Top 4 Content Marketing Trends for 2024

Some time ago, we hosted an amazing session featuring four leading content experts: Justin Simon, founder of Distribution First; Jess Cook, Head of Content & Comms at Island; Chelsea Castle, Head of Content and Brand at Close; and Ryan Baum, Content Leader and Consultant. 

Catch the full discussion here:

So what are the 4 things you need to double down on in 2024?

1. Next-level Customer Advocacy 
2. Brand Authenticity 
3. Saying Less Things But Better (And More Often)
4. Playing Offense in Marketing 

Let’s get into what these are about.

Trend #1: Next-level Customer Advocacy 

Idea: Transforming customers into your star promoters 

One of the 2024 trends is investing in customer relationships and amplifying their voices. This isn’t just about gathering testimonials or producing videos but building robust customer advocacy programs by proactively promoting customers. One of the ideas is to feature them in podcasts and publications that align with their industries and roles. It’s a shift towards integrating customers more dynamically within marketing strategies, positioning them at the forefront and making them the stars of the content efforts. 

Execution

Create a program around customer advocacy. Map out customers, industries, and use cases. Look for industry connections and use your network. Jess Cook, the Head of Comms & Content at Island started out with the notion of educating a broader audience about their product and letting the customers naturally advocate for it. They found it more effective to let customers speak about their experiences, which has helped Island connect with broader markets more authentically. How do you measure success? By looking at: branded search, long-tail search and attribution – checked during discovery calls and via the form. 

Trend #2 Cultivating Brand Authenticity 

2024 will be a pivotal year for brand building, especially within the B2B sector. Companies need to establish authentic, distinct identities more than ever. With ‘sea of sameness’, and decreasing trust in SaaS content, brands must differentiate themselves meaningfully. Only 12% of buyers consider software companies as trustworthy information sources, with many expressing that much of the content they encounter feels too similar and lacks credibility. Building brand trust is key to get ahead. 

There are two main factors driving this trend. 

• First, the struggle for differentiation has led brands to experiment creatively, although this often results in copycat strategies so visible on Linkedin 
• Second, the significant trust buyers place in independent reviews over company-produced content suggests a shift towards more authentic engagement strategies.

To overcome these challenges, brands need to focus on creating a strong brand identity that goes beyond just logos and colors. This means making sure that everything the company does is in line with its core values and the promises it makes to its customers. (Read more about Andy Raski’s “Promised Land” strategy here.)

Consistency across all areas, from customer service to sales, is key. It is about understanding why your company exists, whom it serves, and the unique value it promises to deliver.

It’s worth looking at companies like Drift, Gong, and HubSpot that have shown that focusing on these aspects can really make a company stand out. Building a brand requires revisiting your company’s core values and mission—essentially why you do what you do. This often involves internal workshops and discussions, led by marketing leaders. Creating content that’s consistent and “on brand” will amplify the efforts. 

Trend #3: Saying Less Things But Better (And More Often)

It’s interesting that companies find consistent messaging boring while they should probably look for strategic balance: advocating for saying fewer things more effectively while introducing new actions to reinforce these messages.

With Google seemingly rewarding high-quality, high-value content, it’s super important to have a clear and unique POV in both product development and marketing – which becomes even more crucial in the AI-dominated content reality.

Output becomes easier, volume becomes easier – the quality becomes more important

Trend #4: Playing Offense vs. Defense

Justin Simon focused on differentiation. From his experience at Metadata, Justin learned that even minor differentiations can significantly impact a company’s visibility and success. He advised companies to adopt a proactive approach, deliberately choosing to differ from the norm – even if just a little bit. 

Practical insights

Content mapping:  Build a master list of topic ideas and come back to them on a regular basis. Having that tracking in place helps you have conversations with leaders and decision-makers. It will be your go-to resource to check what worked and resonated. Plus it’s super helpful when you hire external contractors. 

No-content-treadmill policy: Focus on building one cornerstone piece of content that you can later turn into various content formats (e.g.  webinars / newsletters / social posts). Focus on the major POVs of your company — share specific ideas, use cases, and “how-tos”. Leverage your team’s network for distribution and then repurpose and recycle. Turn videos into articles and articles into video clips. 

Social proofing:  Instead of creating an article, post your idea on Linkedin and check if it resonates first. Measure the engagement but don’t get fixated on metrics. Sometimes few comments mean more than thousands of likes. Any kind of reaction – positive or negative – will tell you something. You don’t have to go viral to check what’s resonating with your audience. 

Distributing & Repurposing: How can we find more creative ways of repurposing? Remember to update old content, optimize what’s already out there, sprinkle old articles with new ideas. Repurposing is not just reskinning — you should be reusing the idea but create content native to the given platform. It has to be newsworthy to pop up on the feed.

You can never go wrong updating old content

Bonus: Essential Tech Tools for Content Marketers

Our speakers mentioned their favorite tools that make their (content) life easier. Check out the list, and make sure to try them! 

• Otter, Fathom
• Audiopen
• Descript and Capsule for video editing
• ChatGPT (build it with your use voice and tone of your brand) 
• Notion
• Asana
• Lavender + Grammarly
• Letterdrop 
• Airtable 
• Zapier
• Miro or Whimsical
• Copy.ai
• Dovetail 
• Snag it
• We would also add: Castmagic to the mix! 

If you wanna learn more about content marketing, make sure to check out our RevCon session on Content Distribution!