Key Content Marketing Trends & Stats You Need to Know in 2021

With the holiday season right around the corner, now is the time to hone in on the most effective content marketing strategies for your business. If you’re already active on your target audience’s preferred platforms, this is a great start, but it’s not enough if you want to stand out from the crowd.

Today’s online shoppers are often faced with hundreds of subtle marketing tactics on a daily basis, so only the very best content will be remembered. Succeeding in digital marketing in 2021 requires merchants to:

• Develop deep understandings of their target audiences.
• Stay up-to-date on topics that their potential customers will be most interested in.
• Capture and maintain viewers’ attention
• Personalize customer experiences.
• Share valuable, high-quality information.

Now, before you get overwhelmed by this laundry list of suggestions, know that a lot of the preliminary research has already been completed for you. HubSpot’s 2021 content marketing report, for example, is full of detailed statistics, expert tips, and marketing trends recommended by eCommerce professionals across the country. In the rest of this article, we’ll break down the most important aspects of this report — along with The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics — to help you make the best decisions for your company.

Remember: Quality > Quantity

It can be easy to feel as if you’re falling behind if you notice your competitors are posting content more often than you. However, just because you only publish an article once a week instead of 5 times a week doesn’t mean you’re not offering equal (or greater!) value to your audience.

If you’ve been in marketing for a while, you probably remember the days of “keyword stuffing.” This practice involved incorporating as many relevant keywords as possible into a single piece of content in an effort to increase SEO rankings. Of course, this strategy was short-lived; as soon as Google discovered how people were manipulating the algorithm, keyword stuffing was categorized as spam and ranked lower on search engine results pages (SERPs).

The modern-day equivalent of keyword stuffing is trying to pump out as much content as possible instead of taking the time to generate high-quality information. Think about what you would like to learn about when you’re creating content. If you wouldn’t enjoy your own material, your customers probably won’t, either.

Revamp & Repurpose Existing Content

This tip is essentially telling marketers to work smarter, not harder. If you follow the guidelines laid out in the previous section, you’ll have a collection of valuable content that consistently attracts viewers. To take full advantage of your hard work and research, repurpose it to perform well on different platforms.

For instance, an informative blog post may perform well on LinkedIn, but your Instagram followers probably won’t be interested in reading a long-form article. However, you could take the most important data points and turn it into an eye-catching infographic or record a short video summary of your findings for YouTube. You’ll expand your reach without having to create new content from scratch every time!

Think Mobile First

Globally, mobile commerce is booming. Nearly 40% of smartphone users are more likely to use their devices for online shopping because it’s faster or easier to complete purchases. 60% of smartphone users report contacting a business directly from the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). Almost a quarter of companies listed mobile optimization as one of their top SEO priorities in 2020/2021.

If your website doesn’t have a responsive design or a PWA (Progressive Web App), updating it should be your top priority. If users aren’t able to conveniently browse your product pages and blog posts from their smartphones, you’ll end up missing out on a lot of sales.

Create Video Content

Due in part to the 2020 pandemic, video content outranked blogs and infographics as the most popularly used format in content marketing. People are twice as likely to share videos than any other type of content, and 84% of consumers say that they have decided to purchase a product after watching a video about it. Furthermore, over 85% of video marketers reported that videos helped them boost their web traffic.

To reach a younger and more easily-distracted audience, short-form video content is king. Platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram are designed specifically for sharing visual content, and they’re used by millions of people every day. For older audiences, Facebook and YouTube are great outlets for sharing longer videos.

Add More Visuals

Nobody wants to read a lengthy article without paragraph breaks or visual elements. Creating a page with nothing but a block of text is a surefire way to lose potential viewers.

When you’re writing an article or blog, it’s important to keep people interested in your content by incorporating multimedia elements, such as infographics, photos, or slideshows. Jason Lapp, the president and COO of Beautiful.ai, says that this practice “will become a more popular way of engaging audiences and allowing readers to process material more easily.”

Consider Starting a Podcast

In just the past few years, listening to podcasts increased in popularity by more than 60%. By 2023, the podcast market is expected to reach over 2 billion people, encouraging companies around the globe to invest in audio platforms and podcast creators.

The main appeal of podcasts is that there’s truly something for every interest. There’s a niche for everyone, and companies can hone in on these micro-niches to uncover new audiences. Secondly, people love podcasts because they feel more connected to the speaker. Hearing someone discuss a topic feels more personal and natural than reading about the same subject online.

Finally, starting a podcast can be excellent for increasing your company’s credibility. Speaking with authority on relevant industry topics and interviewing industry experts will help you become an influential thought leader in your field.

Improve Content Personalization

Consumers today expect to be catered to. Targeted ads and personalized email messages are just the tip of the iceberg. In order to capture your audience’s attention, you need to leverage consumer data to figure out their deeper likes, needs, and common pain points. Knowing this information will help you create customized buyer journeys that can improve customer loyalty and boost sales.

Host Virtual Events or Webinars

Online events, webinars, and live streams largely replaced in-person events throughout 2020, but they remain popular to this day. People love the convenience of attending virtual events from the comfort of their own homes without having to worry about taking time off work, traveling, or other barriers to physical events. The accessibility of virtual conferences is a win-win for businesses and their consumers because it costs less than traditional events, can attract a bigger audience, and cater to people who can’t make it to the event at a specific time or date.

Conclusion

In such a competitive online marketplace, having the right partner on your side can truly help your company stand out from the competition. If you want to accelerate your organization’s growth and improve your content marketing capabilities before the busy holiday season, reach out to us at Gold Lion Technologies. Our comprehensive marketing services can cover all of your needs, including:

• Advertising
• Branding and design strategy
• Competition analysis
• Editorial design
• Lead generation
• SEO/SEM services
• Social media marketing
• Website and eCommerce development

If you’ve had unsatisfactory results with other agencies, we can assure you that we’re different. Gold Lion Tech is a results-based growth marketing company, focused on research-based marketing decisions to see real results. For more information, please reach out to us at https://goldliontech.com or schedule a 30min – Strategy & Discovery Call with us here!