The Future of Content Marketing: Trends to Watch in 2024

American poet Emily Dickinson penned some beautiful content, but she had an awful content strategy for reaching audiences. She kept her work hidden and unpublished.

Many of today’s content marketers have the opposite problem: They’re hungry for an audience but short on the right content and strategies to keep audiences engaged. If that sounds like a problem you’re facing–or one you want to avoid–it may be time to freshen up your content marketing approach with some of the latest trends.

Staying on top of trends keeps you relevant to today’s audiences. While not every trend may be the right fit for you or your audiences, being informed gives you a sense of direction and some new ideas to test.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the top content marketing trends to know about for 2024.

The Return to Quality Long-Form Content

If your content strategy is short on long-form content, consider joining this trend.

In today’s age of short attention spans and bite-sized information, it may come as a surprise that long-form content is making a comeback. This is a good reminder that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t meet the needs of all audiences. Including a variety of both short- and long-form content is a better approach.

Audiences who are on the hunt for in-depth, reliable information are more willing to invest their time in a longer blog or article…but only if it offers quality content that solves their problem and gets the answers they need. Long-form content can go into more depth, showcasing a company’s knowledge and expertise in a particular area. We see this content strategy in healthcare and other industries that need to build trust by using reliable sources and offering high-value content.

Long-form content enhances a company’s reputation. Audiences will see you as a reputable and dependable brand they can continue to rely on.

Humanizing Brands Through Authentic Storytelling

One of the best ways to add quality and engagement to your content marketing strategy is to tell a good story. When brands tell stories, they build emotional connections that reach audiences on a deeper level and shift the emphasis from selling a product to delivering an experience. Stories humanize brands and give them personalities, and that appeals to audiences. These aren’t stories intended to manipulate or persuade but to authentically connect with audiences and convey value.

Take Nike, whose “Just do it” slogan captures the story of overcoming adversity to achieve performance goals. Buying a pair of Nike shoes isn’t just buying a pair of shoes–it’s buying into a story we want for ourselves. Nike’s story gives their brand a personality of strength, determination, and perseverance that people respond to. It’s why some of the best content marketing companies focus on brand storytelling to support business goals.

For audiences who feel overwhelmed by information and leery of brands that only seem focused on making a profit, a brand with a content marketing strategy that relies on authentic human storytelling will quickly rise above the noise to captivate audiences and keep them coming back.

Purpose-Driven Content that Drives Sustainability

Customers want to connect with brands that stand for something meaningful – something that speaks to them on a personal level.

Think of Dove soap. Dove stands out among many other soap brands by promoting a message of natural beauty and self-confidence for women, driving customers to feel emotionally connected to the product. Their purpose is not to sell soap; it’s to help women feel like the best versions of themselves.

Purpose-driven content inspires customer loyalty and brand longevity. Embracing a message with broad emotional appeal helps a brand remain relevant long into the future. Again, take Dove, a company that started in 1957 and has continued to grow and evolve. Whether you’re an established company or an entrepreneur looking to start your own marketing business, this is a trend to follow if you’re interested in sustainability.

Content Atomization

While the phrase “content atomization” is a mouthful, its meaning is simple: it involves breaking down a piece of content into smaller pieces that you can reuse in other ways.

For example, you can take a long blog or whitepaper and create shorter, more digestible pieces of information, including social media posts, videos, or multiple shorter blog pieces. Shorter content allows you to offer depth on topics from the longer piece.

This trend is on the uptick because it allows marketers to quickly generate content to maintain audience engagement and brand awareness. Creating more content enhances visibility and brand awareness while advancing your company’s knowledge in a particular domain.

When you post more on a single topic, you build credibility as an authority on that topic, appealing to audiences looking for a brand they can trust. It’s certainly a boon from the marketer’s perspective since atomization is an efficient method for creating content without always starting with a new idea.

Increased Use of Video Content

Unfortunately for English teachers everywhere, most people would rather watch a movie than read a book. The same is true for content.

Modern audiences love to consume video content. Marketers who rely only on written content are missing a huge opportunity to engage audiences who might breeze past an article but are willing to click on a video. Create videos that–like a quality long-form blog–tell engaging stories and build emotional connections. The importance of telling a good brand story isn’t going away, and it should resonate across all your content.

Remember that even though people might prefer a video, they’re also ready to click away to something else within seconds. Give them something valuable, visually appealing, and worth their time. Including a collection of high-quality videos on your site will endear you to Google as well, and you’ll rank higher in search.

Content Personalization

Have you noticed that companies like Netflix and Amazon are getting better at making recommendations personalized to your interests? That’s content personalization at work.

Generic, one-size-fits-all content no longer cuts it for audiences in 2024. They expect information to be tailored to their needs, making it crucial for content marketers to pay attention to this trend. When content is personalized, customers feel like a brand understands their unique preferences, and it leads to a higher quality customer experience that builds loyalty.

Personalizing information for audiences isn’t new, but this trend is growing because we now have the technology to generate more accurate and refined data on audiences, taking out the guesswork when it comes to building audience profiles. It’s easier to refine your audiences into segments and then tailor your approach to defined needs and demographics, such as age, location, gender, and purchase history.

The more personalized you get, the more relevant you’ll be, leading to more engagement, loyalty, and customer conversions.

Make Trends Work for You

If you’re not following these trends, it’s time to reevaluate your content strategy and test out something new. Think about which approach works best for you and your brand and which will bring your audiences the most value. Is your website primed with long-form content but short on videos? You might consider boosting that side of your marketing strategy. Is your strategy emphasizing short-form content without the depth and educational value your audiences might appreciate from longer content? Change up your approach and see what happens.

You’ll likely find that rejuvenating your approach with one or more of these trends adds a lively boost to your content marketing strategy, and both Google and your audiences will appreciate it.