As the end of the year quickly approaches, many marketers are already looking into the coming year to see what content marketing trends and areas of focus lie ahead. Here’s what several industry experts had to say in a recent Guardian interview about what they see as being areas of focus for modern marketers in 2014:
Robin Barnes, Digital Director, Cedar
Personalization: Data-driven marketing is nothing new, but data-driven content will become more prevalent as systems like Sitecore become more widely deployed bringing benefits of increased engagement and, for ecommerce, better conversion rates.
Trust and quality: A feature of content marketing this year (and an understandable reaction to digital channels’ relentless thirst for content) is the staggering volume of content which gets pushed out from brands. Quality inevitably gets compromised, there’s too much noise and our audience stops listening. Smart brands will focus on the genuine quality of their output and as a result receive the audience’s trust, attention and custom.
Companies like Polycom are a great example of running content marketing program with a high level of trust and quality. Because of the high level of content they produce on their digital publication, Public Sector View, they’ve been able to secure several exclusive interviews with many government officials and corporate executives, giving their content even greater credibility and value.
Will Currie, Head of Digital, Seven
Responsive delivery: Secondly brands should continue to build relationships with their audiences delivering content that is relevant, authentic, useful, entertaining or an educational experience for the consumer. This content needs to be delivered in the right places and on the right platforms; a responsively delivered piece of digital communication that works multiplatform will go a great way to achieve this.
President and CEO of Strategic Communications Group, Marc Hausman, offers great insight on 3 hallmarks of exceptional content.
Promotion and distribution: Investing in the promotion and distribution of content is as important as the creation and production of it. Why create amazing content if only a handful of individuals are going to interact with it? Ensure that the invested promotion is targeted and consumed by the right audience in order to deliver maximum ROI.
Tom Laidlaw, CEO, Videojug
Video content is a must: Since I run a video content agency I declare an interest. But video can tell a story like no other medium and can gain and hold attention above everything else. It is not necessarily expensive and the ROI can be huge. It works great on mobile, SEO, in email, websites, it can drive a YouTube channel, social presences and increases response rates wherever it appears. Really, why would you not? Next year I think most brands will.
Video is extremely valuable to any successful content marketing effort. Be sure to check out a previous article in which we share some surprising statistics on the impact of video in content marketing.
