What Content Marketing Will Look Like in 2015

Remember when newspapers were the most efficient and credible medium in gathering news, even advertising products?

That was the ‘content marketing’ we had decades ago. Nowadays, we have too much that we tend to exert lesser efforts every time, when searching for news or updates about certain events. Perhaps it’s because we’re only a click away from everything we need to know.

But, what’s more amazing about content marketing is how it suddenly became the main strategy of the many – to the point that majority of marketers are only dependent with content marketing, and believe it or not, it works for them.

In a recent study conducted by Content Marketing Institute together with Direct Marketing Association UK, in UK alone, 88% are using content marketing and 48% of them find it effective.

The question now is, will these statistics increase in the next months to come? Or will we find another, perhaps a better way to market our products and services?

My answer is, yes. It will only increase. And that’s not just a wild guess. I would prefer calling it the obvious answer backed by conspicuous events from the past, and those that are happening now.

Past of Content Marketing

Years ago, we’ve seen how digital marketers stepped out of their comfort zone by creating different kinds of content – infographics, videos, podcasts, slideshows, eBooks – everything to avoid being stagnant from the typical blog posts.

The rise of content marketing had also inspired many developers to create tools and applications that will only strengthen the desire to inspire marketers to move from traditional marketing to content marketing. Tools like Buzzsumo, Alltop, Contently, Dribble, Evernote, Trello, Canva, Unmetric and a lot more!

We’ve also found it more effective to invest in producing great content to rank and be viral than to just build links from different sites without the desire to share valuable insights.

Present of Content Marketing

The present of content marketing is nowhere far from its past. How we innovated before, just to come up with different ways to share content, is still how we do things now. And even though we feel like we’ve already used up all the possible types of content and resources, we could still think out of the box. One example would be the use of GIF’s, instead of posting regular photos , because it’s proven to get more attention and make blogs viral.

We’re becoming more and more creative.

And as days have passed, we are more convinced that marketing is incomplete without great, compelling content. This is the same explanation as to why many social media, SEO and even PPC strategies fail – because there’s no good content to support these strategies. We’re becoming more and more aware of the need to produce good content to back other strategies, may it be link building, social media managing or email marketing.

These are all the effects of Google’s initiative to make search more user-friendly and favor only relevant results – forcing many to invest in content marketing.

Future of Content Marketing

The past and present of content marketing will remain, and will improve.

1. Guest blogging will change its meaning. Guest blogging will no longer be for the sake of link building but to purely, and intentionally, share relevant ideas.
2. Search will give more favor to valuable content. Like I mentioned earlier, Google’s algorithm will keep on improving – eliminating black-hat strategies.
3. Many will start writing for people and not for search engines. Because of Google search’s constant improvement, those that make up the fibers of SEO will be keeping up by investing more in valuable content for people, instead of for search engines.
4. Visual content will grow. The impact of images will continue to be the reason why great numbers focus on creating and using images to support and manifest their ideas. With that, the demand for infographics, as well as decks, will only increase in as time goes by.

But, there will also be new trends this coming year.

1. Guest video will start. We’ve seen guest blogging become the most powerful tactic in link building and in growing network and reach. Aside from that, we’ve seen how video marketing has evolved. Combining these two strategies would be one of the main things to look forward to and most exciting that could ever happen next year.
2. We’ll see a decrease with reader’s retention rate, resulting to the creation of more concise articles and materially relevant images. Even though we’ve heard of predictions saying audiences will find whitepapers and eBooks more relevant, with all the available resources – videos, photos, blogs, slides – people will look for the best and most straightforward content they deem efficient.

A lot of things could and would happen, but one thing I’m pretty sure of is that marketers would be more sensitive to the needs of their audiences – strategies will be more personalized and focused on improving user-experience.

We’ll see how marketers bend some of the old and traditional strategies. Just like creating and managing social accounts, we’ll find that more and more businesses will work on building their social presence. But, in the same light, we’ll also see how many will shut their social accounts down after realizing that it’s not working for them.

So, what do you think? Would next year be the year you strategize with content marketing? Tell us more about it by commenting and sharing your thoughts below!