Content Marketing in 2021: What Will Work and What Won’t

While content marketing can hardly be seen as something new, the thing is that this field constantly evolves. This is why we have content marketing statistic updates year in and year out.

This is also why some trends seem to shift and why content marketers and content creators need to invest time and effort into research. This is really the only way for one to stay at the top of their game. Different content forms, formats and format sizes, as well as posting habits, may develop and evolve in the nearest future.

So, it’s crucial that you try and figure out what will work and what won’t. Here’s a brief rundown.

#1. Size matters

The size of your content is quite important since online audiences prefer end-to-end resources on the topic. This is why going with 3000+ or even 4000+ pieces is quite a good idea. Also, the frequency at which you post makes all the difference in the world.

Not enough content creators post every day, even though this is a strategy that is known to give the best results. In other words, other than quality, that goes without saying, you also need to satisfy the quantity quota. This task is harder than it may seem at first.

In reality, it all comes down to the time it takes to write content. Every year, the time it takes to write an average blog post increases. For instance, in 2014, it took 2 hours and 24 minutes to write an average blog post. In 2020 it takes 3 hours and 55 minutes.

On top of this, the number of content creators who spend more than 6 hours writing an article grows, as well. All in all, satisfying all these requirements requires you to make a decent schedule in a form of the editorial calendar.

#2. Assembling a team

In theory, it’s possible for one to produce top-quality content on their own but in reality, it’s better to have a team behind you. Editing your own work is tiresome and it takes a lot more time.

Why? Well, because you need to proofread your own content several times in order to make sure that you’ve noticed every single error. Even this isn’t a guarantee.

You see, when re-reading your own work, you know what you originally intended to write, which means that you might not notice omitted words or messed up sentence constructions. You know what the sentence is supposed to say but this doesn’t have to be the case for the reader.

One more reason why this is so big is that running a team in the digital environment tends to be a lot easier task. Specialized collaboration and communication platforms can help your team remain coordinated with much greater efficiency.

For an organization that produces several pieces of content on a regular basis, a team is a must-have. You need a writer (or several of them), an editor (or several of them) a team leader (in charge of schedule and strategy), etc.

#3. Variety of formats

The next thing you need to focus on is the importance of creating content in a variety of formats. The written format is standard but making videos may be one of the most efficient forms for you to consider. This also gives you some room to recycle old content.

For instance, you can take a stat page and turn it into an infographic. A tutorial can be made in a written and video form for greater variety. An interview can be transcribed into a standard blog post or uploaded (after editing) as video content. A greater variety gives you more maneuvering space.

Moreover, it’s important that we talk about two relatively new formats. These two formats are podcasts and live videos. You see, podcasting is incredibly efficient since it creates a lot of return audience.

People follow episodes of the same podcast and, since the start of the pandemic, people consume more content than ever before. As for the live streaming, you can either make regular tours of the place or even host events for live event streaming. The production of the latter is quite complex but incredibly effective.

#4. Focus on traffic retention

While the first task of every blogger is the increase of traffic on their blog, audience retention and an increase in the number of return visits are just as important. There are two most commonly used techniques that enable higher rates in your traffic retention efforts – customization and personalization.

While a lot of people believe these concepts to be synonyms, the truth is that they have some inherent differences. Namely, customization is initiated by the user while customization is done for the user.

The audience retention is quite efficient and, depending on your end-goal intentions, could be a key in progressing the customer lifecycle. You need to understand that it may take several visits to your website for some of your users to make their first engagement.

Making a conversion is a slow process but it is one of the crucial stages in developing a high level of brand loyalty. If you have an e-store, chances are that it will take quite a few content pieces to turn a reader into a paying customer.

#5. Optimizing your content for voice search

Voice search is one of the fastest-growing trends in the field of digital marketing. While the concept is not new, the technology has finally progressed so far that it’s viable to use it in a plethora of scenarios.

Nowadays, the captioning system, the recognition of the context, regional recognition and your search history can help the algorithm understand your language and even the terminology that you use. This makes voice-search SEO one of the most pivotal trends in present-day digital marketing. Even content marketing is not above it.

So, how do you optimize your content for voice search? For starters, you should make it scannable. Second, you need to claim your Google My Business listing. Most importantly, you need to put a special emphasis on long-tail keywords.

Why does this matter? Well, for starters, it puts keywords into the form and format that they’re spoken in. Also, stick to more grammatical forms of your keywords. When typing (into a search box), people sometimes omit determiners and prepositions but this is not the case with spoken keyword searches.

#6. Multichannel marketing

The most important issue you need to address from a technical standpoint is the issue of multitarget marketing. In fact, this is one of the most important steps in ensuring your blog gets out there.

According to the rule of seven, you need to interact with your audience on seven different occasions in order to make a conversion. Now, doing so through different channels further increases your trustworthiness and, therefore, the effectiveness of your engagement efforts.

There are several challenges that you will have to face on this quest. First, there’s the issue of targeted messaging. Just delivering the message is not enough, you need to ensure that there’s a high level of chance that they’ll respond.

Then, there’s the matter of a highly choreographed campaign, seeing as how you don’t have much room for spontaneity, yet, things need to appear that way. Lastly, it comes down to marketing response attribution. The understanding of this will help you run such successful campaigns in the future.

In Conclusion

As you can see, there are two types of content marketing strategies that you need to start applying. The first one is the big-picture approach. This is a scenario where you draft a plan and make a schedule. It’s the so-called logistical aspect of content marketing.

How many posts do you need per day/week to achieve your goals? How long will it take to produce this? Is there a way to manage your staff to make this easier? The second issue are the technological innovations that drive this industry. Only after addressing both of these issues will your content marketing unleash its full potential.

About the Author!

Nick Brown is a blogger and a marketing expert currently engaged in projects for Redback Connect. He is an aspiring street artist and does Audio/Video editing as a hobby.