5 Content Marketing Trends To Watch For

Content marketing has gone from popular to the future of marketing to the hottest topic in marketing right now. Based on recent studies from Content Marketing Institute, 69% of B2C marketers and 70% of B2B are creating more content in 2015 than they did in 2014. Content marketing is replacing traditional advertising and sales tactics as brands realize it’s better to attract prospects through their content than it is through cold calling and pushy advertising.

Content marketing isn’t just blogs and white papers anymore. As more content fills newsfeeds and inboxes, people are yearning for more. Well, not exactly more… but better. Here’s where things are headed.

Brands As Publishers

Brands are morphing into publishers, opening up positions in their marketing departments for journalists and content creators. CEOs and marketing directors are spending less time on sales strategy and traditional advertising campaigns and more time as content marketers and editors, building out their in house publishing teams.

Branded Video Content

We’re seeing the birth of new forms of branded video content. What was experimental 15 years ago, with projects like the BMW Films series, is now becoming mainstream. Brands are partnering with networks, devoting sizable budgets and attention to creating branded content for broadcast.

Major producers and directors are being pulled into the mix to take branded storytelling to new heights. In the case of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer directing a new GE branded content series on National Geographic, the GE brand is embedded. Forget traditional commercials, they are a distraction. The brands are now at the heart of the content from the start and are participating in the creation process.

Building a Big Rock

The concept of building a big rock has emerged in the marketing world to describe the use of a large, high performing piece of content that brands can build around. Sometimes this means months of writing and preparation leading up to the launch of the big rock and sustaining the PR outreach and marketing efforts for many more months to get as much out of the content as possible.

Interactive Content Marketing

Everyone is creating content, but not everyone is creating interactive content. The goal with interactive content is to add a way for users to participate, and in some instances, to find interesting and personalized results. Examples include quizzes, survey tools and interactive infographics. All of these examples allow users to choose their own path or input their own data. Interactive content has the ability to keep users engaged much longer than static content and people love to share an enjoyable experience with others.

Beyond Blogging… Creating Content Hubs

Blog content is great, but it ages. Evergreen content is relevant years after it’s published. Enter the content hub, where a series of related content is organized around a single topic or theme. While content hubs are not new, 2016 will see many brands launching them, in addition to the blogging they are already doing. A content hub stays focused on a single theme and uses doesn’t push content down based on recency. Here are some examples of brands with successful content hubs.

2015 and Beyond

If 2015 was the rise of content marketing (or at least when content marketing went mainstream), then 2016 and 2017 will be the flood. Brands will need to find ways to create more compelling, interactive and visual content and will need to work harder to stand out and reach people. In the years to come, let’s hope for better content and not just more content.