It’s that time of year again. Starbucks is launching holiday drinks. Pots find their way back to the kitchen table. Last year’s gauntlets suddenly seem at the bottom of your jacket pockets. And content marketers are digging out their calendars to brainstorm and prepare for next year.
So we asked some industry experts what content marketing trends they’re most excited about – what they require to try, what they demand to see, and why – so you can use these tactics in your planning for 2021.
Here are the top seven content marketing trends you need to know about for next year:
- Building content communities
- Live activities with video and webinars
- Enhancing the content experience
- Focus on products and services
- Testing AI-driven texts
- Doubling SEO
- Repurposing content across channels
Let’s get started!
1| Building Content Communities
The most meaningful content marketing trend to try in 2021 is not surprising. With the rise of Slack communities in technology and the focus on personalization in marketing during the pandemic, building communities has been critical for marketing teams all year. But by building communities specifically for sharing and creating content, marketing teams can continue to expand their reach, even with fewer resources.
Lauren Pope, content marketing manager at G2, believes limited resources and high production demands will help this trend take off next year. “At some point,” she says. “Every content team will reach the highest content velocity, where each writer creates the maximum content they can outdoors cutting property.”
She also guides the benefits of increasing your brand’s reach with a community of contributors. “You tap into the huge audience of these writers on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and word-of-mouth. This creates more experts who are happy to write for your publication.”
Expanding your reach is good for brand awareness – and, of course, your stats – but it’s also good for your audience’s sense of community. This inclusive sense of community impacts audience engagement positively. “Whether it’s content for social media, your blog or a webinar, the focus should remain on making your attendees feel like a community,” she says. “People love the feeling of belonging to a community. It makes them feel treasured, so this trend should continue.”
2| Live activities with Video and Webinars
With events out this year, video and webinar content has become even more critical – and it’s not going away.
“My guess is that video marketing, including the boom in live video, will continue to grow in 2021,” Masooma predicts. But it’s not just because of personal constraints; there’s a reason the live video was on the rise long before the pandemic. “The reason? Video is a fast and effective medium to get your message across and inform your audience. Consumers want to get/learn information quickly, and there’s no better way to do that than through video marketing.”
However, it could be beneficial to put even more emphasis on live video and webinars. “That’s why we’re likely to see innovative new approaches to webinars,” says Patrick Whatman, head of content marketing at Spendesk. Small exclusive AMA sessions, masterclasses, “fireside chats,” and more interactive approaches will become increasingly widespread. People are less and less involved in sitting and entertaining more than 30 slides. They want to be able to ask questions and interact. And I’m excited about this element, too. I attend webinars all the time, but I don’t follow them in person because I think the information is more accessible (and in my own time). But the opportunity to sit in a small group and ask questions of the experts is still very appealing.”
3| Improving the Content Expertise
Have you ever succeeded on an article you were required to read and ended up on a page full of pop-ups and billboards? It isn’t perfect, and I usually close the page without reading anything. At the same time, I spend my time clicking on tools as if I miss Office because they look interesting – although I certainly don’t miss the sound of my colleagues chewing.
Ultimately, the way you handle content is sometimes as important as the content you hold. That’s why one of the key trends in content marketing will focus on the content experience, whether new, interactive content or better UX.
“To achieve ROI on content, you need to focus on the content experience. That means users should stay on your site, fall in love with what you’re writing about, find exactly what they’re looking for, and end up in your sales funnel,” explains content marketing expert Adam Energy. “One of my favourite examples of great content is Pat Flynn’s tutorial site. They include not only text content, but also courses, webinars, videos, podcast episodes and tactical calls to action. If brands haven’t already created these content silos to generate leads, they need to start now.”
4| Focus on Products and Services
Experts believe that another trend in content marketing will continue emphasizing content at the bottom of the channel related to the core offering.
It will be partly due to limited resources or conservative marketing plans. “I see companies trying to stay as lean as possible for at least the next 6-9 months,” says Patrick. “And that goes for content marketing as well. To start, I think content marketers will try to focus on their key buyer personas and core topics. Now is not the time to explore entirely new horizons.”
This laser focus means paying more attention to content at the bottom of the funnel specific to crucial buyer personas and closely related to the product or service offering. But it can also help better understand the return on content investment.
According to Lauren, this is already happening in practice on sites like G2. “Lately, we’ve put a lot more emphasis on creating content directly related to product launches, user integration and other topics,” she says. “It makes it much easier to connect content marketing directly to influencer revenue, and it also supports a lot of the good work that our other internal marketing teams are doing.”
5| AI-driven Content Testing
When I first tried an AI-based content creation tool last fall, I thought it was cool and futuristic – and maybe a little scary, but more on that in a moment. As I dug deeper into the matter, I found that content experts have been predicting for years that AI would come to play a role in content.
As tools like the GPT-3 API and Content, which use AI to process data and create summaries, captions, and even entire blog posts, become more available, this trend will likely take hold by 2021.
“I’ve been waiting a few years for GPT-3,” says Rachel Pilcher, author of B2B and SaaS conversion tools, “It’s what I most want to try in my own content marketing. The huge advances in AI technology lately mean exciting things for us as marketers, so I hope we’ll have access to it by 2021 (fingers crossed!).”
Take Advantage of These New Content Marketing Trends now.
Keep these inclinations in mind as you plan your content marketing strategy for this year. The main focus for next year is creating high-quality content that does more for your business – without necessarily requiring more resources. We can all relate to this to creating better content and achieving our marketing goals in 2021.
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