Content Marketing has become an important tool for companies who wish to establish their online presence, and create a relationship with their customers / users. However, with the influx of content via Social Media and other channels differentiating oneself from the “noise” is a big challenge. With the growth in various technologies and solutions marketers hope to do just that, as the new year brings on a new view towards content marketing. We asked experts and practitioners of Content Marketing to share their insights and predictions on the future, and various trends that companies should focus on in the upcoming year.

2. Joseph McKeating - @josifmck
“In 2014, content marketing will continue to dramatically transform the public relations and media
industries. Poor writers and communicators will be weeded out of reputable public relations
agencies. An increasing number of traditional journalists will leave the media industry to help
companies tell their stories and form strong relationships with customers. Both will lead to a more
educated public used to on-demand information and advice.”
Founder
Pulsar Strategy

3. Sloan Gaon - @sloaner
“Programmatic will solve native’s scale issue: Expanding on the above, native advertising – which has
been the darling of the industry for the past two years, but has yet to truly take off due to its
inability to scale – will start to be offered programmatically. Brands like Red Bull, AMEX and L’Oreal
have already successfully made the leap to becoming great content publishers, as traditional
publishers like NYT, AP and Hearst are starting to think more and more like marketers. Yet for the
‘right ad at the right time’ to finally become the ‘right content at the right time’, content marketing
will need become seamlessly integrated and distributed through advanced targeting technology via
ad exchanges and RTB platforms.”
CEO
PulsePoint

4. Walter Blake Knoblock - @WBKnoblock
“The “listicle” trend has proven to easily to emulate/is indistinguishable. Look for companies to
invest in more unique forms of content that rely upon creativity instead of ease.
With Vine/Instagram’s video technology plus videos being able to stream on Facebook timeline, look
for short video memes to become more deeply rooted with content. Consider them minicommercials.
Because of updates to Google search algorithm that favor Google+ shares over other social media
networks, content marketers will begin to cater their content (and calls to action) to emphasize it
being propagated through the Google+ platform.”
President
Felix Exi

5. Derek Merdinyan - @VideoIgniter
“Limited attention spans plus an abundance of new content formats suggest that higher quality,
visually rich pieces of content that communicate concisely will give marketers an edge over those
solely relying on text-based content to communicate their messages.”
Founder
VideoIgniter.com

6. Adi Bittan - @adiownerlistens
“2014 will be the year of video in content marketing. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook,
are now or will soon allow video ads in consumer content feeds. With videos becoming cheaper to
produce and platforms such as Veed.me opening up access to affordable creative talent, even small
businesses can produce high quality videos. Expect to see many more content marketing videos in
2014!”
Co-founder & CEO
OwnerListens.com

7. Frank Strong - @Frank_Strong
“Content consumers will gravitate towards thoughtful, insightful and well-researched long form
content. It will perform better in search, more actively share and attract traffic from a community
that seeks relevancy and actionable information. Businesses will take content production seriously
by investing in experienced or especially talented professionals that can connect the dots in a
respective industry like no other. Blogs produced by companies from Moz to Buffer App are already
demonstrating the influence of this approach to content – and we’d all be wise to follow in our
niches.”
Communications Director
LexisNexis

8. Steve Susina - @ssusina
“When firms first started with content marketing, the goal for many was simply to get something
produced. In 2014, marketers will be challenged to create content tailored to each stage of the
buyer’s journey. Some content for top-of-funnel lead acquisition, different content to help with
product selection, and still more for on-boarding and retention marketing.”
Marketing Director
Lyons Consulting Group

9. Sara Flick - @ZOGDigital
“Google will start to rely more heavily on authorship and social signals to determine credibility and
authenticity of content. Therefore, we expect more brands to recognize the value of content
marketing as part of their digital strategies. As more brands and industries start utilizing content
marketing, it will drive competition for users’ interests. Starting to think through a content strategy
early can help marketers solidify their place as a thought leader.”
Manager of Content Strategy and PR
ZOG Digital

10. Diane K. Danielson - @dianedanielson
“In 2014, smart content marketers will segment their messaging to reach distinct target markets. No
more one size fits all.”
Chief Platform Officer
Sperry Van Ness
International Corporation

11. Alessandra Ceresa - @MissAleCristina
“I believe that we are going to see an increase in B2B content marketing. More and more B2B
companies are going to be developing highly specialized content as their means of gaining trust with
leads, as well as offering a sense of expertise in their respective industries. Businesses will focus on
content that will assist in the sales process, versus content for lead generation.”
Director of Marketing
GreenRope

12. Victor Gaxiola - @VictorGaxiola
“Consumers shouldn’t, and won’t, tolerate multiple marketing channels. In 2014 they will laser focus
on the platforms that matter and discard those that don’t. What does this mean for the big players?
Will rumors of Facebook and Twitter’s slowing user growth cause them to lose their position as top
dog? Or will they rebound with new features for marketing professionals? The answers are still up in
the air, but I believe newer platforms, such as Pinterest and Instagram, will gain in popularity and
importance. Meanwhile better known marketing platforms will find themselves in a survivor-style
battle to stay relevant, with consumers readying their votes for who’s going and who’s staying.”
Subject Matter Expert: Social
Media
Actiance

13. Kim Lombard - @UPRISEmedia
“Due to the most recent round of SEO updates, content marketing will only get more vital for
businesses. Any businesses who were on the fence about the value of original content will officially
convert, and any who don’t will be left in a vortex of third page Google searches. This will oversaturate the internet with content and make competing for the attention of your audience even
more difficult.”
Founder
UPRISE Media

14. Dave Rigotti - @drigotti
“To keep it’s dominance in the B2B advertising space, LinkedIn will launch a lead generation ad
format (one click to share information) much like Twitter has with the Lead Generation Card. This
will effectively lower cost per lead for marketers as there will be no landing page drop off.
Facebook will continue to feel pressures to grow ad revenue so will open up more professionalrelated targeting fields to attract B2B ad budgets away from LinkedIn.”
Senior Marketing Manager
Bizible

15. Richard De Pass - @rdepass
“Developing the Brand Beyond Advertising Rather than simply displaying their products, smart
businesses in 2014 will take their content marketing to new levels of interaction with prospects.
Smart businesses will build relationships with future clients by using short form gifs, images and
videos that introduce their business in an innovative way. By using sound, sight and motion to
engage the attention of their audience, smart businesses will put themselves in the best postion to
succeed.”
Managing Director
Spotlight Media and
Publishing

16. Michael Shepherd - @shepherdgroup
“Content marketing in 2014 will feature more short-format video and rich-media executions. More
video blogs will debut and marketers will find inspiration from big brands such as Coca-Cola’s
Content 2020 initiative.”
President and CEO
The Shepherd Group,
Inc.

17. Wayne English - @WebContentRx
“Content marketing will go down in flames unless businesses aren’t taught how to use it properly.
The secret is to publish material that’s useful. Content marketing is not just another place to
advertise. People will not consume content unless it’s pertinent, helpful, and well-constructed. As
we like to say, “Your content will either get read, or get lost.””
President
WebContentRx

18. Rachel Parker - @resonancecont
“In 2014, small businesses will “bust out of the blog” and really start leveraging video, infographics,
podcasting, and other formats formerly dominated by larger organizations. In embracing these
formats, SMBs will be able to better leverage their closeness to their customers in delivering the
right content to the right people, in the right place, at the right time, and in a format that fits their
preferences.”
Founder and CEO
Resonance Content
Marketing

19. Jessica L. Levin - @JessicaLevin
“In 2014 Content Marketing will start to be once again called “just marketing.” Although companies
will get better at hiring people who can produce content internally. I believe that tools like Facebook
ads will evolve to help marketers better reach their target market with the right message at the right
time so that rather than simply ads, valuable information will be shared and spread. These will be
cheaper options than some of the marketing automation tools out there and should force those
products to become more budget friendly.”
President and Chief Connector
Seven Degrees
Communications

20. Atchison Frazer - @marchitexture
“The future of content marketing is all about data-driven content origination and curation that are
optimized for organic SEO (nonPPC), highly relevant and targeted, that will redefine the Long Tail
principle - isolating segment of one topical resonance profiles, not necessarily state of mind to buy
profiles. Marketers will design and build their own ’nurturing stream’ software to customize and
track results of content asset ”performance” in a systemic fashion.”
CMO
KEMPTech

21. Wayne Liew - @WayneLiew
“Businesses to start adopting analytical approaches to content marketing. As businesses spend more
resources on content marketing, business owners and marketers will need to start measuring the
effectiveness of different types of content using tools such as Google Analytics. This approach allows
marketers to have a sense of direction when it comes to content creation and to justify their
investment to management.”
Founder
Sprout Geek

22. Boni Satani - @bonirulzz
“Content marketing is still limited to few content formats like articles and Infographics. Next year we
may see great focus in creating different forms of content ranging from podcast, vblogs, quiz content
and creative content format. The focus on creating long resourceful content will be back – as that in
most of the cases it helps generates lots of value for users as well as publishers”
SEO Specialist
Cygnet Infotech

23. Lori Feldman - @lorifeldman
“Marketers will get better at database segmentation so they are able to develop more relevant
content to more subgroups of their community, rather than a “one size fits all” effort. This will result
in more engagement with their companies by more people.”
President
The Database Diva

24. Heather Carson - @heatheranne
“This year, opinion will trump information in 2014. There seems to be a surge of more thoughtbased / in-your-face content emerging – whether or not it’s sourced adequately. Seeing less ‘howto’s’ and ‘tips’ posts in favor of posts that inspire. People are using content to convince, rather than
simply educate, more than ever. Those who will win in the end, will pair a powerful opinion with
factual data.”
President and Co-Founder
Onboardly

25. Sam Ford - @Sam_Ford
“Companies will put increasing budget behind telling their own stories and will continue their
evolution toward acting as content producers. Innovative organizations will treat creating engaging
content as a company-wide initiative beyond just marketing that impacts every part of the business.
As a result, emphasis will shift from the volume of content created toward the editorial direction of
the company’s content as a whole and the continuity for the overall story the company is telling.”
Director of Audience Engagement
Peppercomm

26. Kimberly Kurimski - @kkurimski
“I believe consumers will become more engaged on social media sites, video will be more prominent
for businesses, humor will be the go-to for grabbing consumers’ attention, and a higher percentage
of people will access their content on a mobile platform.”
Brand Manager
We Rock Your Web

27. Oliver White - @RebelLabs
“The key to successful content marketing in 2014 for the average company is in cultivating and
transforming the knowledge & experience of specialists inside your organization into regular,
meaningful contributions that educate, challenge and entertain your primary audience. This impacts
business by creating a content ecosystem that highlights your expertise, relates (ideally) back to your
commercial interests, and enables smoother conversions to product down the line with increased
brand familiarity.”
Head of RebelLabs

28. Emily Long - @webtalentmktg
“Content marketing is all about the consumer’s needs and user experience. It is a key part of
capturing a consumer’s attention — which is at an all-time premium in this digital age. With that in
mind, we predict content marketing will play an absolutely vital role in achieving success as a digital
marketer in 2014. We will see a decrease in contrived guest blogging and an increased number of
marketers building valuable relationships with journalists for content creation. We also predict an
increase in the importance of market research — businesses need to first understand who their
audience members are and what they are looking for before implementing an effective content
marketing strategy.”
Online PR Specialist
Web Talent Marketing

29. Carly Fauth - @MoneyCrashers
“Video and image-based content and infographics will occupy a greater space in the overall content
marketing realm. Social media websites that promote that type of content, such as Pinterest and
Instagram, will continue to improve in popularity. More content creation will be outsourced next
year as well. Mobile content will also be more prevalent. Businesses must adjust their content
marketing strategy to include these key elements if they want to be successful in 2014.”
Director of Marketing and
Outreach
Money Crashers

30. Hillary Berman - @popcornicecream
“With so much buzz surrounding content marketing, I expect small businesses and franchises will
seek opportunities to license and share content. While creating original content can be time
consuming, the risks associated with ”borrowed” content can be substantial. Third-party content is
intentionally generic – often limiting relevance to any one business. Additionally, a quick Google
search easily shows readers that one business’ content is identical to another. Content for content’s
sake is useless. Businesses should stick to relevant content that provides real value and information
of interest to their customers and followers for content marketing to prove its merits.”
Founder
Popcorn & Ice-Cream

31. Jason Robbins - @epromos
“All businesses need to be in the content game in 2014 – they can’t afford to sit it out anymore.
Content is king, and in 2014, I expect marketers to use new mediums such as video to share content
with their audiences. It’s all about educating and driving awareness in fresh, creative ways.”
CEO
ePromos Promotional
Products

32. Marc Landsberg - @marclandsberg
“Brands will translate engagement into specific business metrics. Engagement will be measured
content unit by content unit or campaign by campaign, and at a specific moment in time, rather than
by aggregate measures over a period of time. The success of one piece of content might be
measured by referral traffic while another piece might be measured by conversions. Likewise, social
content and interactions will drive more readily to e-commerce platforms.”
CEO and Founder
SocialDeviant

33. Kurt Andersen - @SAVO_Group
“Content marketing is hot, BUT – Marketers appreciate the metrics they receive from content
marketing, but Forrester Research has found here’s very little return on it − 80% of qualified
nurtured leads don’t move forward after the sales handoff. To be fair, this conversion rate isn’t any
better than what’s realized through other means of marketing. In 2014, marketers will look at this
trend closely and find a method to demonstrate ROI from content marketing initiatives.
• Investment in Sales Outcomes – In 2014, marketing will become more invested in sales
outcomes. As such, content will be more tightly tied to sales enablement and enabling reps to
have more relevant conversations with leads following the handoff.
• Day-to-Day Simplification − Each year, organizations spend billions of dollars on content
marketing, CRM solutions, training and other tools, but all these options simply overwhelm sales
reps and they don’t know which assets to use. This impacts leadership’s ability to subsequently
measure performance − what reps are doing, what content is being used, what content is
working, etc. To overcome this in 2014, organizations will determine how to drive reps to a
single point of reference.”
Executive VP of Sales Enablement
and Marketing
SAVO

34. Ian Fitzpatrick - @ianfitzpatrick
“I think 2014 is the year that more organizations adopt the idea that content isn’t solely a marketing
tool, but rather a form of product or service that they offer — an additional layer of utility or
entertainment on top of the things they already deliver. Fundamentally, it will be a shift from the
cynical — content as an acquisition tool — to the empowering — content as a tool for facilitating
great customer experiences.”
Chief Strategy Officer
Almighty

35. Derek Slayton - @NetProspex
“Content Marketing is just a fancy/trendy way to refocus marketing efforts on orienting everything
around the customer viewpoint – and then using content strategies to create engagements that take
THEIR view of the world and help shape it to enable them to see the value in the product or service
your company is offering. That’s a long way of saying that content marketing is becoming the
marketing department. So the industry will continue to thrive – and disappear at the same time.
New capabilities will focus on creating interactions and conversations through content to drive
deeper engagement (and help prescriptively navigate) as potential customers work their way
through the buyer journey.”
CMO
NetProspex

36. Corey Post - @coreypost
“Marketers will continue to embrace content marketing as they confront further Google updates –
or penalties – and lack of keyword data.
Those that create a well thought out content strategy – one that incorporates the voice of the
consumer, relevant distribution channels, resource allocation, and “problem-solving content” – will,
through considered implementation, have the opportunity to win big through higher lifetime value
and ARPU, increased brand loyalty and decreased churn.”
Founder
Agile Leverage

37. Adam Connell - @AdamJayc
“As more and more businesses invest in content marketing more effort will be needed to cut
through the noise, ultimately though it will give small businesses a chance to use their expertise to
craft great content that will enable them to become an authority within their market sector and
grow their business.”
Marketing Manager
UK Linkology

38. Rich Blackwell - @BlackwellRich
“Simply pushing content to your customers isn’t a successful marketing tactic; you must consider
how they’re likely to respond, give them the means to do so, and embrace it. Understanding the
fundamentals of two-way communications will pay off. Two-way communications occur when
content is pushed out to be consumed with the expectation and means for recipients to respond, for
example, a tweet or a post within a group discussion on LinkedIn.”
Creative Lead
Metia

39. Michelle Garrett - @PRisUs
“Content marketing is all the rage and will continue to be in 2014, which is shaping up to be the
‘year of content marketing’! This is good news for PR pros, who are steeped in creating content with
press releases, blogs and customer stories, as well as through media relations which generates news
articles—which, of course, creates even more content to use in your marketing.”
Owner
Garrett Public
Relations

40. Alex Boyce - @alexboyce
“Content marketing is becoming inherently more social – as adoption continues to increase and
users are turning to mobile devices as their ‘first-screen’ experience, the ability of content creators
and businesses to reach them is contingent upon providing an easy, elegant and authentic
experience. Businesses who fail to focus on mobile will fall behind in 2014 and those that embrace
platform-agnostic content syndication and tie it back to a user’s social graph will emerge as winners.”
Chief Strategy Officer
Woven Digital

41. Neil Myers - @connectpr
“Many people are focusing on 2014 being the year of content marketing. That’s not really true –
content marketing reached critical mass over the past few years. What we are seeing with our
clients is how content marketing is effecting how marketers perceive, value and create content.
Take video. Companies historically have used video to push what they wanted to say to their
prospects. Content marketing is changing that by encouraging marketers to focus more on what
their prospect wants to learn about. That means in 2014 we’ll see less talking head interviews from
executives, and more chalk talks, customer case studies and tutorials.
Or, how about infographics? Whereas past infographics have focused on putting colorful graphics
next to statistics, content marketing demands a narrative. We’re seeing infographics shift to visual
stories as opposed to pretty pictures with numbers.
And it is not just content style, but also content volumes. Companies have moved from a focus on
occasional videos to trying to keep their video channel pipelines full.
Overall, we see 2014 as the year content gains purpose.”
President
Connect Marketing

42. Amanda Elam - @EarthIntegrate
“The future of content marketing is entirely dependent on and driven by the consumer. The more
information they want and the faster they want it will determine which brands succeed and which
fail based on their availability to match their consumers need for information. The faster and more
local a brand can make their content, the more business that brand will win. We believe brands are
going to begin focusing on meeting this need by embracing technology like distributed marketing
platforms in order to allow for the fast, hyper localization of their content.”
Marketing Director
EarthIntegrate

43. Andrew Caravella - @andrewcaravella
“From brands across many industries, I think we’ll see a needed increase in strategic, relevant
content that centers around social customer care. Beyond reactive responses to sensitive issues like
a delayed flight or mixed up food order, brands will take a more proactive approach to content that
anticipates audience needs. They’ll create and deliver content, ideally using various mediums, that
answer questions, provide resources and stimulate helpful dialogue to increase repeat conversations
and ongoing customer engagement.”
VP of Marketing
Sprout Social

44. Vincent Dipas - @Agency33
“In 2014, content will make/break purchase decisions. There will be an unforgiving expectation that
content is engaging *and* diversified (by type e.g. written, audio, video, as well as by
channel/platform e.g. social (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) and/or freemium download
(webinar, whitepaper, e-book, etc.), Additionally, consumers will demand content is accessible on
any/all technologies at hand *and* optimized for each/all technologies. SEO results will depend on
content more than ever before.”
Partner
Agency 33

45. Angela Shugarts - @angelashugarts
“The future of content marketing will be less about recycling content from what’s available in the
digital ecosystem and more about personal stories that establish an emotional connection with
customers. Content that is humorous, sad, joyful, or just plain weird resonates with customers more
than snappy catchphrases or memes. Unlike fleeting digital trends, content marketing strategy in
2014 will be focused on getting to know the local customer, his family, and his dog…where they
shop, where they eat, and how technology plays a part in their individual lifestyle. Multiply this
strategy by billions and you’ve got yourself a solid and meaningful content marketing strategy for
2014.”
PR Strategist
Frankly
Communications

46. Devan Brown - @devan_brown2
“Smaller, smaller, smaller. Content will be synonyms with single images, single stats, and one-liners.
Think ‘micro-content’
Data sales will explode. Content creators will be looking for stats, trends, facts, and other data to
help birth their content. Those infographic numbers don’t make themselves!
‘Content repurposing’ will be a digital marketing service of it’s own. Don’t want to dig through those
archives to make something out of nothing? Let us do it!
Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will come up with new and inventive ways to
make sure you are paying to distribute your content on their site. Expect to see some additions to
sponsored stories and promoted tweets.
Micro-content will make it’s way into the physical world. Magazine ads will look eerily like Pinterest
pins, and PSA’s will really be animated infographics.”
Content Specialist
Anvil Media

47. Shahed Ahmed - @shahed4
“The importance of good content is going nowhere. Whether via search today, or the semantic web
tomorrow, customers will look for and find only the quality, relevant content. In 2014, more
marketers will realize that quality and relevance, and not channel-hopping, is the key to great
content marketing. Relevance will mean the need for better analytics of customer behavior and
needs. And, quality will mean building a narrative that is customer-focused and shareable.”
Vice President of Content Strategies
Merritt Group

48. Joseph Bachana - @joebachana
“In order for content marketing initiatives to succeed in 2014, marketing executives will need to
align their strategy with the right set of supporting content technologies. By integrating digital asset,
content management, and workflow management technology, organizations will be able to more
effectively deliver well-curated content across multiple channels.”
President and Founder
DPCI

49. Brian Tervo - @TIEKinetix
“Organizations will take advantage of content marketing to drive lead generation and thought
leadership for their brand, especially when delivering partner programs with a channel community.
Channel syndication solutions are one way to support the distribution side of the content marketing
strategy. Syndication gives partner marketers the control to influence the entire marketing and sales
funnel, from awareness and engagement through to user experience and support. And, since it’s
automated, it allows partners to focus their time on selling.”
President & CEO
TIE Kinetix

50. Cliff Pollan - @cliffpollan
“In 2014, sales applauds marketing as they actively use marketing’s content to close deals. Thanks to
analytics linking reps’ content sharing activities to revenue recognition, marketing will ensure their
latest and greatest content is put directly in the hands of their sales team, rather than relying
primarily on marketing automation systems to disseminate it. Reps will personalize the content for
each prospect to create more meaningful discussions and close deals.”
CEO and Founder
Postwire

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