11 IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS IN

CONTENT MARKETING

Leuven, 2014 July

Content marketing is more than just a buzzword: it really is the new

marketing for both B2C and B2B.

For the past 25 years, Cypres has been keeping track of how content

and communicating through content have evolved. That’s what

a content agency should do.

Discover in the next 11 slides

how content marketing is evolving.

Brands that take mobile as the point of departure for their content strategy have an excellent chance of reaching their target audience wherever the latter are located.

Adaptive content – and not just responsive design – has become the marketers´ latest darling: a single key message is produced in several variants, which are used for different platforms and focus on the unique characteristics of each of these.

Read more: Don’t forget about adaptive content when building a responsive website

‘Mobile first’ increases the need for adaptive content

CYPRES — 111 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

Location-based services and location-oriented content are becoming more important. Far-reaching synergies are emerging between online stores and their local outlets. Through smart data analysis, companies are trying to fulfill the ad hoc needs of their customers, no matter where or when.

Furthermore, local and personalised content is becoming part of the digital business model of large media companies. This is being produced by members of the local community, rather than, as was done earlier, regional journalists.

Local and personalised content is gaining in importance

CYPRES — 211 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

In 2013, we saw the rise of, for example, the mobile phone app Vine (now also on desktop), the increased visibility of Instagram’s 15-second videos (look at what the BBC is doing with those), the rising popularity of WeHeartIt and the growing role of Pinterest as a news source. Thanks to applications like Exposure and Storehouse, visual storytelling is becoming ever more commonplace.

Strong visuals are gaining in popularity. Visual searching, which is becoming increasingly important, is having a great impact on SEO.Therefore, when planning our content, we are increasingly including visuals along with the text.

Visual storytelling is being integrated into content planning

CYPRES — 311 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

At the insistence of users, much more of the data captured by social media is no longer publicly accessible. Not even by companies.

Moreover, governments will be instituting stricter legal frameworks. The prospect of this is forcing companies to rethink their long-term marketing strategies, given that, in the future, they might be able to store data for only a limited time.

Companies will create relevant content that gathers their followers into small, closed members-only groups. Buzz-generating Snapchat campaigns are seeing the light of day.

Read more: Privacy and data protection: What do they really want with your data?

Privacy is changing how we look at marketing

CYPRES — 411 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

Traditional customer media agencies may still claim to ‘own’ the field of content marketing, but that assertion no longer corresponds to reality. New names now gaining a foothold approach content marketing from a position of digital expertise. PR agencies are also increasingly seeing an interest in a content marketing approach.

However, above all, established media agencies are becoming major players: they are already strategic sparring partners of companies and make independent, multichannel recommendations.

Customer media agencies on the other hand have the advantage of having an enormous amount of experience in conveying relevant content.

Collaboration between agencies, each with their own expertise, is therefore becoming commonplace.

See also next development: “Collaboration leads to success”

Media agencies are becoming content marketing agencies

CYPRES — 511 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

Few companies have all the skills in-house to integrate content effectively. After all, content marketing is a complex job, which among other things demands a multi-channel strategy and thorough data analysis. Even more than before, companies are obliged to collaborate with various partners: the media, content providers, researchers and digital agencies.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for each of these players to cover the entire field on their own, so they’ll have to learn how to work together.

This team-player attitude is also gaining ground within the companies themselves: there’s plenty of good content to be found on all different levels and in all departments. Thanks to cross-department teamwork, it will be tapped into much more frequently than in the past.

The best team players will be the winners of tomorrow.

Read more: How does content marketing work? From defining audiences to measuring results

Collaboration leads to success

CYPRES — 611 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

Relevant content remains important, but even more important is helping customers at every point of their customer journey.

Successful companies continue to encourage communities that actively promote their brand and, by doing so, think more broadly than just customer care via social media. They’re also stimulating interaction between their customers, so that they can help each other.

A pleasing result of this is an increase in the co-creation of products and services.

Read more: Social media and content strategy – Can it be more than simply dropping links?

Companies are helping customers help customers

CYPRES — 711 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

To escape seemingly never-ending digital noise, people are actively building offline moments into their lives and developing a greater appreciation of tactile interactions and face-to-face contacts.

Established digital brands are responding to this with derivative products for the offline world. Together with a number of niche communities, they’re proving that print is far from dead – and, as a result, they’re making print dinosaurs who haven´t yet gone digital blush with shame.

Read more: From pixels to pages: Why digital initiatives are venturing into print

Digital brands are becoming print players

CYPRES — 811 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

Newspapers and magazines are coming under ever more pressure and, as a consequence, the exodus of journalists – whether voluntary or not – continues. However, the sharpest pens are quickly finding new homes with brands, which are fighting to employ the best talents in their content marketing.

Branded content, both on- and offline, is benefiting from the newly available journalistic techniques. You can expect to see journalists taking responsibility for the content strategy of some companies in the near future.

Read more: Why ‘branded journalism’ is a contradiction in terms

Journalism is enriching branded content

CYPRES — 911 DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTENT MARKETING

Wearable technology is penetrating our lives: glasses, watches, even clothes … one by one, they’re becoming smarter. You just haven’t bought them yet.

Now that the masses are discovering the ‘Internet of Things’, we’re once again questioning how we offer and structure information. Content and UX will enter into a new alliance, giving rise to many opportunities for brands to offer (micro)content in new and more intelligent ways and often in one-on-one dialogues with consumers.

Read more: How to be social with micro-content

The Internet of Things offers new content opportunities

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The need for useful and relevant content is increasing because companies have to pull out all the stops to get and retain the attention of their public. They do this by highlighting their value(s) and actively involving the public in their projects. User-generated content plays an extremely important role in this effort, one equivalent to that of the content itself.

Companies that fail to bring their user base on board are being ignored and risk being pushed aside by competitors who do know the right way to do it.

Read more: The collaborative economy and its impact on content

User-generated content is increasing in the wake of the collaborative economy

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Cypres organizes, creates and manages cross-media content for your customers, your employees and all your other stakeholders.

Our baseline? “Content to connect”, because we firmly believe that you create and strengthen relationships with your audience by providing information they find highly valuable.

Discover how Cypres creates strong content for you and your stakeholders.

Cypres invites you to discover The Content Room, our open competence center and creative laboratory, in which we study and test new ways to create, use and distribute content.

Specialists from Belgium and abroad come regularly to discuss everything related to content and content publishing. This includes such topics as content strategy and material, content governance, social content and content co-creation.

Do you want to stay informed about activities at Cypres and The Content Room?

Sign up for our e-newsletter at www.cypres.com.