More than 64per cent of SMEs expressed that their current marketing efforts weren’t delivering results. However, out of the 36per cent who found success, 2 in 5 of them had invested in content marketing and the success was attributed to quality content, a well thought out content strategy, and the right investment in content distribution channels. Investments in marketing should continue by SMEs as competition intensifies with bigger brands.
Content marketing trends will continue to adapt and evolve in 2019; giving companies opportunities to sustain their success. As B2B marketers, to stay ahead of the game in the constantly evolving landscape, look out for these three predictions in content marketing.
3 Key Trends You Will See in 2019
Artificial Intelligence Drove Content – Google’s Digital News Initiative (DNI) supports innovation in European digital journalism. In 2017, Google invested more than $800,000 in the Press Association’s initiative to generate news stories solely through the use of AI.
In this initiative, while journalists will be involved in spotting and creating stories, AI will be used to assist with massively increasing local stories that would otherwise be impossible to provide manually.
While content and creation and ideation are still not fully automatable, technology can be leveraged to understand your target audience better, map the content they are consuming and create content which they are looking to consume.
New Formats of Content – With a consumption of content increasing on mobile platforms, the need of the hour is to develop a content strategy that is more refined and creates better customer engagement. Short case formats, Infographics, Videos are all new formats and are using motion graphics and animations in ways never imagined before.
However, companies need to continue investments in the highly sought formats of ebooks, white papers, blogs are optimized for mobile platforms will see success in their omnichannel marketing strategies.
Interactive Content – The internet of things (IoT) has brought content to us through voice-controlled technology.
Through a deep understanding of consumer demographics and the way they want to use content, voice-activated software like Alexa and Siri are rising phenomenally in importance.
In order to experiment with this fairly new trend, brands need to consider if their audience is an adopter of voice-enabled devices if they can consistently produce high-quality audio content and if they are looking for a new channel to reach their audience.
ALigning Trends with Strategy
Many of the content marketing trends such as those listed above are already impacting our lives. Keeping abreast of the trends and aligning the objectives of the business with the evolving needs of the consumers, identifying the right partner who can help brands achieve such desired outcomes is what will result in a successful content marketing strategy for SMEs.
Content marketing is a key component of your company’s presence in the marketplace. In a recent survey, 96% of advertisers said content marketing is very effective for their brands. Also, Google and other search engines love high-quality content.
From how-to videos that drive visitors to your website to a newsletter that positions you as an expert, this marketing strategy can come in many forms and involves countless tips and tactics.
Infographics and video are skyrocketing in popularity because people love visual content. But written content and email marketing campaigns continue to grow their popularity. Useful tips, strategic insights, or simply entertainment are all effective ways to implement content marketing today.
But regardless of the tactic, the key to creating content that drives traffic and increases conversions is to understand what your audience needs and how you can provide it.
Common Challenges for Companies – Fill the Needs
However, with audiences hungry to engage and the available delivery methods seemingly endless, the content marketing landscape is crowded and noisy.
Developing content marketing executions that stand out from the crowd while still addressing the audiences’ wants and needs is one of the biggest challenges facing companies. Purposeful research and a direct line of communication with your customers is key to developing content that matters and stories that shape perception.
Keeping content fresh and up-to-date is another area where businesses might have difficulty.
Maintaining an editorial calendar for new content and conducting regular audits of your existing content are sound ways to overcome those challenges while ensuring you have a sustainable flow of content all year.
When planning your content calendar, remember that you need quality not, quantity.
Finally, and perhaps most notably, many businesses fall short on measuring the results of their content marketing efforts. Views, social shares, and leads generated are all effective ways to track your company’s return on investment (ROI), depending on your objectives.
Capturing and analyzing that data empowers you to not only modify your campaign to align with best-practices but also to justify marketing spending and strategy to stakeholders.
Trends in Content Marketing
Video, including tutorials and how-to content, continues to grow in 2019.
A notable shift is that the number of mobile video consumers has surpassed desktop viewers, and videos with a vertical orientation grew in popularity because of the need for mobile-friendly visuals.
Vertical visuals are easy to consume for your mobile audience, providing seamless access to your content across various digital platforms.
The smartphone revolution also spurred another video trend: live streams. Today, anyone armed with an app and a smartphone can stream a live video.
With the feel of a behind-the-scenes shoot, live video helps your audience members feel a more intimate connection with your brand and familiarizes them with your team, products, or company mission.
Content marketing in 2019 has also given rise to the art of social selling. As audiences increasingly demand personalized engagement, social selling offers the opportunity to connect directly with customers and tailor content to their specific tastes.
The Future of Content Marketing
Although content marketing will continue to rely on the stories you tell and on your knowledge of your customers, new technology promises exciting changes in how that content is delivered.
Smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home are booming in the marketplace. These voice-controlled devices (Voice Search) stand to change the way we search for content, and may perhaps become the new search norm.
With this trend coming in hot, businesses should make sure their content is optimized for voice search and delivery. Think about how a customer might search for content verbally versus by typing—a small change that can make all the difference.
Augmented reality (AR) is another rapid up-and-comer in content marketing. For example, Taco Bell’s Cinco de Mayo Snapchat filter was used more than 224 million times and is the most successful campaign ever on the platform.
AR can provide customers with a more in-depth experience with your company or product while reaching them in real-time.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a third upcoming trend for content marketing. At a time when marketers have access to a surplus of data, AI will be an important tool in organizing, analyzing, and acting on insights.
As AI capabilities become widely accessible, the technology will help businesses narrow their audiences, identify shared characteristics of their most successful content, and stay on top of important changes in content delivery best-practices.
How to Improve Content Marketing’s ROI
To effectively drive ROI, companies should first and foremost collect and analyze data from previous and current campaigns. Data can reveal important insights that empower marketers to make modifications that improve results.
Interactive content, such s quizzes, and surveys can also make a major impact on ROI. Although the content itself engages customers, these tactics also offer them the promise of more content specifically tailored to them.
Interactive content can also provide an opportunity for businesses to collect email addresses from the audience.
Finally, across all tactics, your content marketing strategy should include visuals. Even when producing blogs or podcasts, your efforts should include relevant photos, infographics, or videos to grab the audience’s attention and aid in storytelling.
As easily consumed content, visuals can often encourage the audience to click on a post or read deeper into an article or story.
Great Stories and Content Marketing Success
Content marketing will always involve telling unique and meaningful stories, but best-practices for telling those stories will likely be in constant flux. Advances in technology and changing consumer preferences mean tactics and delivery methods can look different from year to year.
The best way to create great content is to stay connected to your target audience while collecting data that can inform decisions and improve ROI. Coupling that with the ability to keep a pulse on new marketing technology and trends will ensure your business becomes and remains an expert at content marketing.
You need to know the latest trends, tips, and strategies to improve your marketing techniques and increase traffic and sales.
It’s generally accepted that the people in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea live longer and suffer less than most Americans from cancer and cardiovascular ailments.
The secret is an active lifestyle, weight control, and a diet low in red meat, sugar and saturated fat and high in produce, nuts, olive oil, and other healthful foods.
The Mediterranean Diet may offer a host of health benefits, including weight loss, heart and brain health, cancer prevention, diabetes prevention, and control. By following the Mediterranean Diet, you could also keep that weight off while avoiding chronic disease.
There isn’t “a” Mediterranean diet. Greeks eat differently from Italians, who eat differently from the French and Spanish. But they share many of the same principles.
Working with the Harvard School of Public Health, Oldways, a nonprofit food think tank in Boston, developed a consumer-friendly Mediterranean diet pyramid that offers guidelines on how to fill your plate – and maybe wineglass – the Mediterranean way.
Because this is an eating pattern – not a structured diet – you’re on your own to figure out how many calories you should eat to lose or maintain your weight, what you’ll do to stay active and how you’ll shape your Mediterranean menu.
The Mediterranean diet pyramid should help get you started. The pyramid emphasizes eating fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans, nuts, legumes, olive oil, and flavorful herbs and spices; fish and seafood at least a couple of times a week; and poultry, eggs, cheese and yogurt in moderation, while saving sweets and red meat for special occasions.
Top it off with a splash of red wine (if you want), remember to stay physically active and you’re set.
Red wine has gotten a boost because it contains resveratrol, a compound that seems to add years to life – but you’d have to drink hundreds or thousands of glasses to get enough resveratrol to possibly make a difference.
2. DASH Diet
The DASH Diet, which stands for dietary approaches to stop hypertension, is promoted by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to do exactly that: stop (or prevent) hypertension, aka high blood pressure.
It emphasizes the foods you’ve always been told to eat (fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein, and low-fat dairy), which are high in blood pressure-deflating nutrients like potassium, calcium, protein, and fiber.
DASH also discourages foods that are high in saturated fat, such as fatty meats, full-fat dairy foods, and tropical oils, as well as sugar-sweetened beverages and sweets.
Following DASH also means capping sodium at 2,300 milligrams a day, which followers will eventually lower to about 1,500 milligrams. DASH Diet is balanced and can be followed long term, which is a key reason nutrition experts rank it as U.S. News’ Best Overall Diet, tied with the Mediterranean Diet.
Starting DASH doesn’t mean making drastic changes overnight. Instead, begin by making whatever small changes seem most manageable to you. For example:
Add one vegetable or fruit serving to every meal.
Introduce two or more meat-free meals each week.
Use herbs and spices to make food tastier without the salt.
Snack on almonds or pecans instead of a bag of chips.
Switch white flour to whole-wheat flour when possible.
Take a 15-minute walk after lunch or dinner (or both).
For more guidance, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute publishes free guides. They’ll help you determine how many calories you should eat for your age and activity level, tell you where those calories should come from and remind you to go easy on the salt.
3. Flexitarian Diet
Flexitarian is a marriage of two words: flexible and vegetarian. The term was coined more than a decade ago and in her 2009 book, “The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease and Add Years to Your Life,”
Dawn Jackson Blatner says you don’t have to eliminate meat to reap the health benefits associated with vegetarianism – you can be a vegetarian most of the time, but still, chow down on a burger or steak when the urge hits.
By eating more plants and less meat, it’s suggested that adherents to the diet will not only lose weight but can improve their overall health, lowering their rate of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, and live longer as a result.
Becoming a flexitarian is about adding five food groups to your diet – not taking any away. These are: the “new meat” (non-meat proteins like beans, peas or eggs); fruits and veggies; whole grains; dairy; and sugar and spice
A five-week meal plan provides breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack recipes. You can follow the plan as it’s outlined, or swap recipes from different weeks to meet your preferences.
Breakfast choices are around 300 calories, lunches 400 and dinners 500. Snacks are about 150 calories each; add two, and your daily total clocks in at 1,500 calories.
Depending on your activity level, gender, height and weight, you can tweak the plan to allow for slightly greater or fewer calories. Follow the Flexitarian Diet at your own pace: Jump in and try most of the recipes, sticking to the meal plan verbatim for five weeks. Or take it slowly, and test one of the recipes every once in a while.
P.S.
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Social media has become an essential tool for many businesses, but getting your strategic approach right requires a delicate balance, and it can be difficult to determine all the key elements that will dictate your brand’s performance.
Which platforms should you be active on? What’s each platform best for? Who, exactly, should you be looking to reach?
There are a heap of questions to answer – but hopefully, this new infographic from ShareKit might help guide your thinking on at least some of these elements.
The team from ShareKit have put together a huge listing of tips, social platform insights and more, in order to provide some additional guidance for your strategy.
There are some valuable reminders and notes in this infographic.