On the one hand, businesses are floating in a sea of opportunities, opening newer revenue zones, and investing in marketing strategies to yield higher ROI.
On the other hand, there is a lot of noise where small businesses are trying to cut through the competition and become better.
The trend is troubled by a pattern seen among customers who are cutting through the clutter by installing ad-blockers or subscribing to ad-free shows.
As such, there is a strong chance that businesses are losing on their brand visibility which will lead to a reduction in their revenue channel.
However, amid all this turmoil, there are many factors affected by your market trends, where content marketing is trumping its way ahead as the go to strategy to remain ahead of the curve and build a strong brand presence in this digital era for all kind of businesses.
Let us review have a look at how your market trends will impact your marketing strategy
1. Branding
Your market trends lead you to a marketing strategy which creates a perception of your company. If the strategy for a specific product or service is ineffective, your customers might get the impression that your company is not viable.
You must decide how much of your marketing strategy should focus on promoting your brand and how much of it should highlight the specific benefits of a particular product depends on the market graphs.
One way to handle this predicament is to divide your marketing into two phases. In the first phase, focus your marketing on the product. Once it gains acceptance, ties your brand to that product.
Now consumers already have a good impression of the product, they will be likely to transfer that favorable impression to your brand.
This strategy minimizes the risk of harming your brand’s image even when your customers disapprove your product.
2. Costs
Each market trend will let you decide a cost for your marketing strategy that must be evaluated in terms of how effectively you spend your money.
You must ascertain where you should spend and where you must not analyzing the past market behavior. You must consistently compare costs against benefits for any marketing strategy so that you use your marketing capital prudently.
3. Product Development
One of the main application of any market analysis is to use it in product development and its marketing strategy which helps you create products/services for reaping in maximum profits depending on the consumer behavior, technological advancements, competition, and other economic factors.
This is because marketing strategy starts with intensive marketplace research, taking into deliberation your target customer, your competition, and ongoing trends.
For example, a company manufacturing emergency medical equipment will have a look at the technological trends, healthcare industry needs and other market details while thinking of any device development.
Applying this information, you deduce the needs of your customers/clients -the benefits they want, their budget and how you can make your products/services stand apart from the competition.
6. Optimal Prices
A crucial part of a marketing strategy is determining the right price for your product or service based on your finding in market research.
If you find out that customers want a top-line product in your category, your pricing strategy might require you to sell at prices that create an upscale perceived value.
If your target customer is keen on value for money and is willing to compromise on certain features on your product in exchange for paying less, your pricing strategy will require you to sell at or under your competitors’ price.
7. Marketing Communications
Your market strategy helps you create a unique brand or image of your business but all these depends on how properly you have analyzed your market.
A market trends and strategy lets you decide the mode of communication with your targeted customers/markets. For instance, your market strategy will help you determine whether a specific magazine, radio station or website correlate to your selling plans.
Market Trends affecting the Content Marketing Strategy
The content ecosystem is expansive. Every 60 seconds, 500 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube, 1440 WordPress blog posts are published, and 38 million searches happen on Google.
In 2016, around 90% of the companies adopted content marketing as the primary strategy in their business plans, and the number is expected to reach full circle in 2017.
Around 88% of B2B respondents are using content marketing, and since 2016, 75% of the surveyed companies had increased their content marketing budget, leading to a 43% increase in hiring for creating exclusive content marketing teams.
Despite the growth in the adoption of content marketing, there is a lot of scope for growth. In a study conducted by Altimeter Group, 70% of marketers do not have an integrated marketing plan, and in contrast, 72% of marketers did have a content marketing strategy, says a LinkedIn report.
Various case studies and research examples show that while companies realize the need for content marketing, there is a lack of awareness and knowledge about conducting content marketing campaigns and integrating it into the overall business strategy.
What platforms are used for content marketing?
According to the 2016 B2B content marketing trends report, social media, case studies, blogs, e-newsletters, in-person events, website articles, videos, illustrations, white papers, infographics, webinars, and online presentations are the preferred medium for content marketing.
Social media content grabs 93% of the content promotion market and online presentations just 65%.
Blogging is a preferred content publication strategy. WordPress and Drupal, each at 21%, are the topmost CMS platforms used, followed by Blogger, Joomla, Vbulletin, and others.
Along with initiating content ideation and marketing plan, it is necessary to measure its effectiveness for calculating ROI. Measuring the ROI is a challenge for 52% of the B2B content marketers and failing to measure can often lead business owners to pull the plug from the campaign/s.
A study from eMarketer shows that 6 out of 10 small businesses fail to track results from their content based social campaigns while 51% of the content marketers in Europe are struggling with the same (source).
However, do not let a poorly managed content strategy dissuade you as the problem can be easily rectified.