Content Marketing Trends in 2017 (Part 1)

Content Marketing Trends in 2017 (Part 2)

Preface : Over the past 12 months, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has been communicating with corporate marketers around the world in order to understand the future direction of the content marketing industry. Through these exchanges and combined with its own content marketing research, the CMI team arranged different speeches on different content marketing topics at the 2016 Content Marketing World Forum.

This article comes from the Content Marketing Association, which distills some of the biggest issues facing corporate marketers. It also includes some opinions from leaders who discussed this topic at the Content Marketing World Forum.

Note: These questions are listed in no particular order. They are all important, and the degree of importance depends on the maturity of your content marketing.

But one thing is certain: the creation and distribution of content for businesses has become more important and more comprehensive over the past year—content here refers to content that goes beyond describing products and services.

Develop a content marketing strategy that works

In nearly every keynote I give, I ask the audience whether their company has a formally documented content marketing strategy . Sadly, most organizations don’t. Our research shows that organizations that have formal documentation and continually review their content marketing strategy are more likely to succeed. While you might think this is basic, it is not. We are still focusing on marketing campaigns and describing our products instead of truly exploring the value of our products and services.

To answer this question, Content Marketing World hosted a workshop specifically about how to develop a documented content marketing strategy.

Native advertising

The term "native advertising" originated from the "Native Monetization Systems" proposed by Fred Wilson at the OMMA Global Conference. Native advertising truly became a new concept and was widely discussed at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)'s annual leadership meeting.

Wikipedia defines it as: "Native advertising is a form of web advertising that is consistent with the format and style of the platform on which it is displayed. For example, an advertisement promoting a product is an article written by the website's editorial team that is similar to the rest of the website's content. Native advertising means that the content of the promotional advertisement is consistent and coherent with the media format of the platform on which it is placed."

Common types include recommendation widgets , in-feed ad units, promotion lists, etc.

So whether it is the media, advertisers or third parties, native advertising is a win-win-win solution: the media gets rewards, the brand gets exposure, and consumers get useful content!

I often compare native advertising to the “inducing poison” of content marketing. We started to see a lot of businesses trying paid, native promotion within their content and finding success.

Why is this important? Five years ago, companies would spend 80% of their budget on content creation and only 20% on content promotion. I believe the ratio has reversed as successful businesses create differentiated content and spend heavily on advertising to promote it.

This year marks the first time we’ve scheduled a session series at Content Marketing World dedicated to native advertising. In addition, we have a panel of leading experts on the subject of native advertising.

If you’re not sure how native advertising can help your business, check out this article: Jiuzhilan Interview: Native Advertising — The Second Spring of Advertisers’ Channel Distribution and Media Traffic Monetization

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is not a new term, but it has always been lukewarm. But in the past six months, the topic has jumped into the top five. It may seem like every business has some sort of content marketing and influencer marketing strategy, but very few organizations have one that works.

How to carry out influencer marketing? Compiled by Jiuzhilan Team: Marketing Strategy | Effective and Low-cost User Acquisition in 2016: Influencer Marketing

Purpose-driven

Why do you create content? Is your content actually having an impact on your customers and prospects? Are you just creating content as part of your sales and marketing machine, or is there something deeper behind it?

There were several speeches at this year's CMI Forum about how to discover your marketing goals, and the core idea was "why vs. what to do."

Video and visual

A stay-at-home mom in Texas posted a video on Facebook of herself trying on a mask of the Star Wars character Chewbacca. The video, called "Chewbacca Mom," showed her laughing uncontrollably and the video quickly went viral, showing how important it is to strategically tell stories with video and images. However, most brands still use video strategies for viral videos rather than building processes and organizations to consistently deliver valuable information through video.