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Five things that work best for content marketing
In our computer driven and mobile world, content marketing is gaining more importance. The old fashioned marketing plan of in person and traditional media is slowly fading away. Instead outreach through email and social networks are becoming crucial to every company. It is real adapt or die situation and so majority of startups have adapted. 2017 will see startups further increasing their budget on content marketing.
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The key themes to keep an eye are:
Extensive personalization
As more and more data gets generated customers are finding hard to keep up with it. The customer will engage in content relevant to them. Hence important part of content marketing in 2017 will understanding the target audience. By sending targeted messages it will be easier to convert leads into conversions. This way startups can work smarter and not harder.
Integration of various channels
With the rise of social media platforms the company will be required to go multimedia. Important part of company strategy will be to understand will how various channels come together and create purposeful content in the right format which consumers can consume at different times of the day.
More consumption of visual content
According to Forrester research one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. 2017 will also see explosion of visual content. YouTube has already become the next big search engine after google. A video with three action items that explain the benefits to the target audience will have more chances of going viral than a long article.
Deeper branding
In the ever changing technology and increasing competition having a clear defined Unique selling proposition (USP) will be very important to content strategy so the customer has same kind of experience every time it is engages with the brand. Startups that will create emotional appeal for its customers and leverage storytelling will always be able to create advantage over their competitors.
Rise of virtual communities
2017 will also see increase in communities with mission. More consumers will like to part of communities to make better decision. At the center of the community will be experts which be trusted agents , next will be influential who will spread the message to masses by means of blogging and other content creation means and the outside of the ring will be occasional who will be visiting the community as needed basis. The occasional will look up to experts and influential to solve their problem. To succeed the startups will not only have to understand the mission of the community but also understand their problem and help them make informed decision by creating compelling content.