Weekly Content Marketing Trends January 31, 2022

As we bid farewell to the first month of 2022 and into February, why not give yourself Valentine's gift of an updated content strategy that will have your audience falling in love with you and your brand? Want help doing it? Reach out to Scripted—we're always here to talk solutions.

 

In the meantime, here's the latest and greatest on what you can do to freshen up your content, grow your audience, and fall in love with a consistent routine that produces the results you've been after.

Leveraging Data To Drive Choices: Web and Social Media

Imagine sending out an email to your database with an image of your latest and greatest offering, and the reader being able to click and purchase right then and there. This is quickly becoming a capability across ad platforms. Soon, consumers will just come to expect that ability as well. Not only is this possible through email, but on social media and your display and video ads as well. This is a relatively new technology, but our guess is removing an extra step to purchase will likely deliver a happy little boost to conversions.

 

Why? Your customer's browsing session doesn't need to be interrupted, and when 84 percent of surveyed people reported they were convinced to purchase after watching a video, you want to make the sales funnel as short as possible for them.

There is power in numbers, and business is no exception. If you're still bootstrapping, we tip our hats to you—the hustle is real. But, may we suggest that you reach out to other companies with complementary services and products so that you can expose each other to more people faster? These relationships are often called joint venture partnerships, or JV partnerships, and can prove to be incredibly beneficial.

 

For example, if you are a fitness coach, look for companies that would enhance your audience's results without competing with your offer. That could be supplements, workout equipment, or workout gear. The idea is to reach out to the other companies and see if they would be willing to send out an email on your behalf in return for you doing the same. And not just emails: hosting live videos on social media or posting promotional content that will drive to your profile or products. In exchange, you do the same.

 

Worried that your following isn't robust enough to attract a partnership? Find other companies who might be just starting, but don't be afraid to reach for the stars! The worst that could happen is someone says "no," and the best that could happen is you get major exposure. Just be sure you're aligned with the companies you work for within their mission, vision, and values.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the importance of enhancing your consumer's user experience, or UX. Authentic connection is a key factor of successful user experience creation. After the past two years, users are longing for deeper connections. Zoom was a huge provider of connection with loved ones over digital airwaves, and now brands have a huge opportunity to step up and create meaningful connections and experiences to deepen their relationships with the consumer as well. 

 

According to this publication that's part of a consumer intelligence series, consumers are willing to jump ship on the road to "buy" as soon as their experience introduces friction. The technology is emerging to help your audience become a customer with more ease, intuition, and with a deeper connection. If you're a small business and can't undertake the most cutting-edge AI offerings available at this time, there are still ways you can create a connection. It's all about staying authentic to your brand while doubling down on what your audience responds to. This leads us to our next point...

The beautiful and frustrating thing about content marketing is that it's so heavily dependent on who you are as a company and how your audience responds to it. There are content marketing best practices and the rules should be mastered so that they can be broken. 

 

These rules include:

To that last point, if you want to know what your audience wants but you're wondering how you're supposed to know, it's all in the analytics. 

 

If you haven't already, you have to start using analytics from your website and social media channels to determine where you're hitting it out of the park and where there's room for improvement. As AI improves, so will the analytics. Whether you're just getting started or you're beefing up your current analytics system, you can get some sound advice for your web analytics here or your social media analytics here.

If you're reading this and wondering how you're going to implement all of the latest content marketing trends, we invite you to take a deep breath and remind yourself it doesn't all have to be implemented right away. Content marketing is a journey, not a destination, and it requires patience, curiosity, and knowledge. What's better is you don't have to do it alone, and you don't have to hire a full-time content team. Scripted gives you access to a wide array of fully-vetted professional content marketers who are full-on nerds for all things content marketing from content to strategy to numbers. You can start your trial here when you're ready to get started.