Interested in Precognitive Digital Marketing? Here are the Top Content Marketing Predictions for 2015

With the increasing demand for content creation and publication, content marketing is at an all-time high. Brands and businesses are allocating a greater part of their budgets to their content marketing campaigns, with some of the more ambitious ones launching media companies.

According to the annual benchmark report by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs (@CMIContent & @MarketingProfs), 70% of B2B marketers are producing more content this year than they did last year.

B2C marketers are also gearing up to produce more content for their organizations. According to the B2C version of the annual benchmark report, 69% of B2C marketers are producing more content this year than they did last year.

To further boost their campaigns, 55% of B2B marketers and 59% of B2C marketers said they’ll increase their organization’s content marketing budgets this year.

Judging from these statistics, you don’t have to be an industry veteran or possess psychic powers to predict that content marketing will become more important for brands and businesses, and that content marketing will dominate marketing budgets for years to come.

How Spot On Were the Content Marketing Predictions for 2015?

In keeping with tradition, at the close of 2014, many experts gave their content marketing predictions for 2015. Last year, Contently (@contently)—a major provider of high-end brand publishing solutions—compiled a list of major trends they felt would change the content marketing game for B2B and B2C marketers this year.

Joe Lazauskas (@JoeLazauskas), Editor-in-Chief at Contently, predicted that “a major agency will make a high-profile acquisition of a content marketing platform”. Somewhat in line with this prediction, top brands have been buying media companies to support their content marketing efforts. There were lots of major acquisitions last year, and this trend is definitely going to continue in the coming years. For a start, Verizon recently bought AOL to turbocharge its digital content and advertising capabilities. Other reports reveal that digital media acquisitions in the first half of 2015 saw a significant upsurge.

Elisa Cool, Contently’s VP of Sales, predicted that B2B targeting, tracking, and measuring tactics will also be widespread among B2C businesses. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 51% of B2C respondents said they find it challenging to measure their contents’ effectiveness. Also, only 23% said they were successful at tracking the ROI of their content marketing programs.

A significant percentage of respondents wanted to effectively measure and track content marketing ROI this 2015. Most probably, B2C marketers will veer away from their usual tracking methods and borrow tactics traditionally employed by high-value B2B marketers to target, track, and measure their return on content investment.

Just how spot on were the content marketing predictions by the experts for 2015? Unfortunately, it’s a little too early in the year to make a thorough assessment.

Whichever way you look at it, the digital media industry is at an exciting crossroads—and content marketing is leading the way forward. Brands both big and small are ramping up their content marketing investments and changing their strategies. Indeed, judging by today’s trends, 2015 is set to be the year when content marketing will become digital marketing’s cornerstone.

But Wait, There’s More—Content Marketing Predictions for the 2nd Half of 2015

Contently recently published its content marketing predictions for the second half of 2015. Joe Lazauskas stated that it made more sense to publish these predictions on the second half of 2015 rather than wait until the end of the year because the industry was evolving so rapidly.

“Late last year, we offered up 17 predictions for 2015, but in the past six months, the industry has evolved rapidly,” Lazauskas stated. “No way were we waiting another six months to look into our crystal ball to admire how good looking we are and make some predictions.”

So lo and behold, here are our favorites from Contently’s latest content marketing predictions that are, without a doubt, bound to prove significant in the remaining half of 2015:

1. Brands will start targeting members of Gen Z.

Why not? After all, they make up roughly 25% of the total U.S. population. Ann Fabens-Lassen, Communications Manager at Contently, stressed that brands need to be extra mindful of this group’s digital consumption habits. “These kids are notorious for having different habits than millennials, consistently using as many as five different devices (laptop, TV, iPad, smartphone, desktop),” she warned.

2. Brands will create more content with strong visuals and multimedia elements.

Now that marketers are aware of the power of content in luring in more customers, they’ll realize the need to enrich their visuals. More than publishing a compelling story, brands need to produce “strong visuals and multimedia to push a narrative format,” Contently’s Director of Design, Kathryn Han, said.

3. Content marketing initiatives will include more technology integrations.

Ari Kepnes, Content Strategist at Contently, believes that there will be a shift in companies’ use of marketing technology, as most of their content marketing initiatives will probably involve more technology integrations and integrations across multiple teams.

4. Marketers will realize that great talent and strategy matters just as much as martech.

By leveraging martech, or marketing technology, marketers are able to accelerate their marketing processes. This technology is helpful to companies because it can personalize not just the content, but also the channel, frequency of posting, and communication timing. However, aside from leveraging martech, marketers will soon realize the importance of “great talent and succinct strategy,” according to Paul Fredrich, Contently’s VP of Product. He stressed, “A fool with a tool is still just a fool.”

With or without these predictions, it’s clear that 2015 is going to be another remarkable year for content marketing. Stay tuned to Marketing Digest to see if these mid-year predictions will come to pass.

 

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