The Most Exciting Content Trends for 2020. As technology evolves, more and more people shop online instead of visiting brick-and-mortar stores. This increases the value of digital marketing to commercial brands, and content marketing in particular. Every seasoned advertiser needs to break through the information noise on the web and deliver unique branded messages to prospective clients.
Content is a King. While this is an invariable truth, the best practices in this area can swiftly change, putting pressure on companies to adopt the latest tools and methods.
This time the Clever team invites you to become acquainted with the most prominent content marketing trends to anticipate in 2020. Having introduced them into your promotional campaign, you can count on the active engagement of your target audience and a solid boost in sales.
Meaningful and Valuable Content
The days of keyword stuffing as an SEO tactic are long gone. Today, advertisers apply more sophisticated SEO and content marketing strategies to push their websites to the top of SERPs.
Since view time is now an important ranking factor, apart from luring users to your pages, you also need to secure their attention and make them stay for the longest time possible. This is best done by delivering value to your readers. If they find your texts and visual content useless, they will instantly bail from your website and go to your competitors.
Here are the key principles you need to implement to excel in 2020:
- Wrap keywords relevant to page subjects in useful and engaging text.Regularly research the needs of your prospects and their behavior in search engines: the keywords they use, along with the sites they most often visit and spend the most time on.
- Choose the tone and style for presenting your brand online based on the lifestyle and mentality of your target audience.
- Cite authoritative sources. Feed your readership with the most trustworthy and relevant data.
- Write in a reader-friendly and entertaining language, and refrain from using excessive professional jargon. Explain each topic in great detail, but do not write meaningless sentences, just to meet your word count.
- Create custom visuals: infographics, logos, product photos, etc.
It will be more challenging for writers to stand out and impress their readership in 2020. While this may be problematic for some content creators, it is an important step towards boosting the quality of web content, making it a victory for web users in the long run.
Augmented Reality
Every year, AR becomes increasingly widespread, and the trend will persist in 2020. Many advanced companies use AR technology to enrich the way real things appear on the web, adding virtual details to them. Use Snapchat lenses to get a taste of AR and get into different characters.
The use of AR elements will increase engagement on your website. If you sell jewelry or cosmetics, users will be thrilled to try different accessories and make-up options, rather than simply reading about them and viewing photos.
Cater to Customers’ Needs
The merits of your business are not as important to your prospects as the value you offer them personally. To succeed in 2020, you need to redirect your focus from your business to your clients.
Show them that they are the key actors in your play, and create each plot twist with their preferences in mind.
How do you unearth your readers’ preferences? Just ask them. Request reviews, organize polls, and monitor the behavior of your target audience on forums and Q/A platforms.
Create a top-notch FAQ section on your website and be ready to answer additional questions. Experience has shown that some details always remain unclear, no matter how comprehensive your FAQ is. Your customer support staff should regularly report on issues clients ask about, and refine the FAQ page accordingly.
While the FAQ section provides brief answers to customers’ questions, you can expand on them in blog articles. Also, analyze the queries that your clients enter in the search bar to understand what problems and needs led them to your website.
Posts that answer customers’ questions and address their challenges will make your company blog truly valuable and useful.
Visual Content Marketing
It can be tedious for your prospects to read long texts, so dilute them with visuals. While it is common to embed a couple of images in each post, not all companies use videos for visual storytelling. But they should.
People are fond of videos. This type of content delivers useful information in a vivid and engaging format, and it also builds trust when people see your face and understand that you are putting your reputation on the line.
When compiling a new how-to guide, don’t just explain how to do things — show it! Rather than simply describing your services, show exactly how you provide them. For example, a hair salon can showcase a hairdresser in action. A medical center can provide videos of certain procedures. Or you can show your customers how to assemble and use your product.
User-Generated Content
Your community is capable of not only absorbing content, but also generating it. Ask customers to write reviews, leave comments under your posts, photograph themselves using your products and share photos. Such activities give your audience a sense of belonging and build a strong bond between your brand and its followers.
Another plus of user-generated content is that you will spend less time and effort researching topics of interest to your readership and creating branded content.
Invite and encourage your audience to interact with your brand in 2020. Find ways to reach them on an emotional level, and your clients will be happy to contribute their content.
Voice Content
In 2020, marketers will need to awaken as many senses as they can to impress web users. Voice content is delivered by smart speakers and smartphone assistants like Amazon Alexa or Siri. It is a type of audio content, part of a broader category that encompasses voice search, audiograms, voice shopping and podcasting.
Helpful voice content can favorably complement the existing textual and visual content on your website. Its creation does not entail a significant expenditure, unlike contextual advertising, social media, and other common marketing channels.
Proper Planning
Your content marketing strategy should work like a Swiss clock. Stop littering the webspace with sporadic and irrelevant publications. Each of your posts should be well-thought-out and inspired by the needs of your target audience.
Put quality over quantity. It is better to write only two to three solid posts per week than to post mediocre daily articles that deliver no value to readers. You will have time to properly research your topics, proofread and edit texts several times and, as a result, please your readers with better content.
More and more, writing and publishing make up only a small part of content marketing work. You also need to order topical images from a designer, write unique summaries, share your posts on social media, and much more. All these steps should become a strict algorithm that you apply to every post.
Even though writing is creative work, you cannot rely solely on inspiration, and share your pieces sporadically. Readers need to know what to expect from you and when, so set strict deadlines and publishing times.
Self-discipline and proper planning will help you establish order and make the most of your content marketing efforts.
Customer Journey Mapping
It can be challenging for large companies with many clients to individualize their approach and gauge the experiences of every customer they serve. You should automate this practice rather than ignore it, since it will become more useful and important in 2020 than ever before.
Map the shopping journeys of your customers to understand which of your promotional efforts are delivering the best results. Find out which channels they used to find you, what incentives and CTAs inspired buyers to place orders, and why some shoppers abandoned your site, while others turned into regular customers.
This information will help you build more effective content marketing strategies, as well as improve your customer service.
B2C Patterns in B2B
In 2020, B2B interactions will continue to take on the characteristics of B2C. This means that you will have to use mobile-friendly content, social media, AR, and chatbots to attract business partners and subcontractors.
Entrepreneurs are using these tools and channels more and more to find information and services of interest. Neglecting them or thinking they are not relevant to business transactions can cause you to lose countless lucrative opportunities.
We shared the key trends in content marketing for 2020. Adopt these best practices as part of your promotional strategy, enjoy a boost in user engagement on your website, and see your sales skyrocket in the coming year.
