Marketing

The Top 5 Content Marketing Trends to Watch For in 2022

As a new year approaches, it’s time to review your content marketing plan and consider a new strategy for 2022. According to Statista, over the past year, content marketing has brought in 42 billion dollars in returns and this statistic will only continue to grow. If you’re not ready to hop aboard the content train—you risk getting left behind.

While content marketing has always been important, throughout the pandemic it became more important than ever, as consumers shifted online. Today, consumer behavior has changed, with most customers doing extensive research before making a purchase—meaning the need for branded content has also increased. In 2021, 43% of marketers experienced content marketing budget increases, and 66% expect to see it rise again in 2022.

As we prepare for 2022, here are five content marketing trends to consider for marketing success in the new year:

1) Create content geared toward customer retention

Perhaps one of the biggest pitfalls in content marketing is spending too much time creating content for awareness. In 2022, turn your attention toward crafting new blogs, videos, and email newsletters geared toward your current customers.

While growing and expanding is always a priority, customer retention should also be a primary goal, particularly within the SaaS industry. Rather than having to turn the wheel each month, focus on sharing new and exciting product innovations to keep current customers invested and interested in the future of your company. Not only should you be simply calculating churn by number of customers, but also aiming for positive net revenue retention. The more you can get current customers engaging with your brand the less likely your competition can win them over.

2) Repurpose dense content into easily digestible, bite-sized formats

If you’re in an information-heavy industry, spend time repurposing your content, such as whitepapers and eBooks into easily digestible, bite-sized information. Some simple ways to implement this? Try LinkedIn’s carousel feature, which allows you to create a slideshow outlining up to 10 key points you wish to share with your audience. Other forms of repurposed bite-size content include YouTube shorts, Canva images, or even TikTok videos.

3) Video content will become crucial to the success of your marketing plan

Today, people are consuming video content over all other forms of media. On average, people watch 30 minutes of video on their smartphones every day. Video content can provide short spurts of informative content in a very compact way. Within the B2B world, blogs including videos attract three times as many inbound leads as blog posts without video.

Don’t overthink you video content strategy, something as simple as an Instagram Reel, TikTok video, or YouTube video can become viral overnight. The ultimate goal of creating video content should be sharing valuable information that educates your customers and builds brand trust. Customers also have a very short attentions span, so consider creating a video that highlights the features of your product, or a how-to tutorial in 30 seconds or less—which provides information in an accessible format.

4) Create a content library to be shared amongst sales, marketing, and customer success teams

Content strategy alignment between sales, marketing, and customer success teams allows organizations to make the most of their content efforts. Instead of viewing the production of content separately for each department, consider approaching it holistically as a group effort in 2022. By prioritizing content strategy alignment, you allow customers to receive a consistent experience from discovery to daily use.

Also, creating a shared content library enables the prioritization of content production, which allows for easy repurposing opportunities. Often, with the B2B world, there are multiple decision-makers with different questions. Your sales team may have limited contact and opportunities to win the deal. Content can serve as an invaluable competitive edge within your industry and assist with Account Based Marketing (ABM).

5) Let the data analytics and metrics guide your content

If you want more detailed information about how your customers behave, use analytics to make the right decisions for your company. By sitting down and analyzing how your content performed over the last year, you’ll have greater insight into exactly what your customers want and typically respond to. A few key KPIs to look at when it comes to your content: traffic, engagement, SEO performance, conversion and authority. These aspects all work together to give you an overview of how your content is performing.

If how-to blogs or listicles are your top performing content in 2021, consider adding more to your calendar for the following year. Similarly, if Instagram reels aren’t performing, remove them from your content arsenal in the new year. Lean into your strengths when it comes to content—you don’t have to do everything, but you should focus on doing a few things exceptionally well.

While content marketing isn’t exactly a science, these five key trends will certainly help you get ahead of your competition. By simply implementing content, whether it be simple videos or in-depth whitepapers, you’ll have greater audience reach and more data insight into your customers’ buying habits. With a fresh new year ahead, there has never been a better time to reassess your strategy and kick it into high gear for 2022.