What Content Marketing Will Look Like In 2020

Predicting the future of content marketing is all about seeing where ideas, impact, and acceleration combine. So, when those 3 things combine, what will content marketing look like in 5 years?

Omni-Channel Marketing with Adaptive Content

To say that we live in a multi-channel society no longer encompasses the depth and breadth of our online experiences. Omni-channel marketing--the idea that a single customer journey should be optimized across all potential channels, rather than viewed piecemeal as different channel-specific opportunities for engagement--is a much more appropriate phrase for where content marketing is heading in 2020.

Adaptive content, versus the more static, "one size fits all" approach that's embraced today, is what's needed to bridge the gap between multi-channel and omni-channel marketing. And the idea of adaptive content is best illustrated with an example...

Say you've registered for a business conference. The system has all your information, so why, when you arrive at the event, are you greeted by a static website that doesn't give you the information that would be most useful? A site using adaptive content could display a list of the vendors you shouldn't miss in the expo hall, based on your company and job title, in addition to presenting a list of local hot spots, based on any meal preferences you shared when you registered.

It's hard to imagine customization like this in our current, "one browser, one user paradigm," but think bigger! The year 2020 has great things in store for markers willing to take on the challenge of omni-channel message delivery.

Massively Curated Content Experiences

People are already overwhelmed with the volume of content being produced. In 2012 alone, there were already 27 million new pieces of content being shared every day. The content marketing of the future lies with giving meaning to all of that content by curating a content experience specifically for a target customer.

Think of a curated content experience like an exhibit at an art gallery. Museums don't just throw art up on the wall and say, "There you go!" Instead, they put together pieces that share a theme or tell a story--and they give explanatory signs and remarks to help viewers understand the meaning they intend to convey.

By 2020, content marketing will likely involve bringing together multiple types of content in multiple formats to tell a story that's specific to the highly-targeted audience being pursued. By providing a variety of formats and content, companies will be able to give the potential customer not just information, but an experience that's full of meaning in order to draw them to purchase.

The Niching of Niches

The overwhelming amount of information available already makes it hard to stand out in a crowd, and in ten years, things will only get worse. What we'll see, as a result, is the narrowing of niches into very tightly defined avatars that will be specifically targeted with marketing messages.

Already, marketers are finding success in focusing on specific market niches in order to make themselves more relevant to their target market. In ten years, it's likely that we'll have created niches within niches--even more highly targeted markets to which we can be extremely relevant. We'll be drilling down to the true target buyer persona and appealing to that person in a very, very precise way.

Marketers who fail to focus their content marketing in this way simply won't be able to deliver the kind of relevant messaging and VIP service that their competitors will be focused on providing, and will likely fall to the side as consumers choose more and more personalized marketing messages to respond to.

Continuing Development of Consumer Psychology

Understanding how people's minds work, as well as the emotions and logic that make them respond to a given message, is already a major field of study. But in ten years, it will become both a science and an art. The impact of advances made in the field of psychology to practical applications in marketing has always been strong, and it's likely that the two will become even more intertwined as competition for digital consumers increases.

As an example, marketers have been using the centuries-old "carrot and stick" approach for decades. However, by 2020, our understanding of consumer psychology will be far more refined, allowing marketers to appeal more directly to the irrational, emotional side of consumer decision-making processes. The realization that humans are not fully rational when making decisions is already widely accepted--ten years from now, it will be fully integrated into marketing efforts.

An additional development in psychology that stands to have a remarkable effect on marketing is the continuing development of positive psychology. Psychologists continue to learn not only how to make the sick feel normal, but how to make the normal reach their highest potential in terms of success and emotional well-being.

The lessons learned in these studies have the potential to turn marketing upside down, as marketers learn to appeal not just on the alleviation of pain, but on the activation of potential. As products and services tap into the positive side of psychology, the businesses that are forward-thinking enough to take advantage of these advances will see sales and engagement skyrocket.

Read up on predictions from other industry experts like Jimmy Daly, Head of Content at Vero and Nichole Elizabeth DeMere, Community Growth at Inbound.org.

What do you think content marketing will be shaped by in the next decade? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below!