Content marketing state in 2022
In 2022, the estimated value of the content marketing industry will be $300 billion. The continued adoption of content marketing by businesses is predicted to result in greater effectiveness of this marketing strategy. By creating and sharing content, businesses can establish connection with their customers and generate positive brand awareness.
There’s no one-size-fits-all, as the content marketing strategy that works for one company may not work for another one. However, some tips on how to develop a content marketing strategy in 2022 include:
1. Greater investment in long-form content
You should have long-form content as part of your SEO strategy as it is comprehensive and covers multiple topics related to user queries.
It is true that not many customers will read the whole article! However, they will scan the page for valuable answers and tips.
Furthermore, you will get multiple SEO benefits that can get you ahead of competitors:
- Rank for several keyword variations
- A higher position in SERP
- Increased on-page time
- The chance of getting backlinks
- More of an increased probability of social sharing
Long-form content is important for your SEO and should be the main focus of your content marketing strategy.
2. Updating and optimizing old articles
Most teams spend their time creating new articles from scratch, but you can update old ones as well.
There are different reasons to update your existing articles:
- Keep your old content up to the latest SEO trends – Google occasionally shakes up the web with algorithm updates, and it is crucial to implement it through your pages.
- Make crawlers visit your webpage more – regular updates will make Google crawlers visit your page more often and, therefore index it.
3. Focus on infographics
Infographics are 30 times more likely to be clicked on than text articles, and content with infographics grows traffic 12% faster than content without them. Here are some tips and tricks for creating infographics.
Some things can only be expressed through actions.
Some topics are complicated or text-heavy, making it difficult for readers to navigate. In a fast-paced environment attention spans are decreasing, and it is easy to lose a reader.
Infographics present information in a graphic visual form to make it easy and quick to understand. They are appealing and bite-sized, making them stand out from the sea of information we encounter daily.
In addition to helping yourself, you are also helping other content creators by making helpful infographics. If other peole use your work on their blog, you can get important ranking factors and backlinks.
4. Podcasting on rising
More and more people are listening to podcasts, with 26% of respondents in a recent study by Edison Research reporting having listened to one in the past month. This number is expected to grow, as people become more familiar with this easy-to-use content format.
Podcasts build trust because they are a very personal medium–you are inviting someone into your car or living room for a conversation. Additionally, because podcasts are episodic, listeners are likely to tune in regularly, making them more engaged with your content. Podcasts are also convenient because they can be consumed anywhere at any time.
5. Content hub and spoke strategy
Texts with a lot of hyperlinks that take customers to other articles are called content hubs. This is a strategy that webpages use to break through the rankings, attract traffic and get conversions.
The content hub page contains general information about specific topics, with links to more detailed information.
You can use a content hub and spoke strategy to keep your content organized and make it easier for your target audience to find what they are looking for. This may help you:
- Increase the organic traffic
- Build long-lasting relationships with readers
- Target keyword variations
- Boost Topical and Link Authority
6. Virtual and hybrid events
A virtual event is one where all or some of the elements occur online. This could include things like live chats, video presentations, audio recordings, and other activities that let people interact with speakers and other attendees.
A hybrid event is an event that has both online and offline components. For example, an organization might host a speaker series online before the event, featuring thought leaders from around the world. Attendees would then come together in person for networking opportunities, panel discussions, and more.
7. User experience matters
Business success has always been dependent on providing a positive customer experience. Think of Walmart’s store greeters who are always present to welcome customers. Or go back to America Online, whose user-friendly applications set the standard for other companies to follow in order to increase customer satisfaction.
However, the arrival of smartphones has transformed the way we think about user experiences. It is now impossible to conceive of how to achieve a positive user experience without taking into account how sites and content appear to smartphone users.
Companies are investing in responsive content that fits the screens of mobile devices, and they are compressing their sites to reduce content that only laptops and desktops can use.
8. The usage of interactive content
Interactive content is designed to engage the user more actively, providing an experience that is more immersive and keeping them coming back to your site or blog. Additionally, interactive content can help you understand your audience better and allow you to target them more specifically, as you can track how users interact with it. Finally, research has shown that interactive content leads to higher engagement rates and conversions than traditional static content forms.
9. Progress towards customer-centric content marketing
This means that businesses will produce content that is more relevant and personalized to their target audiences. Rather than simply pushing out content in the hopes that some of it will resonate with customers, businesses will focus on understanding their customers’ needs and desires and creating content that is truly valuable to them.
Producing content that is based on what the customer wants to hear is more important than what the business thinks is important. The business should also rely less on assumptions about their target audience and what they want or need.
To create customer-centric content, you need to understand your target audience and what they care about. You also need to create content that is engaging and compelling to them.
10. Rise of AI-technology in content marketing
AI can help companies save time and money by automatically creating personalized and targeted content for their customers.
Machines are already capable of creating some types of content, like economic and sports reports. In the future, they will be able to generate all sorts of content, from product descriptions to landing pages.
However, this does not mean that companies will no longer need the input of human writers, who can provide insights, humor, creativity, and empathy. It is more likely that there will be a combination of human and AI workers, with each occupying their own area of expertise.
11. Set your goals
You need to document what you expect to achieve before you start creating.
Potential goals could be to:
- Get more traffic
- Improve revenue
- Build relationships with your customers
- Boost conversions
- Gain authority in your niche
- Increase engagement in social media
- Attract partners
When you know what you want to achieve, it is easier to determine what kind and style of content to create.
12. Determine your KPIs
To achieve your goals, you need to make them specific and measure them with key performance indicators.
KPI’s are data that can be measured which allows you to see how you are doing in comparison to your goals. By having these KPI’s, it sets checkpoints that you need to reach in order to accomplish your goal.
Let’s see some examples real quick.
You may aim to:
- Reach a specific number of new email subscribers
- Improve search engine rankings of some of your pages
- Increase organic traffic to a specific level
- Reach a certain target revenue
- Acquire a designated number of mentions, backlinks, etc
13. Understand your target audience
Content marketing will only be successful if you take the time to figure out who your target audience is. Only then will you be able to create content that is relevant to them and that will ultimately reach them.
You will need to collect demographic data on your visitors, email subscribers, as well as social media followers in order to do that.
This data can tell you things such as the age, gender, and location of your audience, as well as their income. You can get this data from sources such as Google Analytics, Facebook Page Insights, and Twitter Analytics.
For example, these personas:
- help you stay relevant
- differentiate your brand from the competition
- prioritize your leads
14. Figure out the type of content you’ll create
Different businesses have different needs, so finding a solution that will work for everyone is going to be a long and serious process, since one size fits all doesn’t apply here.
There are many different types of content, including blog posts, white papers, polls, and more.
What keywords are they using? Health, wellness, fitness, exercising, workout?
What problems are they trying to overcome? Lack of motivation, poor health, obesity?
How can you help them fulfill their purpose? By providing content that is interesting, informative, and motivating.
If you have just started your company, or if your in-house resources are limited, you may not be able to use the full range of content types.
The only way to have a successful content marketing strategy is by basing it off of data you have collected on your personas and target audience.
15. Choose the best content channels
It’s time to choose the right channels through which to distribute your content.
To reach your audience, you should market on the platforms where they spend most of their time. You can research where they are spending their time, or look at platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
This will increase the likelihood that your content will be seen, and subsequently engaged with.
Social media analytics and demographics can help you understand which social media platforms would be a good investment for your budget, and which ones would be a waste of your budget.
16. Identify requirements and set the budget
Now that you have a content marketing strategy, make sure you have all of the necessary tools to carry it out.
So ask yourself the following indicative questions to determine your course of action:
- Do you need to hire any members, such as writers, designers, or editors for your content team?
- Do you need to purchase any equipment (such as cameras or mics, for videos and podcasts) or software tools (such as Adobe Photoshop, Canva, or other tools similar to Photoshop) that will assist your content marketing efforts?
- Are you going to buy ad space?
- Do you have the necessary resources to enhance your content?
17. Create an editorial calendar
A content calendar is a key part of your content strategy.
It is essential to have a publication schedule for your content and to know which platforms you will use to publish it. Lack of scheduling could be a grave mistake, so don’t ignore it!
If you are not creating a large amount of content, Google Calendar is an excellent tool to use to put due dates there.
If you manage a team and produce a lot of content, then Asana, CoSchedule, Notion, and other similar solutions would be more helpful.
18. Create and distribute content
Now that it is clear that it is still early on in the process, it is time to start creating the content.
After you decide on a topic, the first thing you should do is research what else is out there on the topic and how your content can add value for your audience.
You will need to do a Google search for the topic you are interested in and find the top-ranking content. Once you have found this content, you will need to decide how you can improve on it.
Keyword research would be extremely beneficial to you.
Your brand new piece of content will be better optimized for search engines and more visible to your audience.
Some distribution examples include:
- Email marketing, to distribute to your subscribers
- Social media sharing through posts, tweets, etc.
- Inform major influencers about your new content
19. Analyze and assess results
This allows you to identify what is resonating with your audience and what content to produce next. In addition, this indicates what changes need to be made to improve your content marketing efforts and attract more viewers.
To find this information, go to Google Analytics or any social media analytics dashboard.
Based on the results, you will adjust your marketing tactics as necessary.
Remember to evaluate and analyze your process to see what goals you want to achieve in the future!
The future of content marketing
Content marketing in the future will be focused on creating engaging and valuable content that will keep users coming back. Storytelling marketing will be more important than ever to target the right audience with the right content and use the appropriate channels to reach them.
- Content marketing will become even more crucial in the next few years.
- Companies not using content marketing will fall behind their competitors.
- Content must be high quality and relevant to your target audience to succeed
- You will need a content strategy to make the most of your content marketing efforts.