12 Content Marketing Trends to Embrace (Startups & B2Bs)
Sometimes successful content marketing strategies call for regular changes in order to keep up with the demands of the industry and to thrive as well.
As the content marketing world evolves, so do the techniques for success.
But the real question is “what is your perception as a business owner on content marketing trends?
Do you ignore them and continue with old-school techniques or are you always ready to adapt to the inclinations of the industry?
Think about it: in the past, digital marketing was primarily text-based such as written articles, white papers, and case studies.
But with the birth of social media networks, audio content, and video marketing in various formats, small businesses are finding it hard to keep up the pace.
As a matter of fact, these content distribution channels mentioned above have taken up so much real estate in the digital marketing world.
And thousands of businesses are often leaving millions on the table when they are ignoring to promote their content on these platforms.
With that said, it’s important to keep a close eye on the latest content marketing trends so you can identify new opportunities to get in front of your target audience.
I’ve selected a few trends that are changing the game right now.
The sooner you can get on the bandwagon, the sooner you can tweak your content marketing strategy accordingly and reap the benefits of successful content marketing.
7 Current Content Marketing Trends New SaaS or B2B Shouldn’t Miss Out On
- Use of Automation in Content Marketing Processes
- Add Video Content to Your Content Strategy
- Leveraging AI Tools for Better Customer Experience
- Test Influencer Marketing
- Using Data Analytics to Improve Content Marketing Campaigns
- Live Streaming for More Customer Proximity
- Using AI-Powered SEO Tools
Let’s dissect these 7 content marketing trends to see how they can benefit you as a Startup founder or B2B owner.
1. The Use of Automation in Content Processes
The first thing you need to ask yourself as a content marketer is “how is my content marketing workflow contributing to my results?”
If your content marketing workflow looks like an old machine, making forceful efforts to attract a couple of sessions per day and no money at all, then it’s probably time to renew the engine oil.
Remember that your audience is moving into a new age of content generation, publishing, and sharing.
If you do not rethink your content marketing strategy, then you’ll most likely never take off.
One of the ways to make your business adapt to the exigencies of the digital landscape is to make use of automation in your content process.
Yep, that’s the new engine oil you need!
Using automation tools in your content marketing efforts is something you should consider if you want to keep up with the trends and the pace at which things are evolving in the content marketing world.
Nowadays, there are automation tools for almost every area of content marketing.
For example, creating content can be done much faster with AI writing assistants, photo editing software, online video editors, and so on…
Automation tools can make simple tasks or a whole process much easier to prepare, manage and execute.
For example, you can use tools like Clickup or Monday to quickly build a content calendar, generate and publish content on a schedule, monitor your campaigns, and more.
So, try to find a few automation tools that can speed up your content processes. You’ll thank me later!
2. Video Content Marketing
Looking to spice up your content marketing strategies and create content that has the ability to make your business stand out in a crowded market?
Start creating useful and engaging videos for your target audience.
Video content is a faster, more engaging, and viral way to communicate with your customers.
According to a study made by Hubspot, 66% of consumers have watched a video to learn more about a brand or a product.
YouTube, being the 2nd largest video content marketing platform and the largest search engine, makes it an ideal place to create engaging content with the goal of providing valuable information to your audience and simultaneously promoting your brand.
With this strategy, you can definitely throw your brand, products or services to millions of eyeballs every day.
With consistent interactive content such as “reels” (Instagram, Tiktok), and “shorts” (youtube), you can easily enhance user engagement, strengthen your business relationships with potential customers, as well as educate them about what you have to offer and stimulate their interest in buying your products or services.
You will also notice that social media networks are encouraging their creators to push out more videos than static content.
Why? Because they have noticed that videos are easier to consume and users are more likely to engage with them more than a written blog post or a social media photo.
So, will you consider adding video content to your next content strategy?
Video content is taking the world of content marketing by storm so much that Instagram has found itself copying TikTok short form videos known as reels.
This is enough to show the importance of video marketing in a content marketing strategy.
3. Leveraging AI Tools for Better Customer Experience
Have you noticed a surge in the usage of chatbots among SaaS, B2B companies?
The objective behind the use of chatbots is to provide a hyper-personalized interaction with prospective customers.
I’m pretty sure you’ve interacted with at least one chatbot this week uh?
Chatbots are subtle and smart AI assistants that are ready to help your customers with a wide range of tasks without getting in the way of a human being.
In fact, chatbots have proven to be useful performers in a lot of situations, especially if you’re a service provider and you’re trying to help your customers with a pre-sales question, or after they’ve purchased your product, or even with customer service questions.
If you’re a B2B owner or Startup founder, you have a lot to gain and a lot to offer to your potential buyers from making use of AI tools like HubSpot Chatbot Builder, Intercom, and Drift among many others.
Using AI tools to upgrade customer experience can help your brand to stay on the leading edge of technology and be at the forefront of what customers are looking for.
For instance, Flippa uses a Chatbot to give you an instant valuation of a digital asset you want to sell, without the input of a real human.
In fact, as I said earlier, the possibilities are almost limitless when it comes to the applications of AI.
Big brands like Amazon, Starbucks, Spotify, and PizzaHut are already using chatbots because they always want to offer an enhanced customer experience.
Chatbots can now help deliver that kind of personalization in real time by understanding your target audience’s preferences and habits and providing them with a more tailored experience.
According to Commbox, companies that use chatbots are likely to experience a 67% increase in sales compared to companies without them.
Content marketing paired with an excellent customer experience make a powerful combo that can bring your business to the next level.
If you want your brand to stay on top of your industry, it’s all about your customer experience.
Conversational AI assistants like chatbots can surely help you with that!
4. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the most powerful ways to reach an audience and build a community around your brand.
In fact, it’s one of the main marketing channels that can help your business to grow at an exponential rate.
Influencers can help you form a strong bond with your current and potential customers.
Obviously, influencer marketing is not free and sometimes comes with a huge price tag since you’ll be dealing with big brands or individuals with a large following, and even celebrities.
So, if you have the budget to test out the waters of this content marketing trend, then why not?!
Influencer marketing has a plethora of benefits such as:
The use of influencer marketing is on the rise and a study has shown that 93% of content marketers have used influencer marketing.
And this same study has also revealed that 61% of consumers trust influencer recommendations.
This is enough to prove the effectiveness of influencer marketing.
5. Using Data Analytics
Data analytics is one of the leading technology enablers in a digital transformation which enables you to discover valuable data and use it for the betterment of your business.
More and more content marketers are using data to improve their content strategy and modify their marketing and sales tactics.
An integrated data strategy allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t work with your content marketing campaigns.
By using data, you can identify what type of content resonates with your audience, who they are, and what topics they care about.
Using data analytics, you can optimize your content to achieve the most desired results and make changes in your strategy, thus improving your content marketing campaigns.
When it comes to content marketing, you’ll have to work with all the necessary resources and tools to create, monitor and analyze your campaign.
This means that you should have a good understanding of how data analytics tools can help you achieve your objectives faster and at a lower cost.
Over the past few years, the increased usage of data analytics has become a standard practice in many industries and one of the many content marketing trends that is here to stay.
One of the most important benefits of using data analytics tools is that they are quick to use, requiring fewer resources and less time to achieve significant results.
Data analytics tools such as Google Analytics provide various insights, including the ability to use custom reports and dashboards, with an advanced set of metrics.
These tools allow you to track your KPIs and find new opportunities for improvement in your content marketing performance.
Not only will data analytics help you to form a better strategy for your next marketing campaign, but it can also help to improve your existing campaigns.
6. Using Live Streaming for More Customer Proximity
This has been a popular trend for some time now, but now it’s going mainstream.
With the growing popularity of live streaming, many brands are reaching their customers by broadcasting directly to their social media accounts.
Facebook Live and Instagram Live are a couple of examples, but they only include two platforms among the many that have become video friendly.
Live streaming is classified as a kind of interactive content and it’s a really engaging way to interact with your potential and existing customers.
With live streaming, you easily inspire and communicate that trust element to your audience.
You can ask questions, share your expertise and teach people how to get the most out of a certain product or service.
Social media is open to everyone, so you are really witnessing a massive potential because millions of people are watching you every minute of the day.
In terms of content marketing trends, this is another good way to provide insight into your brand through videos and images while creating a real one-to-one connection between you and your followers.
In fact, live streaming is an extremely valuable tool to market your brand because it engages those who are watching you and is more effective than a text-based message.
Live streaming allows brands to interact with their customers in real-time, generate new followers and build trust.
7. Using AI-Powered SEO Tools
Search engine optimization is and will always be one of the most powerful digital marketing channels in the world.
While it’s never going to be easier to rank in the search engines like in the old days, it can take a lot less time to perform certain tasks related to our SEO activities such as keyword research, content production, content optimization, link building, thanks to some amazing SEO tools that use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
For instance, Surfer SEO is an AI tool that has been a great help to me and to many other SEO experts when it comes to producing and optimizing content.
I can confidently say that it is a must-have tool in every content marketer’s toolkit if they want to garner positive results.
8. The Use of AI & Machine Learning
It’s clear that artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning are no longer future endeavors, but emerging technologies that are changing the way we do business.
For many years, the technology of machine learning has been available to companies and developers, but in recent years it has made huge strides and breakthroughs in the digital marketing space.
Machine Learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence that basically enables machines to learn without being explicitly programmed to do so.
Below are a few areas where AI & Machine Learning are already impacting the world of content marketing:
New technologies such as Siri, Alexa, Google Home, and Cortana have been inspired by Machine Learning.
These voice assistants are able of understanding your voice commands and respond by providing you with information or making a recommendation based on their previous interaction with you.
As a matter of fact, Machine Learning’s main goal is to mimic human behavior and detect patterns.
It can then make predictions about future behavior and outcomes with a high degree of accuracy.
As a result, the industry is responding with the integration of AI and Machine Learning in customer support, content marketing, and even in predictive analytics.
In terms of customer support, many brands are already using chatbots to provide assistance from FAQs or to customize experiences for their customers.
Being one of the most evident content marketing trends, AI is a great example of how technology is revolutionizing the way we do business and this also applies to marketing.
If you want to learn more about how AI & Machine can improve Digital Marketing, head to this article I wrote on Twine.net.
9. Visual Search
One of the most trending topics in digital marketing is visual search.
The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning has enabled computers to see and understand images.
Visual search is a possibility that relates information to images, instead of words.
Those who have the power to see and understand visual data can process it in a fraction of a second, much faster than text-based searching.
If you are thinking that visual search is simply about analyzing images and finding similar ones, think again. It goes far beyond that.
One of the many content distribution channels that makes use of visual search is Pinterest.
Although it is categorized as a social media platform, Pinterest is more likely a search engine.
It uses visual search to suggest related content by showing you products similar to the one that you are browsing.
Pinterest also uses visual search when you can see how your product matches the images in your website.
Moreover, those who want to drive more traffic and sales, visual search is a fascinating way to create useful content and outline what you want your audience to know.
With visual search, companies can find patterns and new insights that can help them improve their marketing strategies.
The Google Lens and the Amazon Alexa are two perfect examples of how visual search is impacting digital marketing and is among the hottest content marketing trends these days.
These devices can spot physical objects in your surroundings and answer questions or provide information about them.
What’s more, Amazon Alexa can be linked with the Amazon Echo to allow access to content such as music, navigation, weather, news, and more.
10. Augmented Reality in eCommerce
Augmented reality is a digital technology that blends real-world images with computer-generated imagery to create a realistic view of the surrounding environment.
This gives the user an enhanced perception of the physical world, providing them with new and interesting ways to interact with it.
If you’re not familiar with AR, you should know that Apple’s ARKit has helped to establish AR as a powerful tool in eCommerce.
And augmented reality is much more than just using 2D images on top of the screen.
AR can be used to solve a variety of business problems, but one of the most popular is the way it promotes your brand, making it stand out from other competitors.
Augmented reality is a more natural and affordable way of communicating with your customers and can be the solution you’ve been looking for in attracting their attention.
So why not set up shop in a virtual store that looks like the real one and offer them what they want?
You might ask how is it impacting consumer behavior and the world of eCommerce.
Well, it’s changing it, bringing more and more people to online shopping.
In fact, according to Statista, 31% of online users shop online at least once a month and 61% say they prefer shopping with AR experiences.
This is a huge statistic that shows how AR is making a major impact on the retail industry.
It’s important to understand what AR could do for your brand in order to find ways to integrate it into your business strategy.
11. Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is a word that is being thrown around a lot. But what does it mean?
It’s not just about technology and apps, this strategy requires an all-encompassing view of your business.
It all starts with the assumption that your business will be successful because if you let go of old processes and assumptions, there’s no stopping you.
When you consider a radical digital transformation, you should also consider the factors that influence it.
Digital transformation is not a strategy that you can implement overnight. It is a slow process that requires the involvement of the entire organization.
Digital transformation often starts with a simple goal such as increasing visibility and then moves on to more complex goals such as reducing cost, improving customer experience, and expanding your market reach.
In fact, a digital transformation is no longer an option; it’s a must if you want your business to be successful in this new tech era.
12. Metaverse Marketing
Last but not least! Another technology that’s been added to the list of content marketing trends is none other than Metaverse marketing.
Recently, we’ve been hearing and seeing a lot about this new word in marketing: metaverse.
Research shows that this word is coming into our vernacular because we have been watching sci-fi movies and reading sci-fi books for years.
If you think back, it’s not hard to recall how many of those movies and books have predicted things like augmented reality, self-driving cars, and artificial intelligence.
And the most important part is that all of those predictions will come true in the near future.
The term metaverse is not something new. It’s a long-term dream of many sci-fi writers and gamers, but it’s coming true sooner than expected.
Metaverse Marketing is the area of marketing and web design where companies experiment with new ways to connect with customers and look to high-tech solutions like facial recognition software, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence.
As a matter of fact, we can already see it happening in web design and marketing.
You can see that most modern marketing campaigns are incorporating elements like augmented reality, social media, and mobile apps.
This is all part of a metaverse trend, which means that it will appear in our daily lives sooner rather than later.
Besides the giant company Meta, we’re seeing a rise in metaverse marketing nowadays.
Wrap Up
One thing about content marketing trends is that they are always changing, sometimes faster than your business can.
The above-mentioned content marketing trends are not meant to be restrictive; rather, they can help you expand your horizons and give you some new ideas for content marketing.
It’s not an easy thing to keep up let alone adapt to trends in this fast-growing industry but as I said if you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you have to be willing to change your content strategy by gradually adapting to these inclinations.
Just remember that before you implement any of these content marketing trends, make sure your company is ready to take on the challenge.
It could be hard and time-consuming, but you should also ask yourself a few key questions, analyze things and processes in your business and lastly plan out thoroughly what will be your next steps to achieve your goals.
What do you think about these key content marketing trends? Are any of them especially relevant to your business? Let me know in the comments below.
