My old flame is electronic mail advertising, however my second is most assuredly content material advertising.
For me, the 2 have all the time gone hand in hand. During my 17 years within the electronic mail advertising trade, I’ve written practically 4,000 weblog posts and articles about electronic mail and digital advertising, posted about 20,000 social media updates, given greater than 100 webinars, appeared on dozens of podcasts, and offered and keynoted at dozens of occasions. Oh, and I’ve despatched so much of emails selling all of that content material.
All of that’s to say that I actually love content material advertising, which is why I used to be excited to learn the second version of Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi and Brian Piper.
The e book concludes with a have a look at the longer term of content material advertising, which impressed me to share the 5 developments I feel will drive the subsequent 10 years of content material advertising.
1. Media will stay democratized
Blogging has challenged print and on-line media. Self-publishing has challenged e book publishers. Podcasting has challenged radio. YouTube has challenged TV.
I’ve personally benefited tremendously from these first two shifts. I began and later bought a Top 100 advertising weblog, and I’ve self-revealed 4 editions of Email Marketing Rules. In each instances, I see the first profit of going the do-it-your self route as being management—the chance to create the precise type of expertise you envision with out having to appease gatekeepers.
For instance, I really feel assured that no conventional e book writer would publish a two-quantity e book on electronic mail advertising that is practically 700 pages lengthy. And but, all I did was write to the size that the subject deserves, which is a cardinal rule of content material creation. For me, the power to create an expertise I really feel 100% nice about is definitely worth the extra manufacturing work and monetary danger.
In the years forward, I see solely elevated alternatives for organizations and folks to develop their manufacturers by creating content material throughout the media spectrum. (The film trade might be the one one which’s protected from the democratization development—for now).
2. Web3 can be area of interest
The shine is off Web3, which has had its thunder completely and fully stolen by generative AI. Interest in Web3, the metaverse, and NFTs has plunged since early 2022, and it is now clearly within the Trough of Disillusionment portion of the Gartner hype cycle.
It’s laborious to see what would pull it out of its stoop. The metaverse actual property market is crashingin locations like Decentraland. Cryptocurrency additionally appears unlikely to supply any excellent news, as monetary regulators enhance their scrutiny and FTX’s leaders go on trial for fraud.
If extra Web3 marketplaces go stomach up, it might be some time earlier than all of the organizations and individuals who had been burned would think about giving it one other shot.
All that mentioned, social tokens and NFTs should still turn into a possibility to create premium loyalty applications and premium loyalty rewards, particularly in case your model appeals to younger, tech-savvy customers. But manufacturers ought to be ready to pivot if their viewers’s urge for food for these Web3 parts shifts, contemplating the excessive prices related to them.
Thankfully, manufacturers can provide many of the identical rewards and experiences by a standard loyalty program or reward—simply with out the possession and secondary entrepreneurs related to social tokens and NFTs. Most organizations will seemingly discover that is for the perfect, as a result of these Web3 parts create extra complexities for customers, and so they inflate prices and introduce unpredictability and new dangers for manufacturers.
3. AI-generated content material will increase the bar
Generative AI is all the excitement. Although entrepreneurs ought to have heaps of considerations about its talents, there’s little doubt that it holds nice lengthy-time period promise. After all, firms comparable to Microsoft and Alphabet are investing tens of billions of {dollars} into improvement efforts. That ought to yield main enhancements by the tip of this decade, making generative AI an much more great tool for content material creators.
For content material entrepreneurs, generative AI’s ever-enhancing expertise will create a “new ground,” SparkToro’s Rand Fishkin argues. “If your content material is not higher than what AI can produce, it isn’t value making,” he factors out
I feel the scenario for content material entrepreneurs is perhaps even a bit extra dire than that.
That’s as a result of generative AI appears poised to generate a LOT of pretty respectable content material about nicely-trod topics. To achieve success, content material entrepreneurs might want to rise nicely above that fray with well timed content material; distinctive examples; authentic analysis; novel concepts; and compelling, genuine, and reliable voices.
Of all of these components, belief would be the strongest. If your model is not trusted greater than the amalgamation of sources that generative AI pulls from, you will be in hassle.
4. Generative AI will change some website positioning site visitors
Another complication attributable to generative AI is that, as an alternative of getting their questions answered by looking out after which going to numerous web sites, individuals will more and more get solutions straight from ChatGPT, Bard, and the like. As search site visitors falls, that may undermine some of the attract of content material advertising, particularly for manufacturers that do it casually.
However, search will stay highly effective for manufacturers that make investments sufficient in creating distinctive and precious content material that they turn into a trusted vacation spot for his or her viewers
In addition to changing into so nicely thought of that individuals go on to their web site for data, manufacturers will shield themselves from misplaced website positioning site visitors by constructing sturdy first-social gathering audiences by way of electronic mail and different channels.
5. Email advertising will stay sturdy
One of the items of recommendation from Epic Content Marketing that I could not agree with extra is to construct your program on platforms the place you may “management the info and content material distribution.”
That means internet hosting content material in your web site or weblog, after which focusing your viewers-constructing round membership, electronic mail subscribers, and print subscribers.
Podcast subscribers and all of social media are secondary as a result of that is all “rented land,” the place the channel homeowners can change the foundations each time they need—or they might exit of enterprise, taking every part you constructed with them
The risks of constructing on that rented land have turn into evident these days: Twitter has lower 80% of its employees to keep away from chapter as its worth plunges, and TikTook is dealing with bans around the globe. Some even declare we’re witnessing the start of the tip of the age of social media.
I would not go that far, however manufacturers definitely have heaps of causes to focus extra on the channels they’ve extra management over, together with the Web, loyalty applications, SMS, and, of course, electronic mail.
And as a result of it is prone to steal appreciable market share away from search, generative AI is a brand new motive to construct sturdy audiences throughout these channels.
Although electronic mail advertising is consistently maligned as “outdated” and as not having modified in many years, the reality is that it has developed dramatically. If something, the grievance from electronic mail entrepreneurs is that the channel has been altering too rapidly: for instance, new privateness considerations comparable to Mail Privacy (*5*), new information and concentrating on alternatives round buyer information platforms and AI, and rising pressures to raised combine electronic mail into broader omnichannel buyer experiences.
So much has modified over the previous decade and there can be many extra modifications within the decade forward, however I’ve little doubt that electronic mail advertising will stay a protected and productive funding for manufacturers.
I even have little doubt that electronic mail advertising will stay an excellent profession and ability set for many who make investments their time in studying about its rising sophistication and distinctive quirks.
More Resources on the Future of Content Marketing
The Future Is Now: Five Forward-Thinking Marketing Content Growth Areas
Seven Tips for Training the Next Generation of Content Marketers
How to Survive the Cookieless Future: Refocus on Your Owned Media Strategy
https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2023/49447/future-of-content-advertising-predictions
