When it comes to marketing trends, one thing remains constant—change. By staying on top of what your target audience wants, you will stay ahead of the competition. For any brand or business to grow and appeal to the right customers, a content strategy is a must-have in 2022.

Whether you want to find leads, boost sales, expand your email list, or increase your conversions, these are harder to achieve without effective content marketing. Some organisations see the need to adjust their strategies quarterly or monthly; a few are even making changes weekly.

If you haven’t already refreshed your content marketing strategy, the start of the new year is a great time to do so. This is especially important when you want to make B2B copy and boost your capabilities this year.

Focus on your existing customers

Many companies focus on acquiring new customers and improving the buyer journey. Actually, the chances of selling to an existing client is around 60% to 70% whereas the chances of selling to a new one is only around 5% to 20%.

In 2022, divide your efforts between attracting new buyers and driving customer retention. Closing a deal is just the beginning of engaging with customers. Check where your content is and isn’t meeting customer needs across the pre-sale and post-sale lifecycle.

Maximise the omnichannel approach

While many businesses talk about omnichannel marketing activation, some focus more on paid or outbound promotions. They overlook earned or owned activities for generating inbound and organic engagement. They don’t even bother about multilingual requirements despite being global organisations.

Is your audience based in the same country or in another part of the world? Whatever the case, forget about isolating your inbound and outbound tactics. Instead, adopt a strategy of sensing behavioural signs then responding with the right content.

Align and clarify content roles

Lots of teams went through organisational changes and responsibility redefinition last year, so it’s natural if some members are confused about their tasks and assignments. Make sure that everyone involved in the new content lifecycle is aware of what’s expected of them and how they contribute.

Something as simple as scheduling training and updating process documents is a great help in boosting morale and getting employees into momentum. Consider the timing when holding these alignment events as you don’t want them to happen while you’re still making changes.

Abandon outdated marketing methods

If your strategy consists of pieced-together technology and processes, modernise for better efficiency, scale, and quality. Look at new approaches that leverage automation, artificial intelligence, and modular content. These include “create once, publish anywhere”, automated chat responses, AI-generated copy, and the like.

Think about where you may apply these modern approaches to your content production and promotion. Identify where you are already using tools in your organisation, be it for scheduling or automation. Check what other features of these programs you might use for content marketing.

Work on content intelligence

Given the vast amount of content being created for your business, it becomes difficult to measure the impact the copy is having on your marketing strategy. Content intelligence is important so you know the effect of content aided by big data analysis through machine learning systems and artificial intelligence.

It’s possible to conduct competitive intelligence on your own but it helps to have some tools on hand. Examples of software you will find useful are BuzzSumo, Contently, Curata and Crayon. These help you track your content marketing performance and even that of your competitors.

Optimise for search engines

If you aren’t already, invest your time and effort on SEO with content that is creative and unique. Original articles or blog posts rank higher than low-value and repetitive copy. Most users only view the first page of results so you want to ensure your site is there too.

Produce content that is appealing and persuasive, especially to your target audience. Customers have problems that your service or product may help with, but they aren’t aware of this. Your goal in content marketing is to make them know how your organisation meets their needs.

Get started on podcasts

Due to the pandemic, the past 2 years were rife with opportunities for client communication. There was an increase in the use of digital media and platforms, including podcasts. These have served as tools for facilitating educational content about brands and businesses around the world.

Podcast Insights reports that there are over 2 million podcasts and more than 48 million episodes as of 2021. For content marketing, you may use this format to share stories and get your offerings noticed in a subtler way through social networks.

Conclusion

The pandemic is still a concern but companies may remain afloat through a well-planned content strategy. It pays to know the trends in content marketing as we have discussed above. Doing so ensures that you stay in the know of what customers are looking for and what competitors are doing.

If you’d like a helping hand for your content, it’s a good idea to hire a virtual professional like a content specialist or content strategist in the Philippines. We at Remote Workmate specialise in connecting you to remote employees according to your preferences and/or requirements.