Last year, you could hardly escape data in business headlines. Generative AI's rapid development revolutionized the speed with which information can be processed, opening the door for rapid changes across most industries.
Inflation also took an upward trajectory, adding to the uncertain climate businesses now have to operate in.
For marketers, the pressure is on, but the potential to make data sets reach further is growing by the day.
In light of the emphasis on marketing teams' results, here are three predictions for how the coming year's standout content marketing performers will use data to their advantage.
1. Hyperpersonalized content will trump alternatives
Personalization has been a watchword in content marketing in recent years, but it's not waning in relevance.
Because generative AI is supercharging the speed at which content can be produced, hyperpersonalized experiences will differentiate the content people engage with from forgotten pieces that produce few lessons for those analyzing their performance.
By hyperpersonalization, I mean more than just changing names. Hyperpersonalization changes the user journey more intricately—for example, with rules to add or hide certain pages and videos based on reader preferences.
Businesses already know that personalization delivers better content marketing results: 98% of companies from a recent study of ours stated that personalization drives customer loyalty. That's a crucial advantage when customers are on a budget and need to make more careful spending decisions.
Achieving the highest level of personalization involves going back to psychological basics. Attention spans are finite and increasingly limited because of the proliferation of content, so metrics such as view counts are superficial on their own. More audience behavioral data can be collected with online document formats through features, such as surveys, where opinions can be gathered directly and content adjusted accordingly.
2. Email will continue fading in B2B marketing strategies
Teams looking to lean into hyperpersonalization to produce more engaging content will need a deep and broad data set to work with, and it's increasingly clear that email is not suited to delivering that at scale. Privacy changes have caused open rates to dip, further obscuring user intent.
Our research found that 46% of consumers rate personalized experiences as merely "average," and marketers are unlikely to shift this attitude if there are blockers in the mix; marketers will need to go above and beyond to deliver high-quality personalization consistently to their targets.
To create content that makes an impact among the competition, marketers can look to formats that allow them to collect first- and zero-party data, such as online documents, which give visibility that email campaigns miss. They are a route to the optimized content marketers will be pursuing in 2024.
Brands need to use data on how readers are interacting with content, and what is converting, if they are to assess whether content is encouraging leads through the funnel quickly and reliably. New digital formats are capable of aggregating such data automatically, providing more digestible insights on a wider range of engagement measures, from bounce rates to click throughs.
Broadening and deepening the data set being drawn from, when assessing marketing strategies, brings the extra validation and confidence teams need.
3. Marketing teams will rethink data-led decision-making
Any changes that teams make to their marketing strategies over the next year will need to show ROI, especially because tighter budgets are focusing decision-making processes more on pipeline. The best way for marketers to prove their worth in such an environment is with a strong and relevant roster of data that goes beyond their own KPIs.
Economic uncertainty means the stakes are high for each buying decision a business makes; as a result, sign off is going further up the chain of seniority. For marketers, that means the stories they tell to senior board members need to be watertight. The deeper data sets constructed to personalize content can equip teams to influence decisions further down the funnel into the sales pipeline. Having visibility of who has shared what, and who is engaging and why, is incredibly useful when trying to prove your point with data.
Again, collecting that data reliably hinges on content formats. Older distribution formats such as PDF fail to tell users how engaged leads are, making it harder to align Marketing and Sales, and it's not easy to draw a connection between an open rate and lead generation. On the other hand, visually stimulating, hyperpersonalized content that draws attention and generates feedback direct from the audience helps ensure that marketing strategies are as aligned as possible with prospective buyers and current customers.
Final thought: data will reign supreme
Teams that come out on top in 2024 will have to look back on the previous year and reconsider their approach to data.
Driving leads, pipeline, and revenue will be at the front of every marketer's mind, and the most successful content marketers will use their formats to their advantage by appealing to the basic principles of what audiences want to see and, crucially, understanding what they'll do with it.
Connecting more strongly with audiences through a methodical approach to data will separate those who impress the wider company from those who struggle to prove ROI.
More Resources on Data-Driven Marketing
The Biggest Obstacles to Succeeding With Data-Driven B2B Marketing [Research]
The Marketing Growth Triad: Data, Tech, and Creativity
