We’ve all heard the phrase ‘content is king’, giving brands the ability to provide value to their customers, establish themselves as an authoritative voice within their industry and generate further revenue.
Content marketing comes in many forms, from social media to blogs. However, businesses are discovering new ways to engage with their audience in 2021 and widen their reach.
As a digital marketer, it’s crucial to consistently stay on top of what others in your industry are doing to ensure that you stand out from the crowd and gain a competitive advantage.
This article covers essential content marketing statistics to help your business stay on top of the latest content marketing trends for 2021.
Content marketing statistics
- 47% of buyers read three to five content pieces before engaging with your sales team.
- 82% of marketers have upped their content marketing strategy in 2021, an increase from 70% last year.
- The crucial goals of digital marketers when running online campaigns include brand awareness, increasing sales, and engagement.
- Video is the most popular aspect of content marketing, surpassing blogs and infographics.
- Google’s algorithm is leveraging text to images, voice, podcasts, and videos.
- Key technologies used by business-to-business (B2B) organisations to enhance their content marketing efforts are analytics, social media, and email marketing tools.
- Favoured content channels for B2B marketers include social media, email, and website.
Post-pandemic marketing trends
With businesses bolstering their content marketing efforts, the following are the most prominent content marketing trends for 2021:
Video content
The number of media uploads rose by 80% year on year in 2020, with more consumers spending time at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, passing the time by watching video content.
Consumers viewed over 12.2 billion minutes of video content in 2020, equating to 23,211 years of content.
Due to evolving consumer behaviour, video content has become the central aspect of most content marketing strategies, taking first place for a second consecutive year.
With video content now a central aspect of the customer journey, HubSpot says this trend suggests video content could be used for multiple purposes, no longer used purely for brand introduction.
The videos your business creates can vary greatly, depending on the needs of your brand. For example, some companies are choosing short-form videos using platforms like TikTok for brand publicity.
Multimedia content
Alongside video content, multimedia has also become a growing content marketing trend in 2021. The rise of social media means that most consumers now have short attention spans, encouraging marketers to create new ways to split up text to improve content comprehension.
Examples of popular multimedia content include incorporating video clips and interactive slides into substantial amounts of text. This method will help your content become more engaging, allowing audiences to process it easily.
SEO tactics
In 2021, 69% of digital marketers said they increased their investments in SEO, which is a 5% rise from 2020.
Digital marketers are boosting SEO investments to create bespoke consumer experiences. However, 2021 is less about general SEO optimisation but more about ranking for long-tail keywords.
Brands are more concerned about providing meaningful content to users in addition to simply appearing on search engine results pages (SERPs). 71% of digital marketers stated that their business’ primary SEO tactic in 2021 would be to optimise for more strategic keywords.
Podcasts
Podcasts have grown immensely over the past year and are likely to grow in popularity as a content marketing strategy. Some significant podcast statistics include:
- As of October 2020, there were over 34 million podcast episodes and over 1.5 million shows available.
- In less than three years, those listening to podcasts has increased by 60% in the United States alone.
- Large corporations such as Apple are increasing their investments in podcasts.
- The podcast market is forecast to expand by over $2 billion by 2023, hence why more businesses are placing greater focus on this channel.
The popularity of podcasts primarily comes down to the fact that there is something for everyone. There are around 72,000 podcast episodes released each day, so there is a strong chance that you will find something in keeping with your interests.
The general tone of podcasts also appeals to listeners, with it often feeling as though you are eavesdropping on a conversation between the host and the guests. This set-up draws the listener in as they do not feel as though they are being talked at and contain a more natural structure.
More businesses are investing in podcasts due to the benefits it provides to listeners. For example, 53% of podcast listeners said they liked hearing ads during the show, saying it added to the listening experience, whilst 61% said podcast ads were more likely to make the listener purchase the featured product.
Personalised content
A growing priority for digital marketers in 2021 is providing contextual content to audiences based on their interests. As a result, brands need to learn their audiences’ desires and needs to generate content that will promote brand loyalty and generate additional revenue.
You can better understand your audience by observing user behaviour on your websites, such as if a browser remains on a particular page for an extended period.
Valuable content
With consumers spending more time online, it’s become even more essential to ensure that your content provides value to your audience.
Content has very much become a case of quality over quantity and should be present behind everything you post online. It’s much better to upload one meaningful post a week rather than upload inane posts daily.
Virtual events
Virtual events took off over the past year as a result of COVID-19 and remote working. However, it’s thought that virtual events and webinars will continue their popularity even after the easing of COVID restrictions, with the global webinar market anticipated to expand to $800 million by 2023, which is a $253 million rise from 2015.
Content repurposing
With users continually craving new content, businesses have been looking at further ways to repurpose their existing content into a new format.
Popular ways of repurposing content can include taking webinars and videos and restructuring them into a written format like a blog or a slide presentation.
Providing relevant and valuable content to your audience comes down to staying on top of changes within your industry and thoroughly understanding your audience’s needs and desires.
If your business could benefit from help with your content marketing strategy, Soar Online is here to help. We are offering all companies a free video audit of their current websites and digital activity. Please give us a call on 0345 207 3727 to find out more.
