In the past content has been king, but in 2016 we can expect content will also become queen, the royal baby, and all the kingdom’s subjects. More brands are investing in content this year. Push marketing is beginning to end since adblockers provide consumers a way to avoid intrusive marketing tactics. To address this, marketing teams are turning to useful and interesting content to capture new fans. But traditional marketing isn’t the only thing that changing; even the content is 2016 is starting to look different. Here’s some content marketing trends you can expect this year.
We’re movin on up!
Content will Become an Experience
Unfortunately, we spend so much time on the web rapidly clicking between a thousand tabs…so when we’re on tab #7, we probably don’t remember the random ads we saw on tab #4. Brand recall is usually higher in traditional marketing, especially when there is a “touchable” thing with which to interact. It might sound a little hipster, but when it comes to advertising, people really do like the vinyl over the MP3.
So how do web marketers grapple with this? They want to create content that sticks in people’s minds. One way to do this is through experiential marketing. Basically, they create a compelling real-world experience to market their product. Granted, this has been going on for a while. In 2012 Red Bull sponsored a man who jumped from the stratosphere (seriously!) and reached an estimated speed of 1,357.6 km/h or 843.6 mph(Mach 1.25), breaking the speed of sound in freefall. The video is crazy, emotional, and enthralling. It’s also plastered with the Red Bull logo. Red Bull had the right idea back in 2012, and experiential marketing, which associates your brand with a specific experience, has been happening ever since. As marketers try to figure out how to make web content stay in people’s brains, they’re going to look towards creating these captivating experiences.
Content Marketing is Getting Real… Virtually, at Least
We’ve already talked about how virtual reality has a chance to have its content marketing heyday this year. The world of VR is still pretty new, but we expect that more brands will start figuring ways to incorporate this mind-bending experience into our day-to-day lives.
Live-Streaming and Content Marketing are Meant to Be
There’re several live-streaming apps such as Periscope that give users the ability to interact with events in real time. Although Periscope is mostly occupied by celebrities right now, brands will probably learn how to use live-streaming for marketing. For example, imagine if Periscope existed during the days of that Red Bull freefall. Red Bull could have had a team of marketers waiting to interview Felix Baumgartner right when he reached the ground.
Graphic Design is Here to Stay
We know infographics are a great way to get info across, so if you’re a marketing team without a skilled graphic designer, you should probably get on that. We’ll continue to see a wealth of info coming through innovative graphs and informative charts. But infographics are more than just putting some words in a pretty font. Content teams should have experienced designers who understand how to execute these graphics in the best way possible.
Creatives are Invited to the Party
Designers won’t be the only one joining the marketing team. If marketers are going to invest in quality content, creatives will become a huge part of the process. Whether you’re a director who can make a short film masterpiece for your company, or a budding writing, there’s plenty of room for creatives to succeed in content marketing. This new world of marketing is about more than just presenting bland data about how swell your company is, and companies are beginning to realize this.
There’s a lot of new trends like virtual reality we can expect in 2016, a few old standbys like infographics, and probably some things we can’t even predict yet. The only constant in content marketing is change. Well, ok, the only constants are change and the need for quality, useful content. But that doesn’t flow off the tongue as easily, okay?
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