Marketers across the country wait in anticipation all year for Content Marketing World. This multi-day event is jam-packed with keynotes, breakout sessions, and workshops.

This year nine GPOers gathered in Cleveland to learn from some of the best and brightest in the business. From AI-assisted marketing to zero-click approaches, here are the four lessons from Content Marketing World 2022 that we’re excited to share with you.

Human Written Content is Here to Stay

Content marketers have all heard the hype: artificial intelligence is coming to take our jobs. Well — not so fast! Even though AI has come a long way in the past few years, content marketing will require a human touch for the foreseeable future. Though AI can assist marketers with daily tasks, it can’t replace them.

At Content Marketing World, we learned that using AI to create content isn’t as simple and streamlined as it appears — or often marketed. Marketers must teach and train their AI programs first to get the best results. Before you begin the content creation process, you’ll need to provide samples of human-written content that suits your brand voice, tone, and message. You’ll still need to provide topics, key points, and vital facts or information for every piece. Finally, you’ll need to heavily edit and revise your AI-written content to ensure accuracy (and to make it sound like a robot didn’t write it). Using AI is still a lot of work — and potentially even more time-consuming than just creating content yourself.

Go After RAQs, not FAQs

Starting to create your quarterly content calendars? Want to create content that ranks? According to Andrew Davis, your goal shouldn’t be to create more content. Your goal should be to answer more original questions. Davis suggests refraining from answering frequently asked questions and instead focusing on rarely asked questions, or RAQs. (In the SEO world, you may also call these long-tail keyphrases.)

Why? First, frequently asked questions cater to too large of audiences (and they’ve already been answered). Second, FAQs don’t provide room for personalization or segmentation.

Answering rarely-asked questions is the best way to cater to multiple smaller, segmented audiences and deliver outsized results. RAQs leverage the power of top-down promotion, a marketing strategy in which the decision to try a service, buy a product, or support a cause is encouraged at the highest level. It’s essentially shifting your content efforts to spend more time on the ultimate decision-maker.

To help explain top-down promotion, Davis uses the example of a new Content Manager presenting to their CMO about the need for content marketing. The Content Manager knows the CMO will want to know when to expect results, so they Google “how long does it take for content marketing to work,” and see that it takes 6 to 8 months.

The CMO wants to know “why content marketing takes so long” (a query with 0 helpful results) and what needs to happen to speed up the process. A smart Content Manager, focused on getting buy-in from the top-down decision-maker, will get ahead of the question, “why content marketing takes so long.”

To leverage the power of rarely-asked questions, content planners need to know and understand the mindset of the decision-makers for their products/services. Ask yourself: is the ultimate decision-maker in this instance an in-the-weeds doer who needs to know “how to?” Or, is your decision-maker a single mom who needs to know “why” and “when?”

The key takeaway here: get outsized results by answering rarely asked questions from the right decision makers who could purchase your products/services.

The Future of SEO is Low-Click

The shift toward low-click isn’t necessarily recent news — but it should inform how you adjust your content and SEO strategy. During The Future of SEO: Adapting to a New Low-Click Through Rate Reality, we learned how to address some of today’s new SEO challenges.

Rankings may not be changing much, but viewport positioning is. Currently, 92% of searches feature the “People Also Ask” featured snippet, and approximately 2/3 of search queries result in zero clicks. There are other SERP challenges to account for, too. Directories, PR pieces, and marketplaces tend to dominate SERPs — resulting in traffic losses.

Panelists suggested several approaches to keep in mind when creating SEO-focused content.

• Don’t target a keyphrase without the appropriate content type
• Optimize directories using listings management
• “Own” a keyphrase with multiple content types
• Target mixed-intent searches with timely AND evergreen content
• Use site search analytics

Brand Voice is The New Logo

Author and speaker Ann Handly addressed the importance of voice in her keynote speech, “Brand Voice is the New Logo”. Handley emphasized the importance of brand voice as an integral component of crafting brand recognition and posed the question: If your logo fell off, would you recognize you?

Handley asserts that every company and every marketer needs a memorable, relatable voice to build brand affinity, awareness, and loyalty.

According to Handley, a strong brand voice has the power to:

• Demonstrate consumer understanding
• Create competitor separation
• Build consumer trust
• Forge connection

However, a memorable, relatable brand voice isn’t something that you can cultivate overnight.

Creating a brand voice takes time — and effort. Handley took us on a (hilarious) and memorable journey to brand voice.

The Forest of Enchantment

Spend time immersing yourself in content that beckons you, those you’d love to emulate.

The Swamp of Rage

The frustrating piece: determining how other brands create their voice — and examining where your brand is falling short.

The Hall of Mimic

It’s time to put brand voice into practice. During this stage, mimic but don’t copy what brands you admire (or your competitors) are doing.

The Reflecting Pool

Refine your strategy and learn what works for your brand.

The Secret Chamber of Clams

Handley pulls from the comedic world, bringing in the concept of clams. Clams are typically comedic gems. For your brand, clams may take shape as taglines or impactful language that you can reiterate time and time again. Clams can help you create an “insider language” with your consumers.

Need help with your digital strategy? Turn to GPO. From unique product descriptions to local search pages, our proven set of Content Solutions can help simplify the content strategy and creation process.

As content marketers, we’re often tasked with determining how and when to create content calendars. But, the right content calendar strategy for your business depends upon many factors.  

Need help deciding when to get started with creating your content calendars? Questioning how often you should be building your content calendars? Use this guide to find clarity. 

What Should a Content Calendar Accomplish?

Content calendars can help you keep a consistent writing and posting schedule. But beyond that, there are other benefits to creating content calendars. First, going through the process of creating a content calendar is a great way to start formulating your overarching content strategy. 

Content calendars are considered best practice for bringing your content marketing strategy to life because they allow you to:

Define Content Strategy & Goals

Your content calendar should allow you to plainly see what every post aims to accomplish. Each topic in your content calendar should have a clearly-defined purpose, call to action, and goal — whether that be to welcome a new employee or highlight how your company provides quality furniture that fits the latest design trend. 

See the Big Picture 

Seeing your topics, goals, and strategy laid out can help you see the big picture of your content strategy. Condensing your ideas and topics into one organized space will help you better understand which topics you’re covering well and make it easier to identify any content gaps in the future. 

Stay Organized 

A well-defined content calendar will help keep you organized and efficient. Having your topics preplanned with due dates and publish dates will help ensure that you’re not only posting relevant content on the regular but also quality content.

Track Your Ideas

Don’t rely upon sticky notes for capturing your best blog topics! In addition to providing an outline of your upcoming content topics, your content calendar should also have a space for jotting down future content ideas. 

Capturing potential topics as they come naturally can save you time down the line — and ensure your brilliant shower thoughts don’t wash down the drain. 

Now that you understand how to create a well-defined content marketing strategy framework, read on to figure out when (and how frequently) you should begin developing your content calendars. 

When Should You Create Content Calendars?

Before you get started creating your content calendars, there’s a bit of work to be done. From gathering business goals and trends to completing research, here’s what you’ll need in your back pocket before you start.

Once Business Goals and Merchandising Trends Are Established 

Consult with your team at large to see where business goals and merchandising trends lie in the months ahead. If your company is looking to sell more tires, for example, you’ll want to incorporate tire-related topics.  

Business goals and merchandising trends are typically solidified at the top of the business quarter — making this an ideal time to gather intel. 

After Completing Research

With business goals and merchandising trends in hand, it’s time to start researching. Dive deep into your previous content performance by analyzing your best (and worst) performing posts. Get to know your market by completing keyphrase research — tools such as SEM Rush and MOZ can help you get started. 

Completing keyphrase research can help you grasp not only what your consumers are searching for but also how they’re searching for it. And, don’t forget to do some competitive research to see what topics significant players in your industry have recently addressed! 

Ahead of a New Product or Service Launch

Is your company branching out and offering a new product or service? Now’s the time to get ahead of the curve and start creating content! Creating content around your new product or service can help establish your business in SERPs and build consumer trust. 

How Often Should You Create Blog Content Calendars?

The short answer: it depends. You’ll want to have enough content planned out to feel confident that you have a good game plan for the quarter ahead, but you also need to leave room for flexibility. For that reason, you’ll need to devise a strategy that allows you plenty of breathing room to create content while remaining agile. 

The right strategy for your business will depend upon a handful of factors, including:

Your Company’s or Industry’s Age

Have you just launched a new company or segment? Are you in an up-and-coming industry? If that’s the case, you’ll want to consider a shorter time frame for your content calendars. Until you have a solid grasp of who your consumers are and how your products fit their needs, you may need to test and modify your existing content to ensure it resonates. 

Shorter time frames on content calendars — such as monthly content calendars — will allow for greater agility and adjustment. 

Businesses in well-established companies or industries will have greater foresight into what the year ahead will bring. Therefore, you’re better positioned to create content calendars well in advance. In this case, quarterly or semi-annual calendars can help you get organized and prepared. 

No matter your approach, don’t become “married” to your content calendars. Be willing to adapt and adjust as things change. 

Trend, News Cycle, and Supply Chain Influence

As a content marketer, you must stay on top of how trends, world events, and supply chain disruptions can impact your business. While your products or services are likely set in stone for a quarter — or year — ahead, these influences may affect how you want to position your products or services. 

World events, trends, and supply chains can influence how your consumers search and purchase. If any of the above directly impacts your industry, you may want to consider creating content calendars more frequently — perhaps monthly or quarterly. This way, you can ensure your content calendars are fresh and provide timely, relevant information as things change.

Your Ideal Posting Schedule

Finally, you’ll need to consider how often you want to post. For a social media content calendar, you may want to post multiple times a week — even daily. Posting at least weekly is considered the sweet spot for blogs or articles. 

If you plan on churning out multiple posts per week, you’ll likely need or want to be a little more flexible in your posting. In this case, a weekly or monthly calendar is your best bet. For once-weekly posting, refer to the above topics to determine how often you should create your content calendars. 

Need Help? Turn to GPO’s Tailor Content

Need help developing your content strategy? Turn to GPO’s Tailor Content. Let our team of experienced, qualified content writers handle your content strategy from inception to posting. We’ll work with you to learn and understand your business goals, marketing initiatives, brand, and voice. The result? Research-backed, search-optimized content that seamlessly fits your brand. 

According to Statista and World Wide Web Project, there are 1.88 billion websites in existence. Needless to say, no matter how big your brand is, it’s easy to feel like a tiny fish in a giant ocean when it comes to the vastness of the internet. While the amount of content in existence can be overwhelming, content marketers know that all content is not created equal. Quality, relevant content outranks subpar copy all day long.

But with so many competing priorities and shiny distractions, how can content marketing teams create content that matters? We’ve compiled a list of up-and-coming trends to keep in mind as you develop your content strategy for 2022.

1. Valuable Short and Sweet Content

Aiming for time spent on page and further on-site navigation used to be a goal of many content marketers. Instead, content marketing best practices dictate that brands should aim to move users through their site experience faster.

Consumers are strapped for time. Even the most comparative buyers are looking to find an answer — and fast! On average, users are spending less than 15 seconds on-site, and will leave mobile web pages if they don’t load within 3 seconds — a significant decrease from years past. Help your consumers find what they’re looking for, act on it, and move on by keeping your content short, sweet, and to the point. Aim to create informative, brief content that gets the attention of your target audience. Consolidate any relevant data so that users don’t have to hunt or navigate offsite to complete any additional research.

2. Specific, Quality, Scaled Content

People are turning to Google more than ever for specific and sentence/question queries. More than 3.5 billion searches occur on Google every single day and 20% of queries are brand new. Brands need content about their products and services at the ready to answer specific queries such as “F150 tire size” or “chicken wing delivery near me.” Most importantly, content marketers need a methodical approach to creating a large volume of content quickly without having to rely on — and manage — low-wage freelance writers.

Not quite sure where to publish scaled content? Here are a few places to start:

• Product descriptions on your e-commerce site
• Longer, search-optimized content on your local pages
• Educational content on your customer journey pages
• Personalized paid landing pages

3. Emphasis on Owned Channels

Expect to see a decrease in paid social media efforts in 2022 and an uptick in time spent building owned channels.

Wondering why paid efforts are on the decline?

• Saturation. Paid digital, including paid social, is a saturated space. Users are accustomed to seeing both paid social posts and banner ads. And, campaigns are increasingly expensive and competitive. Which leads to…
• Decreased ROI. Paid digital has historically been emphasized as a must across a variety of industries. Therefore, nearly everyone’s in on the game. Since you must pay to play, you could find yourself in an endless bidding war with your competitors vying for placement.
• Desire for portfolio building. Paid digital and social efforts move quickly. They’re great for disruption campaigns. However, they are not long-lasting — both organic and paid social posts quickly vanish from consumers’ timelines out of sight (and out of mind). Owned channels allow brands to create a long-lasting archive of relevant content and information.

As 2022 approaches, expect to find marketers emphasizing and investing in their owned channels — websites, blogs, organic social, and email campaigns. Beefing out or revamping an owned channel can act as a budget-saving measure and a wise long-term strategy. Plus, enhancing existing owned channels can help complement, boost, and support existing paid campaigns.

4. Value-Driven Branding and Content

From an uptick in ethical consumption to looking for ways to give back, it’s clear that consumers are drawn to brands with values that align with their own. Therefore, expect to see more value-driven marketing campaigns in 2022 related to inclusivity, sustainability, community building, and fair labor practices.

Looking to successfully connect with consumers over a cause? Here’s what to keep in mind.

• Be genuine. For the sake of consumer trust, don’t claim to support causes if you’re not willing to follow through. In today’s world, digital-savvy consumers are quick to do their research — and call you out if you’re not living up to your promises. Therefore, be prepared to make a genuine and transparent effort to give back, whether it’s through volunteering, donating, or offering services ad hoc.
• Be human. Consumers are looking to make a connection. So, don’t hide behind the curtain of a perfectly polished, corporate presence. Humanize your brand by showcasing leadership and employees as “real” people who celebrate, work, and lead dynamic lives both in and out of the office.

5. Personalized Content

Consumers are increasingly experience-focused and increasingly online. But, rising consumer expectations are calling for new and exciting ways to create an in-person feel without ever stepping foot in a brick and mortar location. However, creating a memorable online experience can be difficult. That’s where personalization comes in.

Here’s how to create a personalized feel in the digital realm:

• Localized web copy. Publish city-specific content to connect with consumers and provide them with the most relevant-to-them content possible.
• Chat opportunities. Chat features — whether AI or employee-driven — allow your consumer to reach out for assistance, ask questions, and even enjoy introvert-friendly shopping assistance from the comfort and convenience of their homes.
• Video capabilities. Video chat can be used to connect associates with consumers, and when done well, can create an extremely personalized and tailored experience. Video has its applications across all industries but has particular strength within the clothing retail sphere. Using video, you can create a private, by-appointment experience to answer questions about sizing and provide shopping assistance.

Keep in mind that personalization isn’t just simply inserting your consumer’s name into email marketing campaigns. Instead, it’s about creating an experience where your consumer feels informed, guided, and seen.

6. AI Influence

Artificial intelligence is changing how marketers conduct research, devise strategies, and even create content.

Digital marketers can expect to continue leveraging AI into 2022, including:

• Chatbots. Chatbots can help you create a personalized feel. Simple chatbots are capable of answering questions outside of normal business hours, but advanced chatbots can even walk a consumer through purchasing, returns, and troubleshooting.
• Research. AI tools can quickly compile, organize, and aggregate relevant data — helping you cut back on research time.
• Lead generation. In B2B applications, AI-powered tools can be used to prospect and sift through leads to find those most qualified. Multiple AI platforms enable marketers to track prospects across multiple touchpoints, and from there use predictive analysis to determine how likely a lead is to follow through.
• Content optimization and creation. Artificial intelligence is already being leveraged to optimize and quickly create web content. But, never fear fellow writers: you won’t be replaced by AI just yet. While AI can work quickly, it still lacks the nuance of human touch.

7. Content Optimized for Voice Search Capability

“Hey Google, how many people use voice search?” An estimated one-third of the U.S. population uses voice capabilities on their phones or smart speakers, and a further 71% prefer to conduct searches by voice rather than putting their fingers to the keyboard.

Voice search is used by consumers to carry out basic tasks (like checking the weather), conduct research, and even order products. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to create content that’s easily digestible and primed for voice search features.

To create content optimized for voice search, focus on:

• Natural phrasing. When compared to traditional search engine queries, voice searchers tend to use more natural, conversational language. Therefore, create search optimized content that includes natural long-tail keywords and key phrases devoid of any grammatical parses.
• Meeting searchers at their purchase stage. Anticipate micromoments and the questions that consumers ask about your product at different levels of the purchasing process. Then, create content that directly and concisely answers their burning questions.
• Incorporating geo modifiers. Both smartphones and smart speakers use location-based services to aggregate results that are most relevant to their searchers. Plus, many voice-searchers are looking for a specific product or service “near me”. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to create localized content. (Psst — we can help with that.)

8. Content Engineered for the Virtual Reality Landscape

Enter: the Metaverse. While currently in its nascent stage, virtual reality will soon shake up how consumers browse the internet, shop, and otherwise engage with content. Stay forward-thinking and keep on top of upcoming developments within the VR industry.

As we approach 2022, one thing is clear: brands need quality content — and LOTS of it. GPO can help you develop your content at scale strategy for 2022. Get in touch to see how to leverage our Content Solutions for your brand.