For a long time, content marketing was seen as the undisputed monarch of digital marketing. With content marketing, you can build a relationship with your customers before you ever speak with them. For B2Bs, the sales funnel is more complicated. Your customers will benefit from your content since it offers them useful information and value. As a result, more people will know about your brand, which leads to more leads and better conversion rates.
The COVID-19 pandemic will have a significant impact on B2B content marketing trends in 2022. Consider how your clients’ companies and sectors have been affected by the pandemic and what the future holds for them. Is the whole workforce now working from home? Has their company been compelled to go digital? Do they have a lower budget to deal with? Make sure to take into account how you might improve your content to assist your clients in navigating this challenging period.
7 Content Marketing Trends for 2022
1. Interactive virtual events
Global pandemic has accelerated the number of online meetings, from roundtables to huge conferences and exhibits, across all fields of endeavor. Virtual events have become a mainstay of the marketing landscape because of more innovative methods of enticing faraway guests. Keeping delegates interested when they can’t be present in person is a challenge.
The use of interactive features and breakout sessions may help you keep your audience interested and involved. Virtual events should include interactive elements like polls, live quizzes, and polling in the middle of discussions to encourage two-way communication and rapport-building.
2. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
Virtual reality and augmented reality will have a greater impact on the customer and prospect experience as more people work from home. 60 percent of companies that have shifted to virtual events are expected to add real-time immersive components by 2023.
So, we should expect to see more marketers using VR and AR in their strategies in the near future. This will need a significant investment in content, but it will aid in product differentiation in oversaturated industries. Virtual reality isn’t only a tool for marketing and lead generating. Employee morale may also be boosted by boosting remote team interactions using these tools.
3. Explainer videos and campaign-related videos
Despite the fact that explainer videos have been around for a while, they still have a prominent role in the marketing playbook. Even in today’s fast-paced workplace, short, useful, and clear material is always welcomed.
A teaser video on social media may be used to generate excitement around a certain campaign or product/service launch if it follows this style. LinkedIn’s user base increased by 85 million people in only the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, therefore this sort of material will be more popular throughout 2022.
4. Interactive content marketing
Interactive approaches such as surveys and quizzes are a terrific way to increase brand awareness. Forward-thinking organizations will leverage the information they acquire from interactive content marketing to enhance their other promotional efforts as more businesses move to data-driven campaigns for 2022 and beyond. This sort of data may help you get the best out of your content investment by bringing fresh life to outdated assets and supporting lead development.
5. Customer-centric marketing
The epidemic has prompted marketers to adopt a more empathic stance, and providing client care and nurturing on a one-on-one basis is much more meaningful. The popularity of employee advocacy programs is no surprise when you realize that your colleagues, on social media, are linked to 10 times as many people as your brand.
Once again, the content is the king. One-size-fits-all content won’t work when these programs grow in breadth and scale. If you want workers to communicate effectively, you’ll need to provide them with personalized, segmented messages.
6. B2B podcasts
As podcasts become popular and provide the flexibility of listening to a subject of interest at a time convenient to the listener, more and more professionals are opting to take in knowledge. A growing number of business-to-business (B2B) firms are getting on board with this growing trend. A podcast is a great approach to cultivate long-term customer relationships in an era when buyers research brands more than 15 times before connecting with your sales staff.
Podcasts, on the other hand, need a great deal of forethought. To stay on topic, you’ll need a thoughtful content structure. Equally critical is the use of a well-thought-out marketing plan.
7. Live Video
70 percent of B2B buyers and researchers view video at least once in their purchase process, fast surpassing the content marketing arena. Most customers would rather watch a brand’s live video than read a blog, even if the quality of the video isn’t as high.
Video that has been edited still has a place on YouTube and other social media platforms, but live video is a terrific opportunity to show your prospects a more human side of your company. In B2C, this has long been a significant consideration, but in B2B, it’s becoming much more so. It’s important to remember that even though you’re marketing to corporations, those corporations are still made up of people. No matter what you’re selling, people like brands that are genuine and human.
To Conclude
It’s easy for digital marketers to get involved in trying a lot of different things at once and embracing new trends just for the fun of it. In order for your company and strategic goals to be met, you must first determine which routes are best for you and then focus on the most effective content marketing strategies and executions.
