Content marketing remains the way to go if you want to pursue the inbound strategy and create a strong ' pull' drawing prospective clients to your website, social media communities, and other communication channels. Attracting new visitors is as hard as keeping them with you, which creates the need to continuously produce value for your audiences. From a content standpoint, the global outline is changing every year as some past leaders become less relevant and new popular content types emerge and go viral. The list below suggests the optimal choices for 2024 that will keep your digital marketing campaigns up to date and will help you attract and retain as many customers as possible. Some of them may require new digital competencies or the adjustment of your current strategies in order to fully utilize these trends and the benefits they offer.

1. Short Videos

The rise of TikTok and YouTube shorts clearly demonstrates that the decreasing attention span of modern viewers, as well as mobile traffic limitations, draw everyone's attention to brief videos. This does not mean that you can only use them to post emotional reactions or other non-informative content. Many creators manage to insert valuable recommendations and ' how-to' schemes into 30 seconds of time. The best thing is, short videos make people come back for more soon afterward and creates motivation to regularly check your website or social media communities for new materials. If you prioritize this form of content marketing, here are some recommendations on how you can utilize it more effectively:

• Look for new trends, challenges, and memes you can use as a ' hype train' to get greater brand exposure.
• Find your optimal format in terms of logos, background music, and delivery styles.
• Do not exceed 30 seconds and break down longer videos into several consecutive ones if necessary.
• Include subtitles to facilitate ' silent watching' and get even more viewers.

2. Infographics

Infographics remain one of the best methods to easily convert complex ideas and data into an easily consumable format. They are perfect for representing potential results delivered by your products and services or comparing your performance against that of competitor offerings. You can also use a unique style for your visuals and add logos and watermarks to make them instantly recognizable. You know that you have done your homework right when your infographics go viral on social media.

You can also combine statistical information with ' how-to' recommendations. Here are some ideas on how you can make your infographics work for increasing your viewer conversion:

• Use statistics to show a problem (e.g. "70% of digital marketers completely ignore the power of infographics and lose 53% of their potential revenues as a result").
• Show effective solutions that can solve this problem and provide a plan for action.
• Offer your product as a way to turbocharge this action plan and include some ' calls to action to generate instant sales or trial subscriptions.

The best strategy is to use infographics as a sales vehicle showing the benefits of using your product to solve some popular problem. If you include some visual materials without a clear marketing goal, they will only dilute viewers' attention and fail to increase your conversion rates.

3. Saveable eBooks

Offering free materials is a surefire way to get your visitor's emails for maintaining further contact. They also present your ideas and recommendations in a structured and well-organized manner as opposed to the random browsing of your website performed by prospective clients. A short course tackling a popular problem may be the best way to give them something to think about and to convince them that your recommendations are efficient. Another viable option is to use your eBooks as intros to particular educational courses or products. This way, your customers will learn more about your method of work and the key terms you use. As a result, their transfer to paid plans will be seamless, which benefits both parties.

With that being said, eBooks are frequently copied and distributed by users via email or third-party online platforms. As a result, your brand stops getting new leads as new readers do not share their email addresses with you. To prevent this trend, make sure that your eBooks include some unique discount links or other personalizing elements substantiating direct subscriptions to your newsletters.

4. Interactive Content

On paper, interactive content is any type of visual, audio, or textual content that seeks to stimulate user participation. This can take the form of clicking embedded links, providing quiz answers, listing virtual pages, or performing any other actions requiring direct user engagement. From a marketing standpoint, interactive content grants your viewers more significant control over the process of consumer decision-making. A good example of this is the offering of various subscription plans where you can add or remove a large number of custom elements to craft the type of offering you like. Similarly, a simple infographic showing you how many users have selected each of the options may be a powerful decision-making support mechanism helping your customers make more informed shopping decisions.

5. User-Generated Materials

There are few ways to boost your community engagement better than to repost user-generated content on your main channel. The followers of popular brands frequently create interesting selfies, memes, or personal stories related to their favorite companies. The only thing you need to do to use these materials is to check hashtagged content on social media and repost these publications to your main page. This instantly demonstrates your recognition of your followers' efforts and devotion and stimulates the creation of more user-generated content. Moreover, reposting a good joke about your brand may be a powerful form of defense against criticisms showing your good sense of humor and the lack of pathological vanity.

The best strategy here is to find your voice and remain consistent in your marketing strategy. Such brands as Starbucks use a respectful tone in their communication with their audiences. On the contrary, such companies as Burger King are widely recognized for their provocative humor and Twitter attacks on direct competitors. You may experiment with both of these polar opposites to a certain degree prior to selecting one particular option that works best for your brand image. Afterward, you should stick to it and remain consistent in your marketing communication.

6. Case Studies and Customer Reviews

While fake testimonials published by thousands of single-page websites have become a clear ' no-no' in modern digital marketing, there is nothing wrong with posting some real reviews from your consumers or discussing their experiences as a case study. Here are some advantages offered by using written case studies:

• Consumers can see practical cases solved by your company.
• This acts as solid proof of your competencies.
• They can contact your past clients mentioned in the case study to get a confirmation of your success with them.
• This social proof may be a source of instant sales if the problems solved in the case study closely reflect the pains of prospective customers.

Make sure that you collect informed consent from your past clients prior to publishing their reviews or using your history of cooperation as a case study. This can be achieved by offering discounts or other loyalty bonuses.

7. Podcasts

Thousands of your prospective customers spend hours every day commuting. No matter whether they do it using their own cars or public transport, chances are they cannot browse through your visual materials during these periods. Podcasts solve this problem and allow you to deliver value to them during their daily commute or jogging/workout sessions. With that being said, there are some specific tips related to this type of content:

• Focus on entertainment and education instead of figures and statistics. Most of your listeners will not be able to take notes while listening.
• Serve new audience members in your podcasts. If general discussions and edutainment materials raise their interest, they will certainly visit your website afterward.
• Try to avoid interviews or roundtable podcasts if you are willing to engage new audiences rather than entertain your loyal followers. Use repurposed content from your website to increase listeners' engagement and motivate them to read your materials afterward.

Highly effective marketing strategies cannot be copied from other brands directly. Every successful company adjusts the utilized instruments to its own audience characteristics and preferences to a certain degree. Make sure that you experiment with all of these content marketing strategies and measure response patterns to find the ones that work best for your brand. Here are some additional ideas that you can apply afterward to achieve further performance improvements:

• Try posting content during different periods of the day to find the ones convenient for most of your followers.
• Try to post content regularly or select specific days for specific content types to manage the expectations of your audiences.

• Monitor feedback to promptly react to any emerging requests or criticisms and demonstrate your genuine interest in your followers.

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