7 Content Marketing Trends In 2021
Spring is not only a time of renewal of nature and menus in your favorite restaurants. But it’s also time for content marketers to develop new strategies to be at their peak during the high season. We posed a few questions to industry experts to find out which content marketing trends they care about the most, as well as what new strategies they’re going to pursue in 2021. Ultimately, we’ve highlighted 7 top content marketing trends you should be aware of:
- Creation of content communities.
- Webinars and streams.
- Improving the perception of content.
- Focus on goods and services.
- AI-powered text content testing.
- Increased emphasis on SEO.
- Reuse content across different platforms.
So, let’s take a look at each of the trends separately.
1. CREATION OF CONTENT COMMUNITIES
This trend is not surprising as there has been an increase in the number of Slack communities in the tech space lately. In addition, many marketers are focusing on personalizing content in a pandemic. Building communities for collaborative content development and sharing is an effective way to grow your audience, even for companies with limited resources.
Believes that this trend is set to skyrocket this year with increased productivity demands and resource constraints. At some point, they will be able to achieve maximum performance indicators by creating and distributing large volumes of content without sacrificing its quality.
Another advantage of this trend: Business owners will be able to attract a huge number of authors on various platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn) and also use a traditional channel (so-called “word of mouth”) to expand the audience of content creators. All this contributes to increasing your brand awareness, as well as the growth of KPIs. Plus, your audience members will feel more meaningful to your brand and more involved in business processes. Whether you’re hosting a webinar, blogging, or using social platforms, your audience will feel like a community.
2. WEBINARS AND STREAMS
Since all public events are prohibited due to the pandemic, there is an increase in the popularity of streams and webinars. In this regard, the so-called “video marketing” will gain momentum in 2021. But this rise in popularity isn’t just due to social constraints. The main reason is that a video is a simple tool to quickly communicate something to your audience. Every consumer wants to receive information as quickly as possible. This is why video marketing is so effective. According to most marketers, a video marketing investment is highly profitable.
You will succeed even if you just pay more attention to simple webinars and streams. However, according to Patrick Whatman, head of content marketing at Spendesk, the format of the webinars will also change. His company conducts a variety of exclusive video sessions, masterclasses, fireplace conversations, and other types of streams, increasing their level of interactivity. People don’t want to flip through slides, they want to communicate and ask questions. Patrick himself rarely participates in webinars, preferring to get all the necessary information from blogs. However, he emphasized the value of the new format, highlighting the opportunity to participate in real-time discussions and ask expert questions.
3. IMPROVING THE PERCEPTION OF CONTENT
When surfing the Internet, many of us end up on pages with ad units instead of pages with articles that we would like to read. Excessive advertising on the page annoys the user, and he ultimately leaves the page. At the same time, many people use tools like Miss the Office, as they help distract (although hardly anyone misses the “chomping” sounds that are emitted by work colleagues who decide to eat). The bottom line is that the very process of interacting with content is just as important as what kind of content you interact with. Regardless of the type of content (innovative, interactive, improved UX), improving content perception will be a key content marketing trend.
Also Read: 10 Trending Content Marketing Trends For 2022
If you want to improve the efficiency of your content development investment, you need to work on how users perceive it. you will only be able to keep the attention of users on your site if you make them love what you write, provide what they were looking for, and can effectively enter them into your marketing funnel.
Pat Flynn’s learning pages offer the best way to interact with content. They contain not only articles, but also video courses, webinars, podcasts, videos, and calls to action posted in the “right” places on the page. Every brand should follow suit to attract even more potential customers.
4. FOCUS ON GOODS AND SERVICES
Gaining attention to content at the bottom of the funnel and related to top deals is another important content marketing trend that will continue into 2021. This is partly due to reduced marketing budgets and the use of conservative approaches. According to Patrick, most companies are looking to reduce their costs over the next 6-9 months, including implementing content marketing strategies. Most likely, content marketers will focus on existing audiences and core products, as this is not the best time to conquer new horizons.
From this, it follows that more attention will be paid to content located at the bottom of the marketing funnel, which is closely related to the proposed product or service and is intended for a specific category of consumers. On the other hand, this approach will allow you to more accurately assess the ROI of your content development.
5. TESTING TEXT CONTENT CREATED USING AI
Today there are many tools that allow you to create text content automatically – based on artificial intelligence technology. However, content creation experts have been predicting an increase in the influence of AI on the process of writing text articles for many years. It is likely that creating text content using tools such as the GPT-3 API and Content will be a new trend in 2021.
6. INCREASED FOCUS ON SEO
Some marketing trends may fall out of sight, but not completely disappear. This also applies to SEO in content marketing. Quality search engine optimization will continue to be a critical part of content marketing in 2021. Small businesses will continue to try to get out of the shadow of the CEO giants by using long and niche keyword phrases in their content. This means that you will have to spend even more time on key phrases and developing a solid SEO strategy in order to succeed in the long term.
7. REUSE CONTENT ACROSS DIFFERENT PLATFORMS
This content marketing trend is probably the one you like the most. As mentioned above, many companies are forced to reduce the resources allocated to the development of quality content. In this regard, there is a need to repurpose the existing content for its distribution through various channels. As you spend time and other resources developing quality, engaging content, you probably want to share it with as many people as possible. In this case, reusing content for distribution across different channels (platforms) is a better idea.
The idea of repurposing content instead of building it from scratch allows you to get the most out of your content. Many brands realized how effective and important virtual events (streams) are only in 2020. In 2021, many companies figured out how to improve the effectiveness of webinars, podcasts, video conferencing. To inform about the upcoming event, they post at least 5 posts on social networks, blogs, and newspapers. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you can just make the wheels spin even faster.
START INCORPORATING THESE IDEAS INTO YOUR CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGIES NOW
Keep these trends in mind as you plan your content marketing strategy for the year. In 2021, special attention is paid to the creation of high-quality content that can bring great benefits to your business and does not require additional resource costs. All of these ideas will help speed up the process of creating high-quality content to achieve your marketing goals.
