. Google Snippets
About 62.5% of Google searches on mobile now end without a click.
Ever since Google (and other search engines) introduced the SERP snippet that has featured content, users tend not to click on links since they’ve already found what they were searching for.
If you want your web page to stand out from the competition and be featured in the snippet, you must create content that stands out.
Image: Google-Snippets.png
Users now know that using long-tail keywords will almost always cause Google to answer their questions in the form of the snippet. Therefore, you must focus on creating solution-focused, long-form content that can answer the audience’s questions.
Targeting “How do I…” questions in your niche is one of the easiest ways to get your content featured on the snippet. Also, you must make sure that your content is straightforward and that you’re not rambling. If you must choose between straightforwardness and cleverness, always go the straightforward route.
Another important characteristic of quality content is that it attracts both “no-click” and “click-happy” users. If you write engaging content, there’s a good chance that you will drive more clicks.
Regardless of which trend you decide to hop on and take advantage of, you must remember that analytics is just as important as the content in content marketing.
You must aim to deliver content on the basis of your analysis of search intent. Furnishing quality content that’s already in demand will help you drive more clicks to your site, which will translate to more sales.
Charu Mitra Dubey
Charu Mitra Dubey is a freelance writer specializing in marketing, startups, and entrepreneurship. She writes for several publications and at the same time work with startups on their content marketing strategies. She is the founder of CharuDubey.com, where she blogs about marketing and freelancing.
