Marketing Trends for 2024
Marketing agencies and strategists like Greywoods have had to learn to become adaptable and to prepare for the unexpected. In 2023, the digital landscape changed quickly, with the emergence of game-changing platforms such as ChatGPT. So, how can our clients prepare their content marketing strategy for 2024 to drive organic growth for their business?
We decided to summaries the biggest trends and help you to apply these insights:
#1: A Stronger Focus on Laser-Focused & Audience-Centric Content
While AI and automation remain influential in content marketing, 2024 is anticipated to emphasise a return to basics. Specifically, crafting content that prioritises the needs of your target audience.
This back-to-basics approach may sound familiar, and for good reason. According to the 2023 State of Content Marketing report, 47% of businesses attribute their content marketing success to audience research, while 44% consider improving content quality and value to be crucial.
For further validation, consider the recent algorithm changes by Google. The emphasis on valuable content underscores the importance of understanding and meeting your audience’s expectations. Google seeks content that delivers a satisfying experience and fulfills its promises, much like how your audience values content designed to genuinely assist, address their questions, and make sense.
So, how can you create content tailored to your audience? Start by examining what’s already ranking, employing search intent analysis to gain insight into your audience’s content expectations. Additionally, engage in direct conversations with your audience to enhance your content’s value, ultimately leading to improved results.
One notable example of audience-focused content is Auguste – the Label, a Byron-Bay-based ecommerce site catering to millennial women. They successfully target their core audience through tailored content, appealing to their interests, optimising for organic search, and highlighting their products.
On the B2B side, Monday.com excels in audience-centric content by utilising topic clusters and guiding users to relevant content. They cover a wide range of topics with an authoritative edge, demonstrating their deep understanding of their audience’s interests and questions.
In essence, both Auguste and Monday’s strategies involve a keen awareness of their audience’s specific needs and answering those needs through accessible content, strengthening their relationships with their audience in the process.
#2: Proving Return on Investment (ROI) Is Crucial
The uncertainty brought about by macro-economic events like Covid-19 and the resulting cost pressures, has put marketing budgets under increased scrutiny. In response, marketers are tasked with demonstrating the Return On Investments by clients.
To address this challenge, Greywoods suggests an SEO-driven approach to generate organic search and referral traffic. Despite the prevalence of paid ads and social media, organic search and referral traffic remain the most effective sources of marketing ROI for brands across various industries.
How can you drive organic and referral traffic? Begin by creating compelling content that addresses your audience’s most pressing questions and aligns with their buyer’s journey. Consistency in publishing and staying at the forefront of your audience’s minds are also essential.
Moreover, it’s vital to measure content ROI effectively. Many businesses already measure content ROI and overall content marketing performance, but there’s room for improvement. Reviewing your attribution model, particularly if it accounts for all touchpoints influencing customer conversion, can provide a more holistic view of content ROI.
By comprehensively tracking and reporting on ROI, you not only validate the value of your work but also gather invaluable insights to enhance your future performance.
#3: Prioritising Content Quality
As mentioned earlier, 44% of marketers emphasise the importance of improving content quality for content marketing success. In 2024, this will be even more critical, applicable to businesses of all sizes.
Cristian Rojas, Design Lead at Greywoods, observes that creating valuable content, regardless of the size of your business, can result in increased website visitors, click-through rates, and conversions.
This tactic is becoming the primary driver of meaningful traffic, engagement, and conversions. In fact, 53% of survey respondents confirm that enhancing content quality contributes to improved search engine rankings.
So, how can you enhance content quality? The key lies in authenticity. Focus on your audience’s real needs and values, aligning your content with your brand’s story. Quality content should embody real-life experience, unique insights, practical advice, a great user experience, and a consistent tone of voice.
To summarise: enhancing content quality, whether through an authentic strategy, audience-oriented content, or a combination of both, is a top priority for 2024.
#4: Prioritising Human-Generated Content Despite AI Trends
The rise of AI-assisted content creation, exemplified by ChatGPT, has garnered attention in the content marketing world. However, the importance of human-generated, high-quality, unique content amid the proliferation of AI-generated content cannot be under-estimated.
Embrace YOUR expertise or collaborate with experts, so you can provide insights that AI cannot.
Or use AI to augment content creation, but don’t let it become the writer. Ensure humans within your business or your marketing agency’s are editing copy and ensuring it relates precisely to your brand, USP and positioning desires. Your customers will smell a fake. So fact-check automatically generated content, rewrite vague sections, and meticulously edit for style and tone of voice. It must look and read like you!
#5: Evolving Metrics for Content Success
Search engines continuously evolve to provide more efficient answers to users’ queries, which impacts click-through rates (CTR). As a result, content marketers may need to adapt their strategies to account for changing user behaviour.
In addition to ranking, CTR has become a critical metric for measuring content success. Content marketers will aim to attract more qualified, high-converting traffic. Strategies for achieving this include creating memorable, audience-centric content that aligns with user needs, promoting content on multiple channels, building online communities, and leveraging digital PR to expand brand visibility.
While organic search optimisation remains crucial, marketers are encouraged to promote content where their audience is most likely to engage with it, whether on social media platforms, through advertising on tech networks, or on high-performing websites. It doesn’t have to be on a results page of a Google Search. Be sure to actively place your content on websites and pages your target audience might follow or like.
Adapting to your audience’s preferences and behaviour with a thoughtful, multichannel promotion strategy is key to thriving in the evolving content marketing landscape.
#6: Purchasing Growth as an Alternative to Building
In 2024, content marketers are urged to consider alternative growth strategies. Rather than solely focusing on gradual audience building, adopting a media company mindset and incorporating acquisitions into your strategy.
The creator economy has birthed opportunities for brands to purchase small content brands, accelerating their growth and enabling them to redirect their content marketing efforts elsewhere.
By acquiring brands that have already achieved their goals, companies can reach their objectives more quickly, thereby diversifying their content marketing approach.
In many cases, a balanced approach that combines both gradual growth and strategic acquisitions can lead to the best results.
Preparing for Content Marketing in 2024 – Summarised
- Prioritise audience-centric content.
- Focus on improving content quality.
- Demonstrate the ROI of your content marketing efforts.
- Balance AI-generated content with human-generated content.
- Evolve your metrics to account for changing user behaviour and CTR.
- Explore growth through acquisitions, considering opportunities in the creator economy.