What used to be a tiny part of different marketing strategies content, over the years, has slowly become a full-blown strategy in itself.
Every marketer should know how good quality content that provides value to customers can generate engagement and conversations, eventually leading to conversions.
Usually, these past few years, the focus was so much on bidding for the right keywords and running ad campaigns that people underestimated the potential of content strategy.
But this year, now that people have been shifting their focus on content marketing, we had to get our research done and strategies revised to accommodate it into our marketing plans.
I am going to share some of the top content marketing trends of 2022 that are guaranteed to make you tap into the unused potential of content planning to stay ahead in the game.
Spending time in researching your target
In order to reach your customers and offer them something of value, you first need to know who they are, where they are, and what they do. Research helps you find your target market and understand their wants, needs, search intent, and consumption pattern so that you make content to specifically suit their intent instead of making very generic content that does not really resonate with anyone.
Planning tailored content for every subgroup in your target
Even within your target population, there may be many sub-groups who are looking to consume your product or service for different reasons. So plan tailored content for each of these sub-groups keeping their consumption pattern and behaviour in mind.
For example, young adults are more on video-based platforms these days and prefer more impactful video content that is not too long. Making short video reel content is the way to target them.
But this same approach will not work for people in the older age groups, who spend less time on social media and prefer reading. Writing informative blog pieces is the right form of content for targeting them.
Having a more humane approach
It is quite common for marketing professionals to always think about ranking algorithms and to fine-tune the content so that the crawlers and search engines understand to rank them better. The result is that they fail to take reader experience into consideration and end up stuffing keywords or other elements relevant to search engines only.
That is not the right way to plan your content. Your approach should be more human-centric and must pull in your customer’s emotions by providing relatable and unique content that is worth reading for them and not just aimed purely for SEO.
Setting goals that are measurable
If you just keep putting out content after content not knowing how it is performing or if it is even making the impact it was intended to, then you are definitely going wrong. It is a waste of time and resources to not measure your performance against an already set goal.
That is why make it a plan this 2022 to set goals even for your content like your other marketing campaigns. Your goal can be about spreading brand awareness, bringing traffic or views, or generating leads.
Tracking your performance through goals will also help you understand which type of content is resonating more with the audience so that you can focus your efforts on that.
Improving quality of your existing content
It’s the year 2022, which means new content for the new year, right?
Nope, new trends do not mean all your previously published content have no use for you.
In fact, one of the growing trends with content marketing this year is improving the quality of your already existing content by making new updates to it because people have put in so much time, effort, and resources to create it in the first place.
You can add in new statistical data or a currently popular topic or issue or make better changes to suit the readers and trends of the present time.
The success of the content you have created depends on three important tactics:
- SEO
- Visual content
- Content Optimization
Here are a few tips on how to write a good piece of content:
- Make sure to use titles that tell readers clearly what your content is about.
- Use relevant header tags to organise your content.
- Add in appropriate internal and external links using keywords as anchor texts
- Use a reader-friendly language and tone
- Provide content that people can actually relate to. An information-rich content is helpful but it will seem too academical if you cannot make it interesting and relatable using examples.
- In the end, add a call to action that is relevant to your purpose for writing the content. It can be something about visiting your website, shopping with you, or simply signing up a form etc.
Focusing where your target is
With so many social media platforms and services available online, it makes it hard to decide where you should channel your content marketing efforts. In such cases, the best way is to go with where your target audience is and your intention for the content.
If you are unsure how to do it. You can even try experimenting first by posting your content and promoting it briefly on various sites to test its performance. Whichever site gives you a good reception it is better to focus more in that area in the future.
Riding the trend bus with content creators
One thing that is hot in marketing these days is collaborating with content creators. If you do not have a strong team or brand following of your own, there are influencers and content creators with a whooping following base who are ready to do it on your behalf.
You not only get exposure to their fan base but also you do not have to heavily brainstorm to come up with a content. These talented creators know all about the trends and have their pulse on what is up and happening.
So when you collaborate with a content creator you get to ride the trend bus and make the most out of it even when you are not strongly equipped with a professional team to pull it off.
Virtual Reality and Metaverse Marketing
Virtual reality, augmented reality, and marketing on the metaverse are gaining momentum these days and in a few years will become a full-fledged marketing core.
So this year, people are slowly trying to shift to adapt to this new channel of marketing. Already a lot of businesses are testing waters with VR and AR. Using 3D imaging and AR they give customers a better understanding and feel of how the products will look in a space or on the customers themselves.
Already some big brands have set their foot in the metaverse and in some time small business will soon follow too. So slowly start planning your content this year to gain leverage when the time comes right.
Popular content creation tools
Unlike the past years, where you had to have a whole team full of professionals to take care of various aspects of content creation right from its planning to inception.
Presently, a lot of content creation tools powered by AI have made it easy to create content for a lot of small businesses. Right from keyword research to writing assistants, editors to infographic creators’ a vast number of tools are available now with different functionalities.
We have covered this in-depth in one of our latest blog posts 10 Powerful Tools for Content Creation To Take Your Content to the Next Level.
Also, if you are someone who already has a lot on their plate with the core business activities and cannot afford a team of your own, a very good idea would be to outsource a professional team like MyTasker on a project or requirement basis which could save you a lot of time, money, and efforts.
