Gaze into Our Content Marketing Crystal Ball for 2019
The holidays are here, and with them eggnog, fruitcake, ugly Christmas sweaters, and festive family gatherings. It’s also the time of year when pundits of all persuasions begin sharing their predictions about what’s in store for content marketing in 2019. So, I’ve poured a cup, cut a slice, donned my finest holiday fashion, and gathered my 30dps family around me as I share some thoughts on how I believe content marketing will evolve in the year ahead.
7 Ways Content Marketing Will Change in 2019
Having some idea of where content marketing is heading can help ensure that you are able to fully leverage it to your advantage. As someone who’s been in marketing in general and content marketing in particular for many years, here are some of my observations for 2019:
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We’ll go further in dropping the “content” from “content marketing.” At 30dps, we continue to have conversations with companies that aren’t familiar with content marketing. And we love to see the look in someone’s eyes when they have that “aha” moment about it. But, I believe content marketing trends in 2019 we’ll start to reach the point where people understand that content marketing is the only marketing that works.
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Content value will be under the microscope. In the early days of inbound marketing, any material a company produced that wasn’t blatantly promotional was considered “valuable content.” However, consumers are becoming more discriminating, and content that doesn’t have a clear purpose and benefit to them will increasingly be sent to the digital trash heap without so much as a glance.
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Marketing automation will further enable omnichannel marketing. Any seasoned marketer will tell you that getting the right message in front of the right people on the right platform at the right time is crucial to growing sales revenue. That’s darn near impossible to do without a powerful marketing automation tool like HubSpot. (Full disclosure: we love this platform and are HubSpot Agency Partner Certified.) I expect that the ability of marketing automation platforms to integrate with other key systems will continue to grow in 2019.
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Companies will realize that everyone’s a marketer. Content marketing has a wonderful way of breaking down silos within organizations. Keeping a steady stream of high-quality content flowing requires input and insights from every department. In 2019, I think organizations will go even further and realize that marketing is a top priority for everyone in an organization. Other than perhaps product development, there is no more essential building block to a company’s success than effective marketing.
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Micro-moments will be in the spotlight. While the power of content marketing lies in building and maintaining long-term relationships, it’s becoming ever more critical that we marketers pay attention to what Google has dubbed “micro-moments.” These discovery moments, research moments, purchase moments, etc. are fleeting. We’ll need to be even more tuned in to buyer behavior in order to understand how to leverage those moments so that they can easily discover, research, or purchase when the mood strikes.
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Transparency and authenticity will be critical. There has been a trend in recent years toward consumers demanding more transparency and authenticity from the companies with which they do business. I feel that will only intensify in 2019. As it relates to content marketing, this means that any whiff of artifice in your marketing materials will put you at risk of immediate and significant backlash.
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Long-form content will grow in importance. We all know that the human attention span is shrinking rapidly. Consequently, you need to develop lots of quick-hit content that catches the eye and engages the viewer. However, people who have developed an interest in your offerings also want longer, more in-depth materials they can use to educate themselves.
- Video content will rule. Video continues to rise in favor. As a content marketer, we can make hay with this trend through the 10X rule. In 2019 we will advise our clients to invest in great video content (not high-end productions, but highly desired content) because that will allow us to produce multiple podcasts, pages of content, blog posts, white papers, and social media posts galore.
The Future Is Bright for Content Marketing!
Based on my observations, and those of other content marketing experts, I would sum things up by stating that the outlook for content marketing in 2019 is excellent. Or, as the Magic 8-Ball would say when asked whether content marketing will help companies achieve their marketing goals in the year ahead, “Signs point to yes.”
How can content marketing help your organization in particular create and nurture new relationships with prospects, capture more leads, and make more sales? Contact us today to learn about the benefits of collaborating with our teams in Colorado Springs, CO, and Springfield, MO.