Content Trends To Look Out For In 2024

And how your business can start maximising them now! As 2023 draws to a close, it’s important to be looking ahead at 2024. Over the last few years, the content marketing industry has been growing rapidly and 2024 will be no exception. Statista predicts that by 2026, the industry’s revenue will reach $107 billion. The short of it is, if you’re not yet using content marketing as a tool to grow your business, you’re missing out. The good thing is that it’s never too late to start and with a new year on the horizon, now is the perfect time to get going.  As content marketing specialists, we understand that the term ‘content marketing’ covers a huge amount of topics, techniques and theories. So, what should a business be paying attention to most as we head into 2024?  To make things easier, we’ve listed the top three content marketing trends of 2024 and how your business can make the most of them now: 1. Video marketing We know you’re probably not surprised to see this at the top of our list. Video marketing has been growing exponentially over the last few years and it’s only going to get bigger. This is mainly due to the shift in just how much video content is produced and consumed everyday.  At one time, video marketing mainly referred to online content with the exception of TV ads. Now, businesses are using other channels like DOOH (Digital Out Of Home) billboards to reach their target audience with video marketing.  Video personalisation We’re also likely to see more personalisation come to video marketing. In previous years, personalised content was something that wasn’t used for video, but in 2024, it’s thought that this will be explored more. Businesses will likely be capitalising on it as a way to form a better connection with consumers.  Short form videos These short, ‘snackable’ videos have become one of the most consumed forms of content in the last year or so and this is only set to grow further into 2024. Businesses have rightfully begun to use this form of content as a way to reach their target market and the need to do this is only growing.  How can my business use video marketing? We often work with businesses that are reluctant to jump on the video bandwagon  as they feel that a video can’t be made from what they do. This really isn’t the case! Video marketing doesn’t have to be something that’s scary to do, if you’ve already got photos of the work you do or the product you make, you already have the content you need to make a video. With a few clever animations, you can really capture an audience’s attention. Don’t have the time to put it together? We can help. Even if the work your business does is very hands-on, you mostly likely have an HD video recorder in your pocket. Just taking one minute to film what you’re seeing on the job, or a quick demonstration of a completed job filmed on your phone is more than enough to be getting on with. Just recently, a client of ours sent through a video of a product they had just installed in action and it has quickly become their most engaging post on LinkedIn. 2. User-Generated Content Authenticity and credibility have only increased in importance and will continue to do so well into 2024. This is mainly due to a societal shift in being less trusting post pandemic (when the public was most vulnerable) and the economy experiencing a shrinkage post pandemic. Both causing people to be extra careful with where and how they spend their money. With more and more information available for consumers to inform their buying decision, the process is taking longer.  As a business, it needs to be a top priority to build consumer trust and make sure that you’re the business that consumers choose. Which is where User-Generated content comes in; the easiest and possibly the most effective way to build trust among consumers.  What is user-generated content and how can I use it? User-generated content is as it sounds, content that has been produced by a user/ consumer. The most common form of this type of content is reviews and testimonials. By managing the community engagement your business receives through its marketing channels, you’ll be able to create a sense of belonging and trust among your consumers.  Customer reviews are paramount We always tell our clients that one of the most powerful things you can do is collect customer reviews. These are like gold dust and serve as a good conversion tool as 47% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. The amount of reviews a business has can also influence how trusted it is among potential customers.  Sharing customer reviews with your target market is a great way to use user-generated content and make for a great social media post too! 3. Meaningful content Something we’ve always said is the principles of marketing stay the same, it’s the channels in which we practise these principles that evolve. Meaningful content making it on the content marketing trends list for 2024 is proof of that.  While it’s always been key to produce content that resonates with your target audience, it is now more important than ever. As we’ve mentioned, consumer trust has declined so it’s never been so important to make sure the content you’re putting out builds that trust with your potential customers.  That, paired with the fact you’ll need to stand out among the rest of the noise, means that meaningful content is certainly going to be a trend for 2024.  How can I create meaningful content? Understanding your audience is the only way to make meaningful content that resonates with them. Think of it like giving a gift, how can you give someone a gift they’ll like if you don’t know them that well? Understanding your target audience

Why Content Consistency Gets Great Results

Photo shows a rectangular piece of paper with the words 'be consistent'

Spending big advertising budgets with little ROI? Here’s how content marketing can help It can be tempting to want to spend big on digital advertising, but in our experience, it often overpromises and under delivers. At Constructive Marketing, we consistently produce high quality content to achieve clients’ business goals – and it works What is good content? Before we dive into why it works and the results we’ve achieved for clients, it’s important to understand what we mean by good content. What you think is a good piece of content may not be what your ideal customer is looking for and therefore may not resonate with them. Resulting in you not getting the results you want.  We have written a whole blog post on what makes good content, but in short you need to ask yourself these three questions:  We dive into these three questions deeper in our blog post so it’s well worth a read to help you improve on your own content.  Why does good and consistent content work? There are two main reasons that good and consistent content garners good results, the first is that by consistently providing good content to consumers, you build up a good relationship with them. Which builds their trust in you and ultimately converts them in one way or another. Whether that be to sign up to receive more content from you. Or for them to purchase a product/ service from you. The second reason it works is because the algorithms love consistent quality! LinkedIn, for example, shows companies/ users that post consistently at the top of other user’s news feeds. With users spending an average time of just 7 minutes on the platform, you’ll want to make sure your content is near the top of their feed to increase the chances of it being seen.  It’s important to remember that consistent doesn’t mean constant so it’s important to only commit to an amount of posts a week that you can stick to. Whether that’s once a week, twice or even three times a week. Whatever it is, making sure you can stick to it is the key. You also need to bear in mind that posting consistently isn’t a quick fix, but you will see results after a short time. As long as you’re consistently posting good quality content that resonates with your audience. In our experience, it’s like a snowball effect – once the ball starts rolling, it quickly picks up pace! Client success stories It wouldn’t be right for us to preach about being consistent with good quality content if we hadn’t seen fantastic results from it. So here are a couple of success stories we’ve had within the last six months.  Propelling Cheesmur’s reach We are really proud of the fantastic success we’ve achieved with Cheesmur’s LinkedIn page. Over the last three months (July-October 2023), the page has had way over 27,000 impressions and has an engagement rate of 88%. Which is 84.5% above the average engagement rate for LinkedIn company pages. Earlier, we mentioned the snowball effect and Cheesmur has definitely experienced that with their follower growth having an increase of 8.5% when compared to the previous three months.  Now, Cheesmur is consistently reaching, on average, over 300 construction professionals every day on LinkedIn alone and it’s thanks to consistent posting of good quality content. For Cheesmur, this means our content team works with the contracts Director and site managers to receive information about current projects. Which our team then turns into engaging social media and Google posts. We also develop the more detailed projects/ topics into long form content for their blog.  All of which improves both their brand awareness through multiple channels; social media and Google. You can read the full Cheesmur case study here. Getting Admor on Google’s page one without spending a Google budget With our expert knowledge, we were able to take Admor’s budget and make sure that the content we produced for them was placed in the right place to achieve their goals. The result was that their dental software website moved to page one of Google and they began to get more traction on social media. You can read more about the initial stages of the strategy in the case study. Since then, Admor has trusted us with looking after their other brands. So we’ve implemented a content marketing strategy that spans across all three of their brands. The new strategy has only been in place a month (September-October) and has already achieved way over 285 impressions. With an engagement increase of 4,200% when compared to the previous period (July-August), we think it’s safe to say that encompassing all of their brands into one strategy has been a success.  Let us help you too! We would love to help you implement a strong content marketing strategy to help you achieve your business goals too. Give us a call or email us letting us know what it is you’re looking to achieve. So far, we’ve helped businesses increase brand awareness/ engagement, sales and even helped over 20 become award winning!You can read more of our case studies here.

Telling Your Story In The Right Way

Telling Your Story in The Right Way Blog Post - Constructive Marketing

What is good content and why is it important? Over the last couple of years, the importance of good quality content has become really apparent. With Google changing its algorithm to favour helpful content and other search engines following suit, it’s important to make sure your content is up to scratch to maintain and even boost your ranking .  What is good content? Algorithms are constantly changing which can make identifying good content seem like a daunting task. But there are some key principles that don’t change. So here’s three questions to ask yourself to determine whether your content is good: Is it relevant to your target audience? The age old rule for marketing is ‘know your audience’ and the same goes for content. You need to make sure that the content you’ve created is relevant to the audience it’s for. Which is what the search engines are looking for – they’re delivering the most relevant content to their users.  Even if the content is ultimately selling your product or service, you need to make sure that it adds value to the audience.  Is it original? There are billions of content pieces out there now so of course it is difficult to be completely original. But it is important to put your own spin on someone else’s idea to keep your content original. It’s also important to make sure that the exact same content hasn’t been posted elsewhere. This is especially important if working with AI platforms like Bard or ChatGP as these platforms mine the internet for answers to your questions. Always remember that whatever they produce, it won’t be original and it could be from out of date sources. Search engines hate duplicate content so publishing duplicate content will have a negative impact on your rankings and could see your website being downgraded.  Is it focused? What we mean by that is, is it part of a bigger strategy? Moving away from just thinking about external factors, the content needs to be beneficial to your business. It should be helping you reach your business goals and align with your company’s objectives.  Being part of a bigger strategy also means that it is not just a stand alone piece of content as, like with all marketing activity, consistency is key.  How good content can help your business Unlike other ways to market your business, content can support your customers through every stage of the customer journey. Being such a versatile tool for businesses means that it can help your business in a variety of areas. Here’s just a few of the things we have achieved for our clients as a result of improving their content marketing: Less bounce rates and longer website session time By creating good quality content, target consumers are spending more time on our clients’ websites. Increasing their engagement with consumers and working to convert them into paying customers.  Improved brand awareness Establishing a strong content marketing strategy has meant that our clients have improved their brand awareness. Making sure that the content that they put out reflects positively on their brand and firmly establishes brand messaging Built better relationships with customers Content marketing isn’t just about obtaining new customers, it’s also about improving your business’s relationship with existing ones. By creating engaging and consistent content, our clients have built better relationships with their customers. It’s these customers that become advocates for the business and ultimately refer new clients to you. Start reaping the benefits of a good content marketing strategy now. Get in touch with us to find out how our team of experts can help you achieve your business goals.