Imagine it’s halfway through 2021… The COVID-19 vaccine has been distributed widely, and slowly businesses and consumer behaviour are adapting to a “new normal”. The global recession isn’t over yet, but things are looking significantly brighter as consumer spending returns and jobs are showing great signs of recovering.
It goes without saying that in 2020, most brands and businesses have pivoted their spending towards boosting their digital marketing presence. Before COVID-19, in-person events made up over 20% of B2B’s marketing spend on average. However, smart Chief Marketing Officers (COMs) have shifted this unused budget to content creation, and according to recent research from LinkedIn, an astonishing 78% of marketers plan to up their investment in online content.
This shift in spending should ultimately translate into higher quality content, so brands are going to have to up their game when it comes to the quality of their content. We can’t say we’re completely surprised, because we at Wordsmith know that truly great copywriting lowers your cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-lead (CPL) while also spreading awareness, trust, and affinity for your brand.
As this tumultuous year comes to a close, let’s make some content marketing predictions for the year ahead, so the pragmatic optimists among us can start planning to put our best foot forward in 2021.
Budgets will shift towards customer retention as Chief Marketing Officers find new ways of integrating marketing and the customer experience.
In 2021, we expect brands to prioritise the customer experience, taking a more holistic view beyond acquisition that will see spending on creation of loyalty-boosting and retention marketing content increase drastically. Ashutosh Sharma, VP and research director at the Forrester research company explains, “Good CMOs will embrace diversity to fuel creative ways to continually reacquire customers at every interaction”.
One of the latest CMO Surveys, conducted by Deloitte, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and the American Marketing Association, sheds new light on how COVID-19 has impacted the marketing strategy of some of the world’s top brands. And the key findings show that “building brand trust and loyalty to attract and retain customers” is a top priority, with the highest percentage of marketers surveyed expecting customers to focus more on “trusting relationships” with brands rather than on the lowest price, despite the economic downturn.
The research also revealed that 79% of CMOs believe their customers are paying closer attention to social activism, community outreach and companies’ investments during than pandemic, and will in turn stick with brands that aim to better society, rewarding them with greater loyalty in the long run. This means it’s essential that marketers focus on creating content that not only encourages customer retention but also effectively communicates how their brand, in particular, is helping the fight against COVID-19, no matter how big or small. As we’ve mentioned before true brand authenticity strikes a chord in the age of noise, distrust and information overload. And authenticity breeds consumer trust, which is, as 2020 has taught us, the most valuable brand commodity of all.
Marketers will learn to do more with less as they are forced to get their creative hats on again.
As we begin to see marketers’ budgets shift to focus on client retention and increased value on customer service, marketers will have no choice but to significantly reduce costs in other areas. Cost-saving usually implies slashing media spend, especially on traditional advertising and corporate sponsorships. But it’s not all doom and gloom. As we have seen under lockdown, some brands have flourished when it comes to producing truly inspiring creative, and promoting themselves across cost-effective channels like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. This year, successful content marketers have steered clear of self-promotion in their messaging and instead focused on how their products and services effectively solve customer’s problems and bolster communities, and we believe that we will be seeing a lot more of this type of creative brand storytelling in 2021. To get ahead next year, it’s time that brands stop selling and start serving.
Inga Batur, Senior Editor and Writer at Zavarovalnica Triglav, aptly explained, “Current events seem as if they belong to one of Stephen King’s novels, they are strange and unpredictable, reshaping our audience and companies. I believe this will require content marketers to keep up with the changes, be flexible, and adapt to the new reality”. So in the upcoming months, we as content marketers must prepare to adapt to unknown challenges in 2021. But in doing so, it’s important to always remain authentic and transparent, even if this means showing customers the vulnerable side of your business, as this ultimately humanises the face of your brand at a time when we need to see the world as a community of people instead of faceless entities.
Companies will focus more on humanising their brand and step away from tailoring content to solely satisfy Google’s bots alone.
In a previous article on 4 SEO Trends For Staying Top of Mind and Search in 2020, we explained how content marketers can keep current in the ever-changing landscape of Google’s search algorithms – especially when it comes to optimising our content for BERT, winning in zero-click searches and making sure our websites are taking the mobile-first approach. But these best-practice tactics will fall on deaf ears if the content you’re producing doesn’t connect and resonate with your intended audience. As we now know, content that’s stuffed with keywords is so 2015 that it misses the mark when trying to relate to customers. And we believe across all industries, there will be significant steer away from writing content purely to please the Google bots, and instead tailor content to meet the needs of their customers.
Director of Digital Strategy and Quest Digital, Jacquie Chakirelis, predicts, “Inclusive, purpose-driven, and transparent marketing will grow exponentially. Consumers want to do more than just buy from a brand. They want to connect, gain, and maintain a relationship with brands through common purpose and values. People want to know the brand’s perspective on different topics, such as sustainability, inclusivity, and more. As content marketers, we need to be prepared to invest in this type of content”.
If 2020 is anything to go by, we’ve seen brands stepping up to not only humanise themselves through creative brand storytelling but also reach customers in the global hour of need, from sports brand Nike donating millions in funding to the Oregon Food Bank, Community Fund and its Health and Science University to Ford Motor Company, which joined forces with 3M to help mass produce Personal Protective Equipment and respirators. It's these community-minded responses that showcase the important role brands have the potential to play in bringing people together through shared values with their customers. As Kian Bakhtiari, Founder of The People, an award-winning marketing consultancy poignantly explains, “The most adaptable brands will be people-first, community-driven, mission-led companies built for the needs of the 21st century”.
Brands will adopt a new, more personalized omnichannel mindset to meet the needs of post-COVID-19 audiences.
Today's consumers are being offered personalised ads and content that fits exactly what they're looking for. This is because smart algorithms understand what they’re searching for by harnessing the power of big data to unlock the mysteries of your customers' thoughts and behaviours.
Ashutosh Sharma, VP and research director at Forrester explains further, “The current economic climate has increased the urgency for every enterprise to embrace technology as a strategic asset”. He continues, “Asia Pacific is finally entering a decade of a digitally levelled playing field. Firms in the region will be on par with or even exceed the rest of the world in terms of technology-driven business model innovation. COVID-19 affected Asia Pacific first, and we expect it will also be the first to emerge from the crisis.” This highlights the need for Asian companies to start focusing on their 2021 Digital marketing and omnichannel strategies now, as they may be some of the first to stabilise into a “new normal”.
For too long, omnichannel strategies have treated all content channels equally. But in 2021, we predict that brands will begin to shift away from executing unilaterally across all channels. For example, instead of assuming what worked in email content will work on mobile messaging, brands will now adopt a more rationalized, curated omnichannel approach. This means they will strategically optimise every piece of content and consider which channel will have a higher value, taking personalisation and audience segmentation to the next level. Vice President and Head of Content at Babbel Magazine Jenifer Jordan comments, “If 2020 is any indication … expect the unexpected? More seriously though, expect more formats of social and visual storytelling that will stretch the limits of your brand voice, e.g., TikTok and likely competitors”.
Conclusion
So, what are the key takeaways from our predictions for 2021? After the uncertainty that has clouded most of 2020, the new year may bring a new set of constraints, but it will also bring new opportunities. With many face-face touchpoints being limited this year, demand for high quality digital content is at an all-time high.
Savvy brands will look to shift their budgets towards bolstering customer loyalty and retention with innovative content; thinking outside the box in terms of creative execution and advertising spend; humanising their brand and helping communities; and utilising new omnichannel content strategies to stay ahead of the game. As the world changes, marketers must adapt their strategies to meet customers where they are – and for the time being, this is online.
From all of us here at Wordsmith, we wish you a safe and happy festive season!