{"id":54630,"date":"2020-07-24T13:44:55","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T11:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visionarymarketing.com\/?p=54630"},"modified":"2023-07-11T09:20:38","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T07:20:38","slug":"future-content-marketing-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visionarymarketing.com\/en\/2020\/07\/24\/future-content-marketing-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"A few thoughts regarding the future of content marketing beyond 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a collection of random thoughts based on recent events related to the future of content marketing beyond 2020. I will soon add to this piece and publish new research on content marketing to populate my presentation, <\/span>which was presented online <\/span><\/span>on Aug 2020<\/span><\/em>. A bunch of surveys on content marketing have been released lately on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, I will give my thoughts on how content marketing has evolved and will sketch a future for our profession.\u00a0<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

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Where will content marketing be in \u00a02020 and beyond? Can we imagine what will be the reaction of a reader of this blog post in 10 years time?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few milestones in the history of content marketing<\/span><\/h2>\n

Visionary Marketing was founded seven years ago, and the original eponymous website was created 25 years ago to the day. Even so, I can in no way be considered a trailblazer. John Deere founded the Furrow<\/i> towards the end of the nineteenth century, and Michelin launched their celebrated guide a little before 1900. Both of these initiatives are still alive and kicking. These two examples tell you something about the meaning of resilience in the world of content.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>However, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since the heyday of content marketing.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Joe Pulizzi\u2019s famous <\/span>Epic Content Marketing<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> opus, which led many, in the business world, to discover content marketing for the first time, was published in 2014. A little later, Mark Schaefer wrote his famous <\/span>content shock<\/span><\/span> piece<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>, and Doug Kessler issued his <\/span>Crap<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> presentation, which warned us about the danger of the proliferation of low-quality content. Lately, in 2019, a\u00a0 new book, we’ll come back to that later, <\/span>F#ck content marketing by Randy Frisch<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> came to the fore. Seen from the outside, one could start panicking, especially since an alarming piece of information was made public by Microsoft a few weeks ago. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Yet, looking at things more closely, there are opportunities for being more positive and looking forward to the future. Here is why.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Microsoft replaces journalists with robots <\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The piece of news was sent to me via WhatsApp through my community. “Microsoft sacks its journalists to replace them with robots,” we learnt <\/span>in a sensationalist news item in The Guardian<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> dated May 30, 2020. About 27 people employed by PA Media – formerly the Press Association – were told on Thursday that they would lose their jobs, once Microsoft stops using humans to select, publish and manage news articles on its pages.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Content-authoring bots are hardly innovative<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

The decision is somewhat radical. But the use of content “bots” is not new. I even had in my class, two years ago now, a young man who was editing such software for real estate agents. <\/span><\/p>\n

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AI usage numbers by businesses for content production and enhancement in 2020 are still low \u2014\u00a0source: Si\u00e8cle Digital (click to enlarge infographic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And this makes sense for repetitive content that uses databases. It is true of real estate, as I mentioned, but also to produce annual reports based on balance sheet data and financial results, for example. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is also so-called SEO content, devised for search engine indexing purposes, the sustainability of which is grossly overestimated. Moreover, this subject was addressed <\/span>by Forbes as soon as 2014<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>. And the Content Marketing Institute also dealt with this topic <\/span>three years ago<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Truth be told, robots are already a staple for us who work every day with text or, above all, multimedia. Does this mean that robots are the real authors of our pieces? Certainly not. Does it mean on the contrary that some articles will be written by robots and others will not? Obviously yes. <\/span><\/p>\n

What kind of content are we talking about here?<\/span><\/h3>\n

I was asked a few years ago to give my opinion on the quality of automatic translators. Until six or seven years ago, these tools were very frustrating and completely unable to translate a text correctly (even for main languages like French, English or Spanish).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>It is no longer the case today (for these main languages), and translation tools have reached a state of banality unthinkable so recently. I\u2019m using one at this very moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, and paradoxically, this doesn\u2019t mean that there is no longer a need for decent translators, on the contrary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>As early as 1985, as I was the translator-interpreter of the Allied forces relations department of the French Army Staff, I was inquiring about becoming a professional translator. The professionals I spoke with were adamant: “There is no margin in translations!\u201d, they told me. Yet, I find myself today, in 2020, doing translations and adaptations of texts on behalf of my customers. There is so much need for the human touch in bot-translated documents (or worse, produced by a lousy translator). Besides, translations require context. You can\u2019t mention Tesco, Asda or Safeway to a French audience because they would have no clue about what you would be talking.<\/span><\/p>\n

Certain expressions do not translate very well, and cultural references are also often lost in translation. Above all, perceptions differ. The French tend to find English marketing texts rather superficial and wordy (and vice versa), and things like American-type marketing personae make them hold their noses when they read them. Conversely, a lot of the cultural differences in France and Germany, to name just those two countries, would never translate in English, they would purely and simply sound ludicrous. To this end, I recommend the colourful <\/span>We, Europeans<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> by Richard Hill. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Two kinds of content in the future<\/span><\/h3>\n

Ultimately, there will be two kinds of content in the future. On the one hand, automated content, mainly in the world of consumer marketing, standardised and relatively shallow, and on the other side, high value-added content, increasingly long (we’ll see why afterwards) with a personal and emotional touch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In a way, it’s a paradox, the more robots there are, the more we need humans to be able to translate and enlighten the thoughts of others. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>That said, content marketing is in the process of changing radically, especially in the field of consumer marketing. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In this post, I have analysed two recent surveys. One was carried out by French leading digital news Website Si\u00e8cle Digital and the other by American SEM software vendor SEMRUSH. Both studies were published in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

Si\u00e8cle Digital puts content marketing under the microscope <\/span><\/h3>\n
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Si\u00e8cle Digital<\/em> is a leading online journal on digital marketing in France<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Si\u00e8cle digital is a major French online news website dealing with digital. They surveyed 210 of their readers and community from December 2019 to January 2020. Among the panel of interviewees, a broad majority is dedicated to B2B (as well as B2B2C), i.e. nearly 82%. [report in French at this address<\/a>]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Despite the small sample size, some interesting conclusions can nevertheless be drawn from this study.<\/span><\/p>\n

Content marketing has indeed become a priority for businesses<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/span>On the one hand, content marketing, still in its infancy seven years ago, has become a priority for companies. Our vision, 25 years on, was the right one. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Future of content marketing: the good news is that in 2020, companies are already focusing on content marketing; with a predominance of internal work, but with a significant number of them resort to experts\/influencers \u00a0and agencies – Si\u00e8cle digital study – 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Interestingly also, and in line with what I advised in our book \u201cMastering Digital Marketing Like A Boss<\/a>“, the ideal combination for content provision seems to be a mix of internal and external resources. Remember that this sample is very B2B oriented.<\/span><\/p>\n

In business-to-business marketing, expertise is mainly the result of your coworkers\u2019 knowledge and actions. It is therefore useful and necessary that at least some of them be involved, at least to an extent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Worthy of note, businesses also favour expert influencers and agencies. While 93% of them produce their content in-house, 53% also resort to external support. <\/span><\/p>\n

Producing content internally and externally<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This mix of internal and external know-how is what makes the most sense to me. For a very long time now, we have been proposing solutions other than total outsourcing for our content assignments. What we are offering is closer to interim management in a way, a format which enables knowledge transfer for the benefit of the customer. <\/span><\/p>\n

I find it much more satisfying both for our customers and ourselves. In essence, we are building a long-term relationship, we aren\u2019t delivering a one-off piece of content and then say goodbye to each other. Content marketing is a long term affair. This characteristic is a significant thing one must understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am surprised, however, that so few businesses understand the financial and efficiency benefits of this method.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>You will be working well with experts\/influencers when they will have opportunities to pass on their expertise to the company in a sustainable way (sustainability being an essential part of content marketing).<\/span><\/p>\n

The rest of the study focuses heavily on the different types of owned and paid media content. I’m still quite surprised by the absence, even today, of any mention of word-of-mouth marketing in social media studies. <\/span><\/p>\n

As seen in this survey, Social media is still seen and praised by companies as an advertising channel. Yet, another study sheds more light on social advertising. I am talking about the SEMRUSH survey published in early 2020 by the publisher of the well-known SEM platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

SEMRUSH study offers a comprehensive and disruptive look at content marketing<\/span><\/h3>\n
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The SEMRUSH Study<\/a> on the State and future of Content Marketing (2019 report)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What is noteworthy about this report is that it is not based on an opinion poll, but on an analysis of 450,000 tweets, hundreds of thousands of search queries and over 700,000 blog posts. They also interviewed 1,200 marketers from all around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

From this report, I retain several things that seem essential to me (I will deliberately leave aside the conclusions that seem less relevant):<\/p>\n