Does your company’s digital marketing content plan account for AI overviews? Are you finding it more difficult to track your potential customers’ buyer journey? In an AI-first world, content marketing strategies must continue to evolve.
Once a catchphrase and digital marketing tactic, content marketing is now a key component of all brands’ online marketing strategies. As AI usage increases, online marketing and marketing are now synonymous.
With years of content publication, tracking, and measurement under our belts, we have the data to state confidently that content marketing accelerates business growth.
The Definition of Content Marketing Has Evolved
Since the early 2000s, data has shaped online marketing. Today’s buyers are self-directed. They research, read reviews, and watch demos long before contacting a salesperson. Content powers this journey, feeding search engines, social media, AI chatbots, and brand blogs.
Content marketing has increased significantly in the last 5 years, from 70% of marketers using it in 2020 to 91% of global brands in 2025. Video, blogs, and infographics lead the formats.
While the shift from print to digital began two decades ago, habits have evolved. Americans now average over 7 hours of daily screen time, giving marketers rich data to build precisely targeted, customer-centric strategies.
Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Alignment
The alignment of the customer experience between the marketing, sales, and customer success teams has become a priority in recent years, particularly in B2B companies. Content that was once only used for marketing purposes is now part of the relationship-building focus of sales and customer success. Personalized content experiences that meet specific customer needs are used in sales engagement to help buyers make decisions, fuel sales growth, increase customer retention, and achieve higher referral rates.
Content Consumption To Consider For Your Content Marketing Plan
Savvy content marketers realize that different buyer groups prefer different forms of content. Using buyer behavior data, we are creating content in the format that best attracts our target audience. Types of content include:
- Blog content
- Email Campaigns
- Videos
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Social media posts
- Ebooks and white papers
- Case studies and testimonials
- Webinars
In particular, video has seen tremendous growth. 67% of marketers say posting videos on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok has the biggest ROI of any marketing strategy. Video marketing is particularly effective in the sales funnel, with 88% of marketers reporting that video has generated leads.
Also, consider the increasing use of mobile devices and smartphones when creating content. While the majority of B2B companies receive desktop traffic, in the last quarter of 2024, 62% of global website traffic came from mobile devices (excluding tablets). Content marketing campaigns built around the mobile experience, voice search, and content that is easy to digest and share will appeal to mobile device users.
AI Overviews and AI Chat Search
AI-driven search experiences like Google’s AI Overviews and conversational search tools like ChatGPT reshape how consumers discover and engage with content. Instead of relying solely on traditional search engine results pages (SERPs), users increasingly turn to AI-generated summaries and chat-based answers that synthesize information from multiple sources.
This shift means content marketers must rethink their strategies, focusing on structuring content in ways that AI can easily interpret and surface in responses. Well-organized, authoritative, and context-rich content is more likely to be cited by AI models, making brand visibility in these new search formats a critical consideration.
Another major shift is the impact of AI chat search on the buyer journey. Consumers increasingly use conversational AI to evaluate products, compare solutions, and seek recommendations without visiting a company’s website. This requires brands to build credibility beyond their own domains through third-party mentions, customer reviews, and expert citations that AI can reference.
Marketers must also embrace conversational content strategies, ensuring their messaging aligns with how AI-driven searches present information. By adapting to these changes, businesses can remain discoverable and influential as AI shapes content consumption.
The Role of Content Marketing
In 2025, blog posts were among the top 5 highest-ROI content formats according to marketers. The perception of the role of content marketing within organizations is one of the biggest changes in its evolution. Once seen as a “nice to have” (as in “it would be nice to have a blog” or “when we reach a certain size, we’ll start doing email marketing”), growth-driven organizations now realize they can no longer wait until “someday” to begin using content in their online marketing, sales, and customer success strategies.
Content marketers now have a seat at the table as companies plan their annual marketing strategy. Armed with data that takes a deep dive into what’s working and what isn’t, along with trends in search engine optimization and social platforms, we help shape the business goals and map out how to achieve them. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 70% of B2C brands and 73% of B2B organizations use content marketing to connect with their target buyers.
How Content Marketing Works
High-growth companies now understand that content adds value at every stage of their buyer’s journey and, like a magnet, pulls leads from one stage to the next. Having a blog and occasionally promoting blog content on their social channels is not enough. Companies that successfully use content marketing create consistent, buyer-centric messaging across all channels, planned out in focused, measured campaigns.
While audiences rarely journey on a straight path from awareness to conversion these days, the traditional funnel still provides a guide to help content strategies develop content with the right search intent.
Read: How Optimizing for Search Intent Improved Engagement by 250%
High Quality and Promotion Over Quantity
Content marketers are working smarter, not harder. The best ROI comes from publishing high-quality content and then promoting it on the right channels to the right audience. Publishing blog posts frequently, then hoping to climb in search rankings, won’t yield the best return on your content marketing efforts. You’ll get more bang for your buck when you publish high-quality content, distribute it on targeted marketing channels, and repurpose it in multiple ways.
Guest posting on authoritative third-party sites is an effective addition to the content mix. The opportunity to expand brand visibility and thought leadership, gain high-quality backlinks, and drive organic search and referral traffic makes guest posting an important part of content marketing campaigns.
Focus on the Buyer
Just as SEO has moved beyond the days of mass-producing keyword-heavy material, content marketing has also changed. Google has shifted how it serves searchers to provide the most relevant, helpful content based on search intent. Likewise, content marketers have changed their focus to publishing useful content that serves buyers by answering their questions and adding value to the customer experience.
Companies that use content to build trust and forge relationships with buyers will be remembered when buyers are ready to purchase.
Create Marketing Campaigns That Connect
Here are a few actionable items that will help you meet the challenge of creating a valuable content marketing plan:
Step 1: Clarify Your Marketing Goals
You’ll align your marketing goals best when your content supports other company-wide efforts. Is there a new case study publishing or a webinar launching? Content should support these actions.
Step 2: Understand Your Target Audience
Your content ideas are only as strong as your understanding of your audience. Without in-depth research into your target audience’s pain points, you’ll likely be overlooked.
- Begin with a clear understanding of your buyer persona and their online buying behavior.
- Identify their preferred content mediums.
- Map out your buyer’s journey.
Step 3: Create Your Content Calendar
If you have not established a publishing cadence, your calendar will help your team plan ahead. Include key dates that align with company objectives to ensure your team leads the charge rather than lags behind.
Your goal with your calendar is to turn your research into actionable tasks that allow you to:
- Create helpful, compelling content that addresses their problems and questions at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
- Publish content unique to your brand – think original research, customer success stories, and industry insights.
- Build your email list by offering unique content resources that potential buyers can download.
- Use email marketing to nurture leads by sending them relevant content based on their interests.
- Publish blog content consistently and promote it across all your channels, ensuring you have a strong brand voice to build thought leadership.
- Use keyword research and SEO best practices to ensure your content performs well in search.
- Add guest posting on relevant, high-authority sites to your content marketing strategy.
- Optimize your website for mobile.
- Use analytics to track and measure your content performance.
- Always put your buyers first – a customer-centric focus will serve you best.
Step 4: Review Your Data and Adapt
As you prepare to begin the process all over, it’s helpful to identify which content received the most engagement.
- Use tools like Search Console to measure your company’s brand awareness
- Identify which keywords your website appears for
- Note where traffic originates, whether it’s organic search, ads, or AI
Change Is Constant
One thing is certain: the definition of content marketing will continue to evolve. Technology will advance and bring new, exciting ways to reach customers. As we gain deeper insights into buyer needs and behaviors, content preferences, and internet use, we will develop better, more targeted ways to connect with our buyers.
As AI increasingly drives zero-click searches, marketers must adapt their content by prioritizing value within AI-friendly formats. This includes optimizing for structured data, incorporating direct answers to common queries, and ensuring that brand messaging is clear even when AI extracts and summarizes content.
Additionally, businesses must create engaging, in-depth resources encouraging users to explore beyond the AI-generated overview. Thought leadership pieces, unique research, and interactive content experiences can help brands stand out and drive deeper engagement, even when AI is the first touchpoint.
Are you looking for a digital marketing partner that can help you enhance your content strategy? Contact us!
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in August 2021, and has been updated for freshness, completeness, and accuracy.