5 Content Marketing Trends You Need to Know for 2020 Use new content marketing tactics to engage customers.
By Syed Balkhi Edited by Heather Wilkerson
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It's a new decade and with it comes content marketing trends that will change content creation for businesses.
Plus, content marketing isn't the only thing that's changing -- people are always changing. The needs of your audience are constantly evolving and you need to keep up with what they want so that you can continue to create and distribute effective and engaging content.
Related: 3 Content Marketing Strategies to Skyrocket Your Revenue
Check out these five content marketing trends you need to know for 2020.
1. Video and live-streaming
Video and live-streaming have become huge recently thanks to popular platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch -- and it's only going to get bigger in 2020. In fact, according to HubSpot, 54 percent of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support. So, if you want your content marketing to connect and engage your audience in 2020, you need to start incorporating more videos.
You're not just limited to YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. Video does extremely well on a number of different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even on your own website. One of the easiest ways to try out the live-streaming trend is with Facebook Live and Instagram Live; your business can hold a live Q&A for instance, to interact in real-time with your audience.
2. Optimizing content for voice search
With smartphones and AI-powered assistants like Alexa and Siri in our lives, the use of voice search is skyrocketing. Canalys reports that the global market for voice search devices grew 187 percent in Q2 of 2018, with shipments reaching 16.8 million units. This means more and more people are searching online using their voice, instead of typing in a query. And the text we type into Google search is different than how we would speak to a digital assistant; instead of typing "weather las vegas", we would ask "What's the weather in Las Vegas today?"
Because of this, you need to optimize your content for voice search. Content marketers need to focus on anticipating the questions their audience would ask in a conversational manner and create content based on those conversational questions and longtail keywords.
3. AR-powered visuals
Users love augmented reality (AR) filters and lenses offered up by platforms like Snapchat; users can give themselves a puppy dog nose, tongue, and ears or place a pretty flower crown on top of their head -- all via augmented reality. And there are a ton more AR filters and lenses users can play around with to create fun visual content.
And did you know that Snapchat gives you the ability to create your own filters and lenses? This means that you can create branded filters and lenses to promote your business to social media users. Taco Bell launched its own branded lens on Snapchat, and it was viewed 224 million times, making it the top campaign in the app's history. Expect more AR-powered visuals like this in 2020.
Related: How to Maximize Your Startup's Content Marketing Budget
4. Conversational marketing
More and more businesses are realizing that the fastest way to move buyers through their marketing funnels is with one-on-one conversations. That's why conversational marketing will be a notable trend in 2020. When you can have one-on-one, personal conversations with your audience, you not only create a more human buying experience, but you can learn a lot about your audience, which will help you create more relevant content and marketing messages in the future.
Conversational marketing comes in many forms including email marketing, live customer support, customer success programs, Facebook Messenger marketing, chatbots and more. And with advances in artificial intelligence, chatbots are only going to get better at having life-like conversations with users.
So, if you want to keep up with the competition and learn more about your target customers faster, you need to step up your conversational marketing game in 2020.
5. Dynamic content delivery.
By now you probably have heard plenty about the importance of personalization. Today, consumers expect to receive emails and offers personalized to their specific needs. In fact, according to statistics from Instapage, 54 percent of shoppers anticipate a personalized discount within a day of sharing their information with a retailer.
But in 2020, consumers want next-level personalization. Enter dynamic content. Dynamic content, also known as adaptive content, refers to web content that changes based on the user's demographics, behaviors, preferences, and interests. For instance, the content on a webpage can change based on the weather of the location the user is in, like in the example below.
With personalization, you're able to deliver content to users that is relevant and interesting to them. But with dynamic content, you can also provide them with the exact content that will encourage them to take the next step in the buying process.
Related: Content Marketing Is An Art -- and a Science
Keep an eye on these trends in 2020
Now that you're aware of these important content marketing trends for 2020, you can start coming up with a plan for how to implement them into your own content marketing strategy. Start planning for these trends ahead of time, and you'll be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.
