Content Marketing Trends to Look Out for in 2019

By Tridia Tshimanga:

The world of marketing is changing as we know it. With new technology and tools emerging, marketers are left with endless and innovative opportunities to engage with their consumer base, especially in the world of content marketing.

Today, 53% of businesses have employed content marketing throughout their marketing strategies, making it one of the most rapidly growing and evolving concepts that many industries have adapted. For companies that want to gain a competitive edge, staying on top of the newest trends in content marketing will elevate your brand, instead of having it be left behind. Get up-to-date and check out these content marketing trends your company should be looking out for in 2019.

As the year comes to an end, learn how your company can elevate your #ContentMarketing plan for the new year! Share on X

Out with the Old, in with the New

Before we get into everything, let’s start with a generic basis of what content marketing is. According to the Content Marketing Institute:

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and reign a clearly defined audience and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Content marketing isn’t a new concept. At first, traditional marketing strategies served as the essential role for marketing departments, while content marketing was viewed as an add-on to the traditional marketing process. Now, that’s changed.

Companies view content marketing as being useful to every function on the marketing team and plan. In fact, according to a Cision study, the most successful B2B marketers spend about 40% of their overall marketing budget on content marketing, while B2C marketers only spend 26%.

Content marketing is quickly becoming the new marketing. It provides the best tool to generate qualified leads, increase site traffic, earn trust and build your brand. With the ability to create valuable pieces of content, content marketing allows companies to engage more with consumers through the creation and use of high-quality content.

It’s All About #CustomerSuccess

Content marketing has proven its point in helping companies drive sales and increase engagement with customers. But for many companies, it isn’t all about driving sales. It’s about helping customers to be successful and providing them the necessary tools and resources to have a successful experience with their brand.

As content marketing continues to make a huge impact on marketing, it will play an even bigger role in retrieving customer success. What is customer success, you may ask? It’s a way of ensuring customers are able to achieve their desired outcomes through your company’s products and services. These days, it takes more than just making a sale and handling customer complaints as they arise.

Growth and success are more than landing new clients — it’s all about retaining your existing ones. In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention rates can increase profits by 25 to 95%. Companies should start by maximizing their current customer’s value from their purchase(s) while continuing to develop a stronger relationship with them and encourage word-of-mouth among their peers.

Looking for fresh ideas for your organization's #ContentMarketing plan? Check out these popular #content trends for 2019: Share on X

By adding a stellar content marketing strategy to your customer success plan, your company is able to allow consumers to access a well-curated knowledge base that speaks specifically to their needs, while also helping your business build awareness and increase engagement with them. This will ultimately increase your relationship with your consumers, making them more likely to stick with your business and increase referrals through word-of-mouth between their family and friends.

The Marketing Funnel Will Change

While marketing continues to evolve, it’s time for us to adopt a new way to look at the traditional marketing funnel. Instead of a funnel, think of it as an ongoing cycle. Through the traditional marketing funnel, companies swallowed hard-won leads in the beginning. Then, filtering out customers straight to the bottom, leaving them high and dry. In the end, customers were left clueless, with not much engagement, once the journey was over.

Transitioning to an ongoing cycle, content marketing prioritizes continuous engagement through transactional relationships. This allows your company to be present throughout the whole buyer’s journey. Roughly, 96% of participants stated that adding value to the buyer’s experience impacted their buying decisions.

Instead of leaving customers feeling alone in the end, your company can create an opportunity to be present throughout each stage of their buyer’s journey. This way, your company can better assist in teaching customers about your service and products. And, help answer questions before and after their purchase. In the end, you are creating more engagement with them.

Distribution Will Remain a Driver of Success

Now that your content is created, it’s time to share it. Using social media, develop the best strategy to captivate and pull audiences. With a variety of methods, your company can find the best deliverable platforms for your products and services.

Using social media as channels to share your content is an important part of consumer’s awareness stage. Here are some questions to think about as you develop your social media plan:

• Who do you want to view your content?
• How does your audience consume content?
• When do you want your audience to see your content?

This will help you determine the most efficient and effective ways for your company’s brand to reach consumers. Once that’s established, move on to your distribution plan. Content distribution is a core component of every good content marketing strategy. As you expand further on social media, stay on top of social media trends that can elevate and position your company. Today, 81% of small and medium businesses apply some social platform to promote their brand. But don’t just stop there.

Here are some ways to expand your distribution methods:

• Email marketing helps brands to dig deeper and discover other distribution channels that their audience is active on. This can create an opportunity to build sustainable brand loyalty and trust through shareable and valuable content.
• Include physical copies of content for certain products.
• Apply a personalized approach and provide seminars and other speaking engagements that will entice your company’s message.

Get creative on how you want to deliver your content to the right people. With so many ideas and platforms to distribute content, there’s never any wrong way!

Before the new year starts, take some time to review your company’s content marketing strategy. Staying up-to-date on new practices and trends will help increase your audience, while still staying connected to your current audience, leveraging your company’s brand.

So, what are you waiting for? Get ahead of the game and follow these trends to take your content and your business to the next level in 2019!