One of the best things about content marketing in general is its malleability – you’ve got a message that you need to get to an audience and you’ve got a practically limitless number of ways in which you can do it.

However, this also happens to be one of its major challenges – the fact that there is truly no “one size fits all” approach to broadcasting that message. Instead, there is simply the right fit for the audience you’re trying to reach. An audience that is also changing all the time, by the way, adding another layer of “chaotic flexibility” to the proceedings.

But necessity is the mother of invention and that malleability itself often gives way to new innovations in the content marketing space that surprise even hardened professionals in the best possible way. Just when you think you’ve squeezed every last benefit out of a tried-but-true technique like the Infographic, some new trend comes along and changes the way you think for all time and for the better.

As we kick off the new year, we thought it was time to take a look at some of the content marketing trends that are beginning to develop today that are poised to pay off big in 2018 and beyond. There are a few key trends in particular that we think you’ll find are more than worth exploring.

It’s All About Original Content

“Original content” may have started out as something of a buzzword, but it has long since evolved into anything but. Take a look at large corporations like Netflix, Amazon and Google and their respective streaming services.

All of these services started out essentially as a “hub” to collect and watch all of your favorite shows and movies in perpetuity. But for the last several years, all of these companies have made big bets on original content above all else. Even Apple is looking to get in on the original content game, reportedly investing up to $1 billion on its own shows in the very near future.

Though the type of business that you’re trying to run is likely very different from something like Apple or Netflix, it’s very easy to see how this lesson can be applied to content marketing, too.

Simply put, your content marketing efforts need original content to survive. Gone are the days where you can scour the Internet for something like an Infographic that is relevant to your target audience, whip up a blog post for your site and repackage it for new sets of eyes.

These days, you need to be building as much of your collateral as you possibly can from the ground up. Don’t say “hey, we found a presentation that we think you might enjoy. Take a look at this.” Instead, focus on “We just made a presentation that we know you’ll enjoy” and go from there.

Use a tool like Visme (which I founded) to sit down and come up with original content that is built for your audience and not anybody else’s. The reason why this is perhaps the single most important content marketing trend to watch out for in 2018 has to do with one word above all others: relevancy.

When you start with the needs of your audience and work your way backwards to the content, you wind up with collateral that is almost hyper-relevant — and equally effective. Tools like Visme can be used to create Infographics, presentations, graphs and even beautiful videos – all of which will strike a chord with your audience in a way you wouldn’t be able to achieve if “re-purposing” was still the name of the game.

The Profit of Content Marketing

All of this leads directly into another one of the most important content marketing trends to watch for in 2018 — the repositioning of marketing less as an expense that feeds the rest of your organization and more as a profit center in and of itself.

Many companies have started to laser-focus their content marketing efforts, separating their audience into multiple groups within the larger enterprise and attempting to monetize those groups in a multitude of different ways.

The benefit of this isn’t just that you have a better opportunity to get “the right message in front of the right people at the right time.” According to most industry experts, this approach can and likely will be an opportunity to generate enough revenue to where your marketing efforts can actually outpace their own expenses.

From that perspective, marketing no longer becomes about creating outcomes for other areas of your business. It can generate its own outcomes, becoming a self-sustaining entity for the first time.

This is another one of the reasons why original content is so important — without it, you organization just won’t be in this type of position anytime soon.

In the End

It’s important to understand that content marketing techniques like Infographics, presentations and more are tools – the same as anything else. The tools themselves may not change very much from year to year, but how those tools are used and what they’re capable of accomplishing can vary wildly depending on the shape of things to come.

This is a large part of the reason why it’s so important to make an effort to stay up-to-date on all of the latest trends coming into and out of the content marketing space – not just in 2018, but in 2019, 2020 and beyond. Don’t be afraid to go looking for a better, more efficient, more emotional way to connect with the members of your target audience.

Every so often, you’ll actually find one, which itself brings with it the best type of disruption of them all – the ability to deepen your connection with these people in a way that will serve you both well for years to come.

About the Author: Payman Taei is the founder of Visme, an easy-to-use online tool to create engaging presentations, infographics, and other forms of visual content. He is also the founder of HindSite Interactive, an award-winning Maryland digital agency specializing in website design, user experience and web app development.