I’m not going to sugarcoat it: According
to these experts, 2017 might be a little scary for us marketers. Rand
Fishkin, founder and wizard of Moz, says, “In 2017, content marketing is
going to be even more challenging than it is today.2”
“There’ll be fewer winners with much
bigger jackpots,” says Larry Kim, founder of Wordstream. I stopped listening
and started crying after “fewer winners.”
Let’s ignore those two comments for a
second and get into things we can do something about.
1. Brands Will Get More Creative With Format
Content marketing has mainly been about blogging, ebooks,
and other written content types that generate email subscribers. These
strategies continue to prevail, but brands will need to be more creative with
their content’s formats to break through the noise.
Visual content will become more important as search engines
get better at reading and analyzing images to determine what your website is
about. More gifs—yay!
2. Messaging Will Become More Niche
With more new entrants into the saturated pool of content
marketing in 2017, we need to stop going high-level and start getting down to
the nitty-gritty.
For example, rather than writing a blog post about “how to
attract customers online,” you’re better off writing about “how to attract
returning customers through Facebook Ads.” Scratching the surface of an
over-discussed topic won’t help you stand out. Why should people read your post
instead of thousands of others? Serve a niche audience, and go deep into the
rabbit hole.
3. Video Will Reign Supreme
We love videos. That’s why we started this series. Marketers
agree that videos bring the highest ROI, and we’re doing more of it. According
to Syndacast, 74 percent of all traffic will be video in 20173.
Social video platforms like Facebook are riding the tide and
optimizing feeds to improve the viewing experience. Having more videos also
improves SEO, as Google—which owns YouTube—favors them in search results. So
get your cameras out and start filming.
4. Content Marketing Will Outshine Traditional Advertising
We already know brands are spending more on content
marketing than advertising. This trend is likely to continue in 2017.
In fact, Sam from HubSpot predicts that this trend will lead
publications that generate leads with content marketing to buy out those
monetizing with ads. Content marketing is more cost-effective than other forms
of marketing, such as ads, and companies are getting better at attributing
dollar value to content marketing properly.
Looks like we’re gonna keep our jobs for a little longer,
content marketers.
5. Consistent Engagement Will Prove Vital
Content marketers have gotten good at acquisition, but we’re
not very focused on retention. In 2017, we’ll need to shift our focus to
driving growth within existing audiences—like measuring daily or weekly active
users to ensure consistent engagement until conversion. Instead of just
bringing you to this blog post, we should optimize it so that you engage,
subscribe, and keep coming back.
So there you have it. In 2017, content marketing is going to
be alive and thriving, but more work, more challenging, and harder to get
results.
I suppose we just have to be real smart about it. See what I
did there?
