2018 will be a landmark year for content marketing. There are some coming developments that will make the industry literally look different from people.
With consumers becoming more experienced and more informed, agencies and professionals will have to dig deep into their bank of ideas to continue to keep relevant with customers.
Companies that are better able to take advantage of these trends will have a huge advantage over their competitors.
Native Ads
Native advertising is really a concept that some marketers simply do not understand much yet. If it is well done, it is basically impossible to detect it. Native advertising occurs when a brand has something on a platform, and something is being used to market products and services.
To put this into perspective, it is often an article about a problem or solution update for the industry. People do not immediately think it’s an advertisement. But, perhaps, you will detect some of the brand’s voice here and there. Or you can give a mere highlight in the mark in some corner.
(Image credit: https://www.emarketer.com/Article/eMarketer-Unveils-Estimates-Native-Ad-Spending/1015457)
The general idea is that native advertising shows experience and observation, and this is what attracts the public. Then, as the audience navigates through the content, the brand puts itself in advance as a problem solver. Native advertising can be done by almost all brands that want to build contextual link.
This is where the brand runs on a piece of content and then call to action, somewhere in the piece, to its content hubs, such as a website, or directly to the product or service.
The Live is Growing
Live video is officially the best (or at least more popular) than on-demand. Technology is also making it easier to create and access. Now you can and should do the live stream very easily with a smartphone, with high-quality levels. Live video streams will explode in 2018.
This will prove invaluable to the brand as product designers and creative can show what they do and how they do, this is real life. What is going to shine is that we will have the ability to connect with an audience through honest and clear communication.
Storytelling, But with Influence
Marketing through an influence is still around, and people are still happy to jump on YouTube and watch videos of their favorite personalities. Strategic careers are now being built with the influencers and how they deliver their content.
It is important to remember that influencers have a story to tell, and they are very good at getting their followers to respond to those stories. This kind of market has to be beaten. With the rise of smaller influencers, brands can develop more in-depth stories with less investment.
The Virtual Reality
(Image credit: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/11/the-reality-of-vrar-growth/)
Virtual reality is a very powerful channel for marketing, and it’s something new, well enough to still be appealing to most of an audience. Taking advantage of this insight is definitely something that will bring cases and great results.
This also includes Augmented Reality, which is being used by brands now to show customers how to paint colors will virtually be similar to paint on their kitchen walls, for example. It’s this kind of marketing experience that leads me to believe that VR and AR will become so big by 2018 that brands will include the elements as a natural thing.
A Personalized Experience
While for some people it may seem a bit scary, customizing the marketing experience will become greater than ever. Brands are now able to dig huge amounts of information about their customers.
They can see what they are buying, where they are going, what they intend to buy when they put something in a basket online ‘and leave to buy later’. That’s really important. If a brand can track a customer’s journey through the sales process, they can begin to communicate with them about this process, but at a significant level.
User-Generated Content
The strategy of using the readers and users themselves to produce and promote content becomes increasingly popular, being adopted by companies of various sizes and sectors, obtaining more and more efficiency in the results.
The reasons are logical:
- By using external contributors for content production you lower your cost of producing new materials, thereby lowering your CAC
- You bring a differentiated viewpoint to your content channel
- You automatically get more shares because the person you produced will certainly share with your entire network of contacts and…
- You bring your users and readers closer to your brand, generating other business opportunities, for sale, hiring or partnerships and last but not least…
- The reader’s confidence in information is much greater when this information comes from another “neutral” user, compared to traditional advertising.
Content as UI Central Point
Of course, content has become such an important means of communicating with the user that it will become a crucial factor in all sectors responsible for any interaction with the user.
In the coming years, we will see a growing centralization of content in relation to experience design. The reason is simple: to ensure an ever-better experience on the part of the user.
After all, it is important that the formats and colors are pleasing and make sense visually, but the main point that should guide the interface design is the content contained in it and the intention of that content.
(Image credit: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/)
Just as content must be cured and written in a way that makes it easier for the user to understand, the interface must be made around that content, in order to make it clear to the user in question.
That is, content is not a point only to be considered by content marketers, in 2018 there will be special attention focused on it in the product area as well.
Conclusion
Everything that happens in the world impacts how we communicate with the market. Whether it is a new social initiative that gains strength or a somewhat sinister technology, you and I will have to adapt to its outcome.
After all, any kind of innovation or movement that strengthens influences people’s behavior. It is up to us to see the way forward and create the means to deal with these new situations or lose the opportunity by clinging to the past.
That is why it is so important to look at the most diverse trends, even when they do not seem to impact our business directly.
By 2018, companies that can meet the challenge of creating synergies between areas can create richer, more assertive and trustworthy content. Trust is the first step in building a relationship that consists of: selling more, holding more, and growing more and more.
Additionally, content marketing trend for 2018 is the expansion of strategy for a more modern SEO model that focuses on the quality of traffic, not just volume. This model is called Topic Clusters.
Focusing on Topic Clusters means that instead of creating multiple pages with different variations of the same keyword, the strategy will focus on topics that generate more traffic and less competition through a much deeper article on the subject. This article can be constantly updated to remain relevant
About the Author — Sarah Feldman is a Marketing Manager and is currently working with Digital Express, a digital agency specialized in content creation in Dubai. She loves to learn and share the latest digital marketing updates and trends.