As we navigate Q2 of 2023 and you continue to create your content marketing strategy for the year, don’t get stuck in the tired pattern of “how you did it last year.” What worked last year won’t necessarily carry over into this one. We all know that nothing moves faster in business than marketing trends. It’s time to take stock of the up-and-coming content marketing trends for 2023 and see how you can implement them into your digital marketing strategy.
Many strategies help increase engagement and visibility, improve credibility, and generate leads. Here are nine content marketing trends for 2023 you and use in your business to impact your market.
Trend #1 Focus On Premium Quality Content
Content Trend #1.1 Short-Form Video
With the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels, short-term video has made a splash in the realm of internet marketing and is showing no signs of slowing. While it’s not necessarily the newest trend on the block, it still offers great promise and a high return on investment.
Content Trend #1.2 Long-Form Content
Despite the popularity of short-form content, be careful not to abandon the need for long-form content. Try as you might, there’s simply not enough time in a quick TikTok video to convey the same amount of valuable, practical, and comprehensive information as you can with long-form content, be it YouTube videos, podcasts, or blog articles.
Content Trend #1.3 High-Quality, Well-Researched Content
As the internet becomes clogged with more and more content, some of it generated by AI and some by “just get it out there” brands that pay little attention to excellence. There is a desperate need for high-quality, well-researched, and study-backed content that provides a unique perspective on relevant topics for every sales funnel stage.
Trend #2 AI Content Is Exciting But Not Great. Content Produced By Creatives Will Still Win Out
The recent AI boom has many creators, business owners, and entrepreneurs wondering where they stand. Before you start arming yourself for the AI uprising, you can rest easy. While it’s true that AI content has made strides in recent years, and some of the tools can do amazing things, there’s just one problem.
They’re not people. Humans create for humans. They understand, on a deeper, experience-driven level, what to say, how to say it, and how to connect genuinely with words, images, and sentiment. Bots, no matter how advanced, can never truly replicate that phenomenon.
Trend #3 Paying To Grow Instead Of Waiting It Out
We currently live in a creator economy. New niche media agencies, websites, forums, and influencer channels crop up daily and grow impressively. However, this also provides a new opportunity unique to our day.
Instead of reinventing the wheel for every new offer, product, or service, you can leverage existing channels with sold-out audiences through paid collaborations or acquiring an entire media organization. It may feel like cheating, but it’s a prime example of working smarter and not more complexly in what is already the challenging landscape of digital marketing.
Trend #4 Tracking ROI More Conclusively
Do you know what your top traffic and conversion source is in your business? Is it from your ads? From your organic content? Referrals? Social media? PR efforts? If you don’t know the answer, put the phone down and find out.
Suppose you’re paying for lead generation and conversion strategies to generate revenue in your business. In that case, it is mission-critical to know what’s performing and what’s not so you can put jet fuel behind abundant sources and shut down ineffective ones.
Trend #5 Audience Focus: More Deep Dives Into Target Personas
According to a study by Hubspot, only 45% of marketers clearly understand their audience’s interests, and only 41% understand their shopping habits. The most shocking statistic is that only 29% of marketers have data on audience pain points and challenges, while only 24% know what social causes their audience cares about.[1]
How can any business expect to sell to an audience they don’t fully understand? No matter what your marketing channels are, your results will be abysmal if you’re sending the wrong message to the right audience or sending the right message to the wrong audience. One of the top content marketing trends for 2023 is the depth of audience market research and target persona development to create genuinely curated content that makes an impact and generates a return.
Trend #6 Ranking Is Out (Kinda), and CTR Is In
Have you ever been fortunate enough to secure the spot as one of Google’s featured snippets? If you have, congratulations. Unfortunately, in many cases, the searcher has the information they need and is less likely to click through to the website.
While ranking is still important in competition and visibility, click-through rates and increasing engagement will continue to become even more valuable, especially in highly saturated markets. It’s not enough for the content they need to exist; it must also attract clicks.
Trend #7 The Age Of The Podcast
Much like when the age of blogs exploded in the early 2000s, today is the age of the podcast. Podcasts are even more unique than the blog experience. Whereas not everyone has the skills to create written content and turn it into a platform, anyone can converse.
That’s what makes podcasts so appealing to many creators. Everyone can have a platform, and everyone can participate without developing an entirely new skill set.
Trend #8 SEO Will Be A Premium Strategy
While SEO has always been a premium strategy, it’s also always been a long-term strategy. However, with new and innovative tools coming to the market over the last few years and an increased awareness of top-quality content over keyword stuffing, SEO will continue to explode as the premium digital marketing strategy that doesn’t rely on advertising algorithms and platforms.
Trend #9 Greater Emphasis On User Experience
This is one of the most critical content marketing trends for 2023. Perfecting user experience is to create a fully immersive encounter at every step of your sales funnel and beyond.
Once you have a profoundly relevant understanding of your target audience, you will be more equipped to create the websites, offers, resources, content, services, and products they want. By blending it all, you create a cohesive and engaging user experience that is much more than how smoothly your website operates.
Which Content Marketing Trends For 2023 Will You Tap Into First?
Whether you’re looking for proven strategies for increasing engagement or just reevaluating your content marketing strategy, by leveraging these content marketing trends for 2023, you stand the best chance of making a substantial impact on your target audience in all the best ways. If you’re unsure how to implement these trends, contact our experienced and skilled team of digital marketers at Full Circle SEM, and we can help you establish a custom strategy for 2023.
Sources:
[1]https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/why-most-marketers-dont-know-their-audience
