How the role of content is changing in 2024

If you had to guess, what would you say is the biggest transition content marketers face right now? Would you name generative AI? Tight budgets? Expanding channels? Or would you be shocked to hear even bigger shifts are still on the horizon?

Today’s marketers are responsible for creating more content, distributing it across more channels, and making it more personal to buyers.

Each one of these is a big change by itself. But together, they create a seismic shift in content marketing as we know it.

The new realities of content marketing

To grasp just how fast the landscape is changing, consider the 29% of UK consumers who say they trust information from generative AI. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s already 9% more than a year ago. In the US, where less stringent restrictions mean GenAI is more prevalent, 65% of consumers trust businesses that use it.

And if you’re not using AI? Customers still expect you to match their increased appetite for content. If you don’t, they’ll consume the videos and posts your competitors create instead.

You don’t need the results of a research study to tell you that’s a short road to less authority, lower engagement, fewer leads and, ultimately, a steep decline in customer loyalty. To keep that from happening, your content must now handle multiple jobs effectively.

First, it has to perform across dozens of channels.

For years, marketers could safely assume it took eight to 12 touchpoints for a customer to make a purchasing decision. But now, with social media, brands have to work much harder to have an impact. Approximately 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make buying decisions, and the average UK consumer is making them across six different platforms.

Second, your content must support the self-service journey.

According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Sales report, 71% of consumers prefer to gather information themselves when researching a product or service. An astounding 96% won’t talk to a rep without being able to research the tools they’re considering first, which means they want more self-guided demos and interactive tours — not just gated ebooks and whitepapers.

It all adds up to a lot of content – more than ever before – at a time when most marketers are faced with less budget and fewer resources. In a recent HubSpot survey, 47% of UK businesses face pressure to do more with less. More then 40% say budgets are staying flat or decreasing even though the cost of advertising is going up.

At the same time, seven in 10 business leaders say their organisations have changed more in the past four years than in the previous 20. Sixty-two percent agree meeting customers’ expectations is not enough to achieve success in 2024, and more than half say growth tactics that worked in the past are less effective.

Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom. When you factor in the latest technology developments, a new story emerges.

It should come as no surprise the biggest trends will centre on AI possibilities.

There’s a reason consumers are getting more comfortable with AI – more marketers are using it. Our research revealed that 64% of global marketers are already using generative AI. Among those who don’t, 38% plan to start in 2024. As Sean Downey, Google’s president of Americas and global partners, told HubSpot: “It should come as no surprise that in 2024, the biggest marketing trends will centre on the possibilities of AI.”

However, rather than replacing roles, generative AI is opening the door to more, higher-quality content. Only 6% of global marketers surveyed by HubSpot use generative AI to write entire pieces. The rest use it to get ideas, create outlines, build first drafts and repurpose existing content for different audiences. More than half say their AI-generated content performs better than content created without it, and 85% say it improves quality. Even in the UK, where adoption is slower, 12% of marketers say teams should leverage generative AI as much as possible.

In other words, generative AI is fast becoming the ultimate marketing assistant. Content that previously took weeks or months to complete can now be turned around in days or hours.

Better yet, marketers can transform a single asset into multiple posts, images, blogs and emails to reach more audiences faster. With a tool like HubSpot’s Content Hub, you can even capture voice and tone to ensure content stays engaging and on-brand.

While these transitions may not be happening overnight, they’re definitely on the horizon. The sooner businesses adapt to the new realities of content marketing, the better positioned marketers will be to recapture leads and influence pipeline. And with the latest AI possibilities, those opportunities could be bigger and better than ever.