6 Content Marketing Trends to Watch Out For in 2019

Content marketing is essentially the process of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content that is meant to attract and engage the target audience of a particular business or organization. The aim of content marketing is to build trust with potential customers and to drive profitable consumer behavior, leading to enhanced sales.

Unlike traditional marketing and advertising, modern day content marketing does not focus exclusively on promoting and highlighting the brand and its products. Rather, content marketing aims to provide genuine value to potential customers, solve their problems, address their pain points, and educate them about the product or service that the business is offering.

The Most Prominent Content Marketing Trends for 2019

1. Quality Over Quantity

In recent years, digital marketers have shifted their focus from the quantity of the content to its quality. There is now a heightened focus on customer experience and audience engagement rather than companies thinking simply about brand promotion, which was once the case. High quality, original, and informative content that aims to educate potential customers to help build trust and credibility in the market, which can result in long-term returns on investment for the business. The quality of the content also provides valuable insight into the overall quality of product or service that a business is likely to offer.

2. The Increasing Importance of Video Content

With smartphones accounting for a significant portion of all web traffic and the volume of mobile data increasing by leaps and bounds, the popularity of videos has risen exponentially. There are a number of reasons for this; first, it is now much easier for individuals to watch videos on their phone while traveling to or from work, standing in the queue at the supermarket, or waiting to pick their children up from school.

Any spare moment can be spent watching an engaging video instead of staring off into space and feeling bored. Being an audio-visual medium, videos also have the benefit of being more viscerally appealing and easily understandable than textual content and useful for video marketing. Something that they have watched with their own eyes tends to affect people more intensely than something that they have merely read about. Therefore, video content is known to more effectively generate customer engagement and lead conversion than any other type of content marketing.

3. Live Streaming

Live streaming is a relatively new medium of content creation and generation. However, its popularity has risen significantly in the few months since it first became known to the general public. Live streaming has the benefit of being both immediate and authentic, qualities that are greatly appreciated by the modern, interconnected marketplace.

Companies and businesses can generate excitement about a new product by live-streaming a product launch event. They can also engage social media influencers to live stream the unboxing of the product or reviews of first time using that product. This technique can serve to kill two birds with one stone by generating interest in a new product while also educating potential customers about how to properly use it. Live shows also generate a feeling of urgency in viewers as they are organic and are happening in real time.

4. User-Generated Content

While the concept of user-generated content is as old as the internet, it is only recently being used as part of the overall marketing strategy for brands. User-generated content typically includes any reviews, ratings, comments, recommendations, or blog posts made by consumers and end users.

Usually, potential customers trust this type of content far more than the generic promotional content generated by the business itself. This is because people who are thinking of buying a particular product instinctively trust the recommendations and reviews of those who have already made the purchase, as consumers would have more reason, to be honest about the quality of a product than the company selling it. It is essentially the digital version of word-of-mouth. Many people buy products on the basis of reviews on e-commerce sites and other digital outlets. This is why user-generated content – if carefully curated and displayed – can work wonders for the popularity of a brand.

5. Authentic Brand Voices

Marketers are beginning to realize that the Internet is over-saturated with formulaic material designed as clickbait. The digital audience is now more mature and does not respond to the unoriginal promotional material. Therefore, businesses are focusing increasingly on having an original and unique brand voice that audiences can immediately associate with a particular company or product. This requires the creation of high-quality, well-researched content with excellent production value.

If the quality of content is subpar, the marketing campaign will not succeed, regardless of the format or the platform. Modern customers expect authenticity and transparency from companies, and thereby favor brands that have an authentic voice and are comfortable telling their own story in an engaging manner.

6. Mobile Optimization

The modern day consumer wants everything at their fingertips, at a moment’s notice. To be successful, companies must begin to optimize their content – be it audio, video, or textual – for the smartphone. All the content published by a brand should be easily readable (and viewable) on a cell phone, with no loss in terms of quality and clarity. Most of the big brands are fast integrating mobile marketing into their overall content strategy, as one can lose out on a major share of the audience base if their content is not optimized for mobile viewing. This has also led to the popularity of short, bite-sized videos, gifs, and memes which can be used by brands to engage potential customers browsing causally on their phones.

In Conclusion

These are some of the most prominent content marketing trends that have taken the Internet by storm in 2018. More innovations and experimentations are underway and new content marketing formats and techniques are being created every day by talented digital marketers. In the interconnected and hyper-competitive modern marketplace, the only pathway to success is through innovation and creativity in the realms of marketing and promotion.