Data-driven content marketing saved the day during the pandemic. In 2021, content marketing will continue to make greater use of data analytics to create more personalized content for every user.
The pandemic left everyone in a tizzy. Despite the ongoing horrors, brands have to stay afloat and connect with the audiences more actively than before. Consequentially, content marketing had to adjust. Marketers had to rewrite their digital media strategies to sustain the reputation build over the years. In the pursuit of assuring seamless enterprise processes remotely, a mammoth of cloud applications arrived to aid the survival of the global markets. As a result, marketers had a tough task to meet the volume of content required. At the same time, implementing innovative techniques to reach more people through avidly researched content is what we expect from the trends in 2021.
Here are three key trends that were shaped by the pandemic:
Trend #1: Moment Marketing will get Mainstream
Any conversation today holds no ground without mentioning COVID-19. Therefore, if conversational content rules marketing, then COVID is the greatest tool. It makes sense because we are surrounded by horrors, and it is difficult to connect with the readers without telling them how much you care for them.
B2B brands are using COVID to position the utility of their product. Ever since lockdowns enforced digitization of processes as far as possible, brands have unlatched the opportunity to pitch their worthiness. So be it Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom, a line-up of cybersecurity products, or cloud services of any kind, they all reminded the users how important it was to stay indoors and how easy it is to continue their enterprise processes. Zoom, in fact, experienced a sudden surge in consumption and surpassed 160% in annual revenue.
As soon as millions were forced to work from home, cybersecurity products woke up to the opportunity and used the risks of cyber-attacks due to a lack of efficient infrastructure at home in their content narrative.
This ability to curate your content narrative around the ongoing events is known as Moment marketing, and brands, especially B2B, are using it to their fullest potential. The usefulness of marketing enhances when the customer looks forward to a product that fits in the restrictions of the current circumstances. In 2021, Moment marketing will continue to influence the customers. However, direct sales are not the only purpose here. Many brands are also using their content to convey the number of precautions (sanitization, distancing, etc.) they are implementing.
Trend #2: Greater Role of Videos in the Content Calendar
Videos are hotcakes. They are more interactive, easy to consume, and have a better reach across social media platforms. In all honesty, all businesses are eager to steer their content marketing strategies to writing video scripts and distributing them on platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook. This is because 52% of product marketers have confirmed that users prefer videos to know about them than text or any other forms of content.
However, for many businesses, videos are still a costly affair. Unlike UI/UX designing, there is a shortage of skills required for high-quality video quality. While the progress over there is slow and steady, a swathe of tools to produce on-demand videos has gained momentum. Wondershare’s Filmora, for example, provides an intuitive dashboard to create videos effortlessly. The platform supports all video formats and comes with more than 800 special effects. Now, content marketers have the challenge to produce different types of videos on a weekly or even daily basis.
To keep audiences engaged, it is essential to provide variety in content, and that is exactly what most businesses lack. Video creators can now simply drag and drop the built-in tools such as the Green Screen, Audio Mixer, Color Tuning, Audio Equalizer, and Advanced Text Editing.
Wondershare Filmora works because it is designed to keep the budget constraints and agile business requirements of the B2B marketplace. So be it producing video tutorials, creating product demos, or video brochures, it provides on-demand tools to prepare content in record timelines.
In 2021, the use of smart tools to generate videos will gain momentum. However, quick video for marketing is not the only purpose here. Amidst the pandemic, publications are also exploring smarter tools to generate more volume of content meant for sharing essential news about local services. Be prepared for more line items of video content in the content calendars.
Trend #3: Enhanced Focus on Thought Leadership
Thought leaders are the professionals who use content marketing to pitch their subject matter expertise. Unlike conventional marketing, here, the objective is to build and sustain the reputation of an individual or institution in the digital spectrum. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions found that close to 48% of surveyed decision-makers consumer thought leadership content for a minimum of 1 hour every week.
In a thought leadership strategy, the tone of the content is mostly educational and informative. Likewise, the sales pitch is minimum or almost negligible. Yet, the end objective is similar – regale more people and generate more leads. Thought leadership is gaining momentum because businesses have reached a saturation point in their SEO first approach. Moreover, readers have started looking for content that provides actionable help while making key professional decisions.
In 2021, data analytics products will gain acceptance to create more personalized content for each user. Since the volume of marketing is doubling in pace and impact, interactive marketing hacks will still continue to dominate the strategies, be SEO or thought leadership.
Conclusion
Marketing never stops; it only modifies its tone and target as per circumstances. This is a tough time for the world but a moment of responsibility for global marketers to keep the audiences informed through accurate and actionable content. It’s time to get agile and empower relevant products to reach the top.
