In content marketing, we tend to fret over the next big thing.
Hogwash.
When has there genuinely been a major shift in content marketing in the past decade?
(If you’re thinking “AI” in your head, keep reading for that myth debunked.)
The best (and best promoted) content has almost always won. The companies that have produced poor content have suffered.
I don’t think that’s an unfair conclusion.
Take Nextiva; a company approaching content marketing the right way. I’ve spent the last four years working with them on blog posts targeting very specific search terms.
Nine times out of 10, they reach the first page of Google. More often than not in the top two listings.
There are three reasons for this success:
- Majority focus on niche bottom of the funnel content.
- Ambition to produce the best version available online every time.
- Continued demonstration of topic authority, enabling a challenge of highly competitive key phrases.
What does this have to do with the future of content marketing?
Good question.
And one I answered in my post titled, How To Optimize Your Content For AI-Enabled Search.
Let’s touch on that here, too.
How will AI impact content marketing for UC and CC vendors?
The biggest trend in content marketing—for UC/CC vendors and any business—will be the impact of AI searches.
Be it within the Google search environment or on AI platforms like Perplexity, Claude, or ChatGPT, your traffic is going to take a hit.
“Appreciating that searchers want answers rather than articles is the first step you must take if you want your content to get picked up in AI searches. This means you write an article knowing full well that it might not get a click—but it might get summarized in an AI overview and help someone out. Is this fair? Probably not. Is there anything else we can do about it? No.”
“So, yes, this does mean your traffic is going to drop. If you can answer a searcher’s query in a paragraph, a table, a list, etc., then that’s what the search engine is going to use. The AI has decided the searcher doesn’t need the entire article. It will always choose what it deems the best possible answer + format to show.”
If you focus on assembling the best blog posts possible, you’ll be rewarded:
- Understand how AI pulls content rather than ranks links
- Shift from keywords to intent & context
- Optimize for featured snippets & AI summaries
- Create high-value, unique content
- User experience matters more
This is exactly how I grew Mio to $1m annual recurring revenue and it’s exactly how I generated a $500,000 pipeline for Callroute in six months.
What else will impact the future of content marketing for UC and CC vendors?
AI content creation
I had a comment on one of my LinkedIn posts the other day that made me sad.
Tim Banting, a well-respected industry analyst and a friend, replied to my query of Who writes your blog posts?—a question designed to raise awareness of the Venn diagram of the perfect content writing resource—with “Unfortunately, all too many will be AI.”
The goal of my LinkedIn post was to raise awareness that a blog post author (or team writing a blog post) must possess a combination of skills to succeed in content marketing.
If brands opt to use AI to write their entire blog post, they’re not going to succeed.
Note: I’m not suggesting that using AI for research or formatting or brainstorming is a bad idea. Heck, I used Perplexity to check for other trends to include in this blog post:
But if you’re shortcutting the subject matter expertise, the hands-on experience, the emotion, the real life case studies, etc. then you might as well give up now.
AI can’t replace that.
Branded SEO weighting
There’s the impact of brand SEO, too. If you’re a Microsoft Teams partner, creating content that targets keyphrases like “Microsoft Teams lifecycle management” or “Teams Phone prerequisites”, then you have a disadvantage in that you’re not Microsoft.
Google (rightly) rewards microsoft.com for a ton of Microsoft-related content.
After all, a good portion of searchers are looking for Microsoft documentation and/or will trust microsoft.com for what they’re looking for.
So, opting to display microsoft.com as the top listing is what searchers are expecting. (This is called search intent.)
But even then, all my Microsoft clients are still ranking high and converting their web traffic into demo bookings.
How?
If you master the content—if it’s the best resource available online for that search term—it doesn’t matter what Microsoft has lying around waiting to rank. Your content should, in time, rank above it.
There are, of course, some caveats here, too:
- Your website needs to establish at least some authority; you can’t expect to have never written about Microsoft before and rank top of Google for complex topics.
- You can’t have previously employed black hat SEO tactics and expect one blog post to gain Google’s trust back.
- Your website needs to perform at a good level; page speed and experience are equally as important as the content you create.
While branded search favorability does mean you won’t be able to rank top for things like:
- Microsoft Teams Phone
- Microsoft Teams Operator Connect
It doesn’t mean you can’t rank for longer-tail keyphrases like:
- Microsoft Teams lifecycle management
- Microsoft Teams third-party analytics
- Microsoft Teams call recording
- Microsoft Teams direct routing license requirements
In fact, one of my customers currently ranks top of Google (and ahead of Microsoft) for Cisco CUCM and Microsoft Teams integration.
As a rule of thumb, the longer or more complex the phrase, the higher the chance you’ll rank ahead of Microsoft.
Social media link sharing
Have you noticed your impressions plummeting when you shared a link on LinkedIn?
And let’s not talk about the mass exodus of Twitter users.
Social media platforms have got serious about keeping users on-platform.
It’s in their best interest to keep users in their own governed environments with their advertising space.
I get it. It’s how they make the majority of their money.
But it sure doesn’t help when promoting your content.
So, do you stop sharing content on social media?
No.
Instead, you’ve got to get creative about how you share content.
Rather than relying on writing “Here’s my new post about XYZ”, you’ve got to sell a click. Explain what the reader will gain from investing in clicking the content you’ve shared.
What a ton of UC/CC vendors do here is get carried away trying to shoehorn their product in.
Nobody will click a post that reads:
Here’s our latest post about Microsoft Teams user management and by the way our product is the best and please book a demo.
You’ve now go to market the content marketing asset.
Outside of sharing the blog post with a link, think about generating intrigue without the link.
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
But as soon as you add a link to social media, your impressions plummet.
- Try creating a 30-second video explaining what your new post is about.
- Write an overview of the post with neatly formatted bullets.
- Share a screenshot of some killer copy.
- Link to the post in the comments.
Experiment with what works best for your audience. Everyone has different preferences, after all.
What won’t have a big impact on content marketing in UC and CC?
Standalone video
Have you seen those vertical videos on LinkedIn?
They work very well in B2C. Just look at the success of TikTok Shop. But, come on. Do you really think your IT buyer persona is going to be swayed by a 30-second video of you zoomed in too close?
I have previously weighed up the pros and cons of long-form versus short form content. There is room for both in your marketing strategy, for sure.
These types of videos—and any video for that matter—have a part to play in content marketing. They help add context and an alternative format inside blog posts. I see video in B2B as a supplemental component of the blog post creation process rather than replacement.
AI killing the need for great content
In a recent LinkedIn post, Brenna Lemieux countered the clickbait headline of “Company blogs are no longer worth the investment” with thoughts that I 100% share.
“Good blogs still perform. Blogs with visuals, original research, thought leader quotes, video, and audio still drive results. So it’s not so much “company blogs aren’t worth it” but more “publish a words-only post and move on” doesn’t work.”
Brenna backed up this statement with research by Andy Crestodina at Orbit Media. His research, which I recommend every year, reveals that succeeding with blog posts might be getting harder, but there are some obvious trends with those that are successful:
There is also a strong correlation between word count and success. Here, it’s not so much about the quantity, but more about creating comprehensive resources that give readers everything they need to know about a topic at this particular time.
“Bloggers who write longer posts tend to get better results. There’s a clear correlation between content length and marketing performance. The bloggers who write 2000+ words on average are far more likely to report “strong results.”
Furthermore, it’s not just the words that are important in blog posts. As a rule of thumb, the more (relevant) visuals included per blog post, the stronger the results of the content marketing efforts.
One final stat to extract from Andy’s research is the importance of using an editor. With a good chunk of my customers, I act as the editor and can’t understate the importance of working with a great editor.
For clarity, an editor doesn’t just check the spelling. That’s a proofreader.
Here’s where an editor adds value:
- Creates an outline for writers to follow
- Suggests methods to capture featured snippets
- Suggests visuals and formatting for capture other SERP features
- Proofreads the post for spelling and grammar
- Optimises the post for search engines
- Optimises the post for readability
- Makes suggestions for writer improvements
- Suggests resources to make the reader experience as best as possible
- Works with the writer to ensure your content is the best version available online
Conclusion: the future of content marketing…
If your UC blog isn’t working now, it’s not going to work in the future unless you start making changes.
AI isn’t going to eat your lunch if you focus on creating the best content available online (for that particular topic).
AI is going to eat your lunch if you continue to publish blog posts and hope for the best.
If you’re serious about making content marketing work for your UC/CC brand:
- Start with a BOFU SEO strategy
- Create blog posts with visuals and intentional formatting
- Work with an editor (not just a proofreader)
- Thoroughly distribute your content once published
If you’re a UC/CC brand looking to upgrade your content performance, get in touch today and we’ll scope out your requirements.
