Entering the fourth quarter of 2015, we can see that Content Marketing is indeed continuing to lead the herd, as predicted.

It has been around for some time now, and has made a powerful impact since day one – Mostly due to its cleverly subtle nature and its ability to go viral through social networking.

However, it has only recently been acknowledged as a truly essential and highly effective form of online marketing. With 89% of Content Marketers saying it works and delivers results, Content Marketing really does live up to its title as “The Future of Marketing”.

Here are a few trends and forecasts to keep in mind for the near future of Content Marketing:

1) Annual spend should continue to grow:

With the growing understanding of how much Content Marketing is important, more and more content marketers find themselves abandoning the need to fight for budgets. Instead, they are taken more seriously, are given more funds and accordingly – are expected to deliver better results. In 2013, the budget allocated for Content Marketing in the US was 12.4% of total marketing spend. Two years afterwards, in 2015, the budget is about 23.3%. According to assessments, the budget in 2017 is believed to reach 33.1%.

With the budget allocation continuing to expand, it seems to only be a matter of knowing how to use it wisely. To fully maximize the annual growth, the next step seems to be obtaining the proper expertise and developing industry standards for measurement and optimization.

2) Measurement tools will develop further:

According to several researches, the majority of participants (58%), from various business sectors, believe that Content Marketing is completely measurable. Participants from the media sector have even more faith, as 65% of them believe that Content Marketing can be completely measured.

When asked about the importance of developing tools for further advanced measurement, 66% of total participants responded that they are more likely to invest in measurement tools now than 5 years ago.

The numbers speak for themselves, and it should be interesting to see what the future holds in terms of advanced designated measurement tools.

3) Standardization of the micro-targeting approach:

Targeting, in many aspects, is the bread and butter of online advertising. Digital marketers are always on the lookout for improved and more advanced targeting options. According to assessments, Content Marketing will continue going with the micro-targeting approach, taking it even one step further.

This means that businesses could actually get to connect better with their customers and know them in a more personal and deeper level. From a customer’s point of view, receiving personalized and granular bits of content encourages trust and leads to loyalty. From the business’ point of view, this process results in loyal and highly engaged customers, who remain devoted to the brand. These site personalization technologies, with which we are familiar from the E-commerce world, are now being utilized by other industries for personalizing content distribution to customers. This trend is expected to become more and more popular, and best practices should improve as time goes by – leading to more targeted responses and better results.