What are the Content Marketing Trends of 2019?
Don’t get left behind in 2019 – follow the latest digital trends

In our previous article titled: ‘Is Content Marketing Really Effective These Days?’ we touched upon the evolving and flexible nature of content as a marketing form. Technological advances that would have been unheard of only a decade ago have been a driving factor in the content marketing evolution. In this article, we’ll outline the content marketing trends to follow in 2019 to ensure your business doesn’t get left scrambling in a digital wake.

Let’s Start with a Definition

Software-based marketing company Marketo defines content marketing as:

[…] the process of creating high-quality, valuable content to attract, inform, and engage an audience, while also promoting the brand itself. Buyers and consumers are already searching the web for answers that your brand is uniquely positioned to offer.

Influencer Marketing

Unless you’re in the privileged position of being a niche leader, most businesses only have a few thousand followers on social media. This is where influencers come in. Influencers are people with large social media followings who are paid to leverage their authority within their niche. They can effectively ‘influence’ their audience to take an interest in a specific product or service.

Influencer marketing was a trend that became the norm. Consumer behaviour changed with Millennials and Gen Z’ers, as people now want the opinion of a voice they trust before purchasing. Influencer marketing is so effective that it’s now being implemented by most businesses looking to make a serious impact.

Abstaining from influencer marketing is a risk. Influencers can boost your credibility as well as increase traffic and follower count - simply by their association to your brand. It really works! Influencers are typically used to advertise a product, but this isn’t their only use. A content marketing strategy could involve influencers writing a piece themselves, or promoting a piece to their audience.

Switch it up: Video, Audio & Short Stories

If your business is currently producing one type of content, like long-form blog posts, switch it up to shorter styles or make use of social media’s more visual approach to marketing, and vice versa. Quality content is quality content – the style doesn’t change that. As long as you’re consistent in your approach and maintain high standards, you’re more than likely to not only retain customers but also gain new ones.

A study by Altimeter found that short-form videos of less than two minutes long, closely followed by static images, were the best-performing content type in terms of engagement. This tells us that it would be wise to invest in content that is short and visual in 2019.

Voice Control and Search

You might not think so, but the popularity of voice-controlled search is increasing year on year. By 2020, it’s predicted that 50% of ALL search engine queries will be done using voice control and natural language. Still unsure? Here are some voice search statistics from a study conducted by BrightLocal:

⦁ 58% of users have used voice search to find local business information in the last year.

⦁ 46% of voice search users look for a local business daily.

⦁ 27% visit the website of a local business after conducting a voice search.

⦁ 76% of smart home speaker users conduct local searches at least once a week.

⦁ 53% of smart home speaker users perform daily searches.

As you can see, the numbers don’t lie. Internet-savvy content marketers should be looking at this information and mentally preparing a content marketing plan that involves the optimization of their content to incorporate voice search.

Marketers previously had one option to consider, ‘how will our target demographic type in a search engine or social media platform?’ The evolving nature of the digital age produces new alternatives for users at an astonishing rate. Now marketers have to ask, ‘How will our target demographic voice their query into their smartphone or smart home speaker?’ Get ahead of your competitors and start the process now.

Make it Personal

In 2015, research company Gartner suggested that ‘by 2018, organisations that have fully invested in all types of personalization will outsell companies that have not by 20%’. In 2019 this prediction holds true.

The content marketing institute defines it as a strategy that, ‘exploits visitor or prospect data to deliver relevant content based on the interests and preferences of the target audience.’ Personalized content is fairly technical. It relies heavily on rigorous data gathering, which is now more sophisticated than ever, so you can imagine how refined and accurate the delivered content will be for a visitor. Demand Metric found that 80% of marketers believed personalized content to be ‘more effective’ than general content.

Personalized content is definitely a trend to look out for in 2019. There’s one conceivable drawback, however. Some companies don’t have the resources required for this technical data-driven approach to marketing. But fear not! Technology such as atomization and machine learning is already starting to ease the process to allow wider implementation.

Wrap Up

Get ahead of the curve by seriously considering these trends as part of your digital marketing strategy – why not? Growth doesn’t happen in a comfort zone. Choosing to diversify by offering consumers a wider range of services can only be beneficial to your business.