The 2020s will be all about user experience and meaningful relationships between brands and consumers. To be a winner in such an environment you need two very powerful weapons - content marketing and video. Know your audience, understand their needs and follow the video and content marketing trends for 2020. Once you have done that, you can relax and watch your revenue grow.
Content Marketing Trends
Personalised Content
Here we are not talking about just emails or messages starting with the first name of your prospect. There's a ton more to that.
It begins with a real understanding of your consumer - what do they want, why do they want it, how would they like to hear about what you have to offer. Some of your consumers would prefer a private interaction over social media. Others will appreciate an email that's not pushy or salesy, yet answers all of their questions and concerns.
The format is also key! Would your ideal client spend 3 minutes reading an email or would they prefer to watch a 60-sec video?
Is it cool if you call them on the phone? Or send a text message?
There's no general right or wrong answer to these questions. You need to find out what are your audience's specific preferences and tailor your content according to them. That's what makes it personalised content.
Interactive Content
A couple of weeks ago we mentioned interactive content as a leading trend in digital marketing for 2020.
Interactive content is any type of content that allows consumers to communicate with the brand directly or in real time. Some examples are:
watch parties
shoppable posts
interactive live videos
polls
quizzes
contests and competitions
games
360º videos and others.
Consumers love to feel important and know their input is sought and valued by the brand. That makes them more likely to develop a relationship with you as a business and ultimately strengthen their loyalty towards your brand.
Data and Immersive Storytelling
There are three types of storytelling. The first one is conversational - where you use your language skills to create a situation, picture or experience people can relate to. In the past several years it has been a tremendously successful path for content marketers. However, it is getting old.
Don't get me wrong, people still love to read, hear or watch a good story. It is what sells, without actually selling. But the other two types are brand new, fairly explored and way more exciting.
That's data and immersive storytelling.
Data storytelling is a complex process that involves several stages of data handling:
Sourcing the data
Understanding the data
Processing the data,
Extracting value from the data
Analysing the data
Visualising the data
Communicating the data
In other words, you need to gather specific data about/from your target audience, put it in the right categories, present it in an understandable way and analyse what it all means. Then based on that analysis, create content that is targeted specifically at the people whose data you used.
There you go, content personalisation at its best!
Immersive storytelling includes AR and VR technologies. It gives you the opportunity to immerse into a virtual reality. The distance and time will not be a problem anymore.
Imagine, instead of showing your consumer the holiday destination you want to sell them in a video, you actually take them there! Let them lie down on the bed in the hotel room, have a walk on the beach and hear the ocean waves, have a taste of the entertainment on site.
That's a much more persuasive story. It's an experience they would want to bring to real life.
Long-Tail Keywords and Semantic Links
Until now, SEO experts were recommending a good mixture of long-tail and short-tail keyword optimisation in text and semantic links. The focus, however, was more on short-tail, because people used to type their search phrase in a shortened way. To save time, of course.
Studies show that voice search will make up 50% of all searches by 2020. That means, long-tail keyword optimisation begins to prevail. Here's an example:
short-tail keyword: content marketing trends 2020
long-tail keyword: what are the content marketing trends in 2020 / what are the content marketing trends for 2020
Micro Content
As our attention span decreases almost by the minute, content marketers have to constantly pull new tricks out of their hat. Content becomes minimalistic.
No one has the time, nor the patience to read a foot-long posts on social media, 1000-word blog articles, or watch 20-minute videos. That's a full TV episode, for Gary's sake!
In 2020 Twitter is your friend, if you are really pushing on content marketing. It allows you to convey your message in a very short format and reach the right people through hashtags. Use plain text tweets, polls and images with quotes. It totally works!
Google's minimum word-count recommendation is 300 words. Go by that. Be concise in what you want to say. Use images and forget about the conventional structure of paragraphs.
In 2020 your paragraphs should be no more than 3 sentences long.
If you want people to engage with your videos, make them shorter than 60 sec. It takes a lot of creativity to send a full message to your audience in half a minute, but if you can do it, people will love it.
Video Marketing Trends
Live Videos
Did I surprise you here? Probably not.
Live videos continue to be a growing video marketing trend because they offer authenticity, connectivity and transparency.
The use of live videos has helped many brands of all sizes to create personal relationships with their audience. Having those videos on a schedule also builds up expectation in the consumers and they find themselves eager to see you when you next show up live.
Use the interactive feature in Facebook Live videos, where you can ask your audience questions in the form of a poll. To increase the reach of your broadcast, ask the people who are watching you to share the video with their friends or in groups.
Animated Videos with a Voice Over
Creating voice over videos gives you the opportunity to cater for two types of audiences with one piece of content.
Those who want to read or are in a quiet environment can read the subtitles or text in video.
Those who want to listen and not strain their eyes will really benefit from the voice over.
Animated videos are cheaper in comparison to stock videos and video production. Also, they can be very effective among certain types of audiences.
360º Videos
This video format is rapidly growing in popularity. Perhaps it's not the easiest to utilise for all industries, but can massively benefit business in:
Retail
Automobile
Real Estate
Museums and Galleries
Events
This type of video content allows users to experience the atmosphere or product you are offering them.
Short Videos for Engagement, Long Videos for Reach
Every good content marketer should include both short and long videos in their strategy and content calendar. Especially for Facebook. Why?
As we already established above, short videos are great for engagement. They catch the attention and make the users react and start a conversation.
However, if you are just starting out or your audience is not big enough, first you need to increase your reach to get enough engagement. And you do that through longer videos. Facebook states that they show videos longer than 3 minutes to more people and that increases your brand visibility.
Whatever you do, don't go over 10 minutes, except if your brand focuses on educational content.
Video Testimonials
Here's a brilliant, cheap and effective way to market your brand - client testimonials in a video format.
I know most people are reluctant to even write a review on your Facebook page, but video testimonials are a growing trend in 2020. It's worth offering a reward - a voucher, a discount coupon, a small gift or additional free service for a set period of time, in return of a recorded testimonial.
These videos are a truly amazing way to attract new customers, because they represent word-of-mouth marketing in a whole new way. A trendy way. And as we know, word-of-mouth will always be the best type of marketing.
Seeing and hearing someone who doesn't hide their face makes the feedback more believable and real. It's a plus for your business and as you grow on social media, more consumers would like to associate with your brand in that way, because it will give more exposure to them too.
Ah, who doesn't want to be social media star these days?
What do you think about these video and content marketing trends for 2020? Are they easy to implement in your strategy? Have you been using some of them already? I'm keen to learn more about your ways of marketing online. Keep me in the loop. Comment below.
