What Content Marketing Tactics to Use in 2020
In this article, Lilach Bullock talks about what marketers can expect in 2020 when it comes to content marketing. She also points out six trends that will surely make headway in the market.
Whatever service you offer or products you sell, effective content marketing will result in more leads and sales for your business.
For instance, Demand Metric revealed that content marketing provides 3 times more leads than traditional marketing and at a 62% lower cost. Furthermore, DemandGen Report revealed that 75% of B2B buyers use the content as a research medium before making a purchase decision.
Having said this, some content marketing tactics that worked just a few years ago might be ineffective in 2020.
Learn More: Brand Suitability Shows How Content Is Still King (or Queen)
So what tactics can you use in 2020 to improve your content marketing results compared to 2019?
1. Find topic ideas through online courses
The e-learning industry has boomed over the years. And as far back as 2017, the industry has grown to $255 billion.
e-learning Forecast Graph
But how does this affect your content marketing efforts? You can use online courses to find ideas for content creation.
Let’s take Udemy as an example. When you search for “photography” on Udemy, you’ll get these results:
Example Udemy Online Course Screenshot
When you click on the middle course, which has been bought by many people and awarded a high rating, you’ll see this:
Example Screenshot of Udemy Course Content
From here, you can get ideas to create your content; for example, a guide focusing on long exposure photography, one on what types of equipment you should get and a tips listicle on how to edit your photos using various software.
See another example about “link building SEO:”
Here, you can see ideas people have paid for and use them to improve your own content marketing efforts by writing about relevant topics that interest your audience.
Screenshot of tips to improve content marketing
And the modules:
Screenshot of keyword research
Essentially, a different way to perform keyword research – only, you’re focusing on what type of knowledge interests your audience.
Here, you can see ideas people have paid for and use them to improve your own content marketing efforts by writing about relevant topics that interest your audience.
Essentially, a different way to perform keyword research – only, you’re focusing on what type of knowledge interests your audience.
2. Use webinars at different stages of the sales funnel
Over the years, webinars have become a popular medium for content marketing. Even though it’s less effective now than it was in acquiring leads, webinars have evolved into more applications.
What do I mean by that? Rather than use webinar solely for lead generation, you can now employ this format at every stage of your sales funnel. Fortunately, hosting a webinar is cheaper than an offline seminar and also reaches a bigger audience.
To give you an idea of how popular webinars are right now, this report from ClickMeeting found that the average daily webinar audience on their platform alone consists of 48,131 people!
Graphic representation of webinars usage in a number
Whether you want to explain a valuable topic or show the benefits of your product, webinars are an effective content marketing tactic. Apart from this, you can sell your webinars as an expert if you’re explaining a concept extremely valuable to your audience.
For example, in the top of the sales funnel you might use webinars to provide knowledge and build up your authority in your niche. Then, as a lead moves along your sales funnel, you can share webinars that highlight your products’ features and uses or, once they bought your product, you can keep customers happy by providing educational webinars that show them how to make the most of your product.
Plus, webinars are super easy to create; all you need is a tool to help.
Learn More: Top 20 Content Marketing Online Courses and Certifications to Enroll in 2020
3. Personalize content to each user
Every visitor coming to your website has a need. And if your website meets their needs with the right content, they’ll stay on your website to take your preferred actions.
However, you need to provide personalized content to satisfy most of your audience. Two big avenues to do this are through your emails and website content.
Automated email service providers now allow you to send emails to your subscribers according to their interests. These people are likely to view your emails and click through to your website.
Another way is to personalize your website content according to a visitor’s behavior and history. When you consider that 94% of businesses that have personalized their websites have seen an increase in their conversion rates, then you’ll agree it’s a tactic you need to employ.
A great example of personalized content is Netflix. Through its personalized content and recommendations, Netflix saves a billion dollars annually – and, of course, makes a lot of money in the process.
4. Consider user intent while creating content
A big part of making your content valuable is understanding your audience’s needs. Over the years, user intent has become more important and will continue to grow in importance in 2020.
While creating a piece of content, understand why a reader wants to view it. What are the questions they need to answer?
Some common user intents for website content are:
- Informational intent
- Navigational intent
- Commercial intent
- Transactional intent
If you consider user intent, you’ll create content that is more valuable to your audience, as it solves their problems. One simple way to understand user intent is to search for your target keyword.
The few pages at the top of the rankings can give you a picture of what your readers are expecting from the topic. For instance, a keyword such as “Best TV set” doesn’t mean readers want to see a single TV set.
Screenshot of Google Search for Best TV
A great example of personalized content is Netflix. Through its personalized content and recommendations, Netflix saves a billion dollars annually – and, of course, makes a lot of money in the process.
The written content has dominated in the past. But other formats are becoming increasingly popular. As a result of this, you can repurpose your written content into other content formats.
Learn More: Get Your Brand Heard with Voice-Enabled Content
5. Update and repurpose existing posts
Even though your blog post was great in 2015, it’s probably outdated now. To ensure you continue to provide value to users today, update and improve your old posts with new information.
Apart from providing value, regularly-updated content will also keep your search rankings consistent over time. Because search engines want to provide fresh content to their users.
You can add monthly reviews to your content calendar as a reminder to update old posts. After your update, you can promote your content on social media and other marketing channels.
With this tactic, Brian Dean has been able to drive a huge amount of traffic to posts he wrote as far back as 2013.
Screenshot of Brian Dean Pageviews from 2013
The written content has dominated in the past. But other formats are becoming increasingly popular. As a result of this, you can repurpose your written content into other content formats.
Some content formats to consider are:
- Videos
- Infographics
- ebooks
- Podcasts
- Slides
- Webinars
These will improve your content quality and push your content to reach a bigger audience.
6. Conduct competitor analysis
Watching your competitors can teach you many things about content marketing. Firstly, you can find great tactics they’re using to acquire customers that you’ve yet to implement. Secondly, you can find their weaknesses to exploit.
To analyze your competitors, some aspects of their website to check are:
- Blog posts
- Landing pages
- Sales pages
- Product pages
- Offers
This will show you how your competitors use content at different stages of their sales funnel.
Learn More: The Convergence of Storytelling and Personalized Marketing Automation
Conclusion
Content marketing will continue to bring leads and customers for businesses in 2020. The question is: will your business be ready to make use of those advantages?
You can implement these 6 tactics today with the confidence that they’ll bring great results in 2020. This way, you can acquire your audience’s trust and move them along your sales funnel.
