Content marketing trends are changing every year. And with each year passing, users are becoming more comfortable and adept with the internet. As a content marketer, you need to gear up with the changing expectations of your audience. Assessing your target audience and taking note of their preferences and likings must be one of your first tasks as a content marketer in 2022.
For the past two years, content marketers have observed a drastic level of change in finding the presence of active readers online. Content marketers have been essentially triggered to cater to areas like remote learning, improving the online shopping experience, and providing engaging avenues for entertainment and information to the audience.
With people spending more time on the internet, writing for webinars and podcasts has become a routine practice in the life of a content marketer. In the waves of digital transformation, content marketers not just have the important opportunity but also the responsibility to understand the changing dynamics of the digital market.
To deal with this, we have curated a list of 5 content marketing trends to follow in 2022 as follows:
1. Growing importance of interactive content
2022 will observe buyers making a crucial purchase decision based on the experiences and information available to them on the internet. Interactive content helps in garnering the attention of the audience by providing them with quick access to information.
Content marketing in digital marketing industry has expectedly crossed over $400 billion mark by the year 2021. The internet is full of blogs, articles, videos, images, and whatnot for literally every subject and topic one can think of. In such a scenario, finding the content gap can be a herculean task.
For your content copies to stand out, your content must bring in essence the answers to the questions which your users demand. Creating hyper-engaging content is however not easy. Plus, the audience may demand convenient answers at times and may simply not be interested in finding your lengthily worded content. This is where the role of interactive content shines in bringing quick and effective answers to the questions.
The important benefit of using interactive content is that it captures data in a visually aesthetic format. This enables the understanding of the readers, who can then quickly make inferences.
- The other significant advantage of interactive content is that it helps in stimulating brand loyalty. Interactive content helps in winning the trust of the readers.
- They provide the readers the incentive to come back and forth to the author’s platform to stay in touch with what he or she has to offer next. Interactive content helps in shaping the perception of the audience.
- On and on, interactive content provides your reader a ready opportunity to become loyal to your brand or business.
2. Build your Content Marketing Strategy with focus on intent
Understanding the real-time needs of the audience is going to be the key in 2022 for the success of all your content marketing initiatives. Search engines like Google and Bing have been working for years to smoothen and improve the experience of the visitors on their website.
- Focusing on user intent must be your topmost priority in 2022 before writing a content piece. Capturing the intent allows the author to have an understanding of what their audience is searching about. This way, they have the opportunity to create just the content which matches their needs.
- Intent is considered to be very important from the standpoint of relevance as per the practices of SEO. The emphasis on writing for intent is also increasing with the growing prominence of voice-based searches (link here).
There are basically four types of user intent which the content marketers can aim for producing and marketing their copies. These are:
- Informational
- Transactional
- Navigational
- Commercial
Understanding the user intent for a query or content piece can also help you to navigate to the specific interests of the reader and help them connect with your content better.
3. Increasing focus on Account Based Marketing
The Internet is a wide pool of blogs, articles, and all other forms of content pieces. In recent years, marketers have fortunately understood the power of content marketing for brand building exercises. Adopting an ABM approach in 2022 will help the brands to focus on creating quality content that is appealing and relevant to the audience.
- Account Based Marketing is the dedicated approach of making the optimal use of the resources to get the most value from your marketing initiatives. It is directly aligned with the need for increasing conversion rate and increasing the quality of leads. With accounts based marketing, the focus of the business organisation is to ensure the Return on Investment by making the brand an intrinsic part of an individual’s life.
- The focus of accounts based marketing is to focus on improving the health of the marketing campaigns by improving their efficiency. What it means for the content marketers is that they need stellar content which not only sticks to the mind of the audience but is also crucial in –
- Reducing bounce rate
- Improving click through rate
- Increasing traffic
- Driving conversions
- Generating lead
4. Focusing on analytics will help you become the winner
Search engines are loaded with thousands of results for any given search topic. Content marketing is the new tech age of Google has become one of the important marketing channels to help businesses build their brands.
A lot of effort goes into making any content. Writers and marketers have the responsibility to understand that they cannot throw up any content on the internet and expect to garner engagement, traffic, and conversions.
The use of analytics in 2022 is going to be of esteemed importance in helping the brands to find content gaps and watch for what is in trend. This way, marketers stay on top of the shifting priorities and give their content a unique angle with a sense of empathy for the audience.
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Data-driven approach to writing content can help you get a long way to help your content stand out and maintain its relevance for a long-long time.
5. Growing importance of VR in tech content marketing
The growing importance of Virtual Reality in the tech world has made it one of the disruptive technologies for all industries. VR gives an immersive virtual experience for the users to interact.
- As per the report released by Forbes, the spending on VR & AR technology is expected to increase by 78.5% this year in comparison with the previous year. This indicates the pressing need for content marketers to develop necessary strategies in making the experience of using the technology more engaging and immersive.
- While writing for VR, one has to keep in mind that the audience for the platform is atypical. Such users want to enhance their knowledge and want an encouraging experience through visuals and videos.
- Your storytelling exercises for such a medium must be spot on to garner the appeal and trust of the users. Marketers need to keep in mind that they must win the need for creating fascination in the minds of their audience. The traditional concepts of content writing and marketing are just not enough to suit the needs of the modern age VR users
For VR users, these are the driving factors that will lead them to consider the value for your content:
- Sense of personalization – For VR users, a sense of personalization is the key to deriving the best values from using VR. Creators must keep in mind that they need to blur the difference between the real and the virtual world and hence create killer content to engage their audience better.
- Solutions to the challenges – VR users are interested in consuming content in a more informative yet surreal way. Viewers may be interested in exploring any product or maybe encouraged to find answers to the complex problems.
- Tap into your audience’s interest to find what works – It is important to consider that writing for VR essentially means that the interests of your audience are super important. You cannot engage your audience in this ultra-interactive platform unless they are not excited to hear what you have to say. Tap into trends and discover what your audience loves to build your brand message.
- Draw a compelling narrative – It is important for content marketers to draw their narratives in a structured manner. With your narratives, the focus must be on winning the trust of your audience. You can do this by adding an emotional element to your story or by narrating real-life experiences to catch and hold the attention of your audience.
Final Notes
The pandemic has caused a lot of brands to pivot their marketing strategies for finding effective and proven ways of associating with personas. Content marketing in this respect has important potential in catering to the changing preferences of the audience by conversing with them. Content marketing is one of the proven ways for brands to build trust with their audience. It gives them the platform to creatively connect and engage with their audience.
Content marketing in 2022 is the extension of the trends and developments we have been observing from the past two years. Writers and marketers need to gear up to the changing trends in the world of business vis a vis content marketing. This will help them remain focused to increase the relevance and growth of their business and website.
Q. Why is content marketing important in 2022?
Content marketing in 2022 remains essential because it builds brand authority, engages audiences authentically, drives organic traffic, supports SEO efforts, nurtures leads, and cultivates long-term customer relationships through valuable, relevant content. It’s integral for establishing trust and staying competitive in digital landscapes.