In this episode of Marketing School, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss seven marketing trends they expect to dominate 2021. 1) Community building is resurging as a high-leverage asset, with VC‑backed community‑only platforms (e.g., Circle.so) and their own Growth Accelerator peer group as examples. 2) Established brands will shift resources from creating brand‑new content to regularly updating existing assets to preserve rankings. 3) AI‑driven copy generation (GPT‑3) is emerging; they highlight Copysmith.ai as a tool for rapid headline and caption creation. 4) Content length and format will become user‑experience driven—shorter text when appropriate, longer video/audio to satisfy platform retention metrics, and a move away from rigid word‑count rules. 5) Automated account‑based marketing (ABM) is becoming scalable via platforms like metadata.io that generate ads and prospect data automatically. 6) Voice search and voice commerce are exploding (50% of US searches in 2020 were voice), prompting businesses to optimize for voice monetization with tools such as Jetson AI. 7) Subscription models are booming, with platforms like OnlyFans, Substack, SuperCast, and Patreon generating hundreds of millions in revenue. The episode closes with a promotional plug for Marketing School Pro, offering a $1‑for‑14‑days trial and access to a community of marketers.
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All right. So today we are going to talk about the 7 hottest marketing trends for 2021, and I will go first. What I'm really excited about right now is the aspect of communities getting bigger and bigger. So communities are nothing new, but it's a trend that's coming back up again. So there are people that are venture capitalists that specifically invest in community-only companies. You have companies like community.com, which is more SMS marketing. But you also have companies like Circle.so, which allows you to put your community inside. I just think if people say having media is a form of leverage, I think building a community is something that is a super high form of leverage. Because once you get it going, everyone just starts to feed off of each other's energy. And I think it's something that's hard to take away. It's something that's unique to what you have, and nobody else can just say they're going to duplicate what you have. So I think Let's use this as an example. So Neil and I, we have the Growth Accelerator, which is our peer group, and super excited to bring it back this year, um, live again. But yeah, during the, the pandemic, what we were doing was we were, we were doing, uh, virtual events once a month just to keep everyone tied together. And we've had people say that of all the networks that they're in, one person's in all the networks in the world, right? Some YPO, you might have some super, you know, other expensive ones. And they said, this is the one that they found the most value from, which Neil and I are super grateful for, but it takes time to build up a community. You can use all these different tools, but I think that's going to continue to be a trend where the people that take advantage of that, they're going to have an unfair advantage for the long-term.
The second trend is going to be people, and you'll see companies hiring people to update their content more than they do to write new content. And here's what I mean by that. If you look at the web right now with over a billion blogs and so much content, everyone is going out there and just constantly creating new content. But what you'll find is your old content is still great. It just can diminish in rankings over time unless, and this is a big unless, you constantly keep it updated. So updating content is going to be a big thing because a lot of your old content already has links. It already has somewhat traction on the social web. So if you update it, it'll constantly do better, but if you don't, it's going to keep diminishing in rankings and traffic. So you'll start seeing a big shift in companies updating more content versus writing new content, especially for the ones that are more established. If you're brand new, you won't really be updating much content, but if you're already established business, a big trend is going to be spending more time updating versus writing. All right.
Speaking of writing content, so GPT-3 is something that I still think is very nascent, but I have started testing out a tool called copysmith.ai, and it does help in terms of writing captions. So headlines for your ads, your Instagram posts, a lot of different options. And so you can just feed it one word. So let's say my one word was watermelon. Maybe it'll come up with a ton of headlines around watermelons, and maybe I have a One word would be account-based marketing that maybe that's one word I want to target. They'll create a ton of content around that. So I just set the parameters and then GPT-3 will scan all the data that they have and then they'll come up with different headlines and maybe a couple will end up working out and it ends up saving a ton of time. So I'm not affiliated at all. Copysmith.ai is a tool to check out, Neil.
So number 4, a big thing that you're also going to start seeing is people are going to shift how long they're making content. I remember there's a lot of old articles and we discussed this in a previous podcast episode, but a lot of content people used to publish out on the web would be like, oh, you need to be 2,000 words if you want to rank number 1 on Google. If you want to rank for how to tie a tie, no one wants to read a 2,000-word article on how to tie a tie. They want to see an image, a GIF, a video that explains it. So what I think you're going to start seeing in 2021 is companies are starting, going to get away from word count and instead writing what benefits the user. And that may mean you only need 500 words, but it also could mean that you need 20,000 words. So whatever creates the best user experience, especially with things like page-level experience coming out, that's what you're going to start seeing people do. But on the flip side, with video content, audio content, we're seeing that if it's under 10 minutes, it doesn't perform as well. But if you make your— let's say your videos on YouTube, 20 or 30 minutes, it doesn't really perform that much better versus a 10-minute video. So I think you're going to start seeing people start creating longer video and audio content just because these platforms want retention. But on the flip side, with text-based content, you'll start seeing companies shy away from, oh, all our articles need to be 2,000 words. All right.
Number 5 is going to be automated account-based marketing. So account-based marketing basically means if I'm going to reach out to Coca-Cola, Instead of just reaching out to their VP of marketing, I might find 4 people on their marketing team. So I'm targeting the account now. And that's how I'm going to approach my marketing and my sales. So automated account-based marketing is basically that. And there's a tool called metadata.io that allows you to basically, you set the parameters and then it'll create LinkedIn ads and Facebook ads for you. And then you can kind of market to the companies that you want to reach. It'll also help you find emails as well. There's a lot that you can do. It's not the cheapest thing in the world, but I'm just letting you know that there are solutions out there that can do that for you. And Neil, I'll pass it to you for number 6.
According to Comscore, in 2020, 50% of the searches were voice plus searches, and that was in the United States. That number is continually increasing, and you're going to see that worldwide as well. According to OC&C, voice commerce is going to reach something like, I think it was like either $40 or $50 billion per year within the next few years. which is a huge, massive number. But what you, you look at most businesses and websites, they haven't adapted to monetizing from voice search. So a big trend in 2021 to look out for is the monetization of that. And companies are going to have to start using tools like Jetson AI so they can make their site more compatible for voice search from a monetization perspective for both products and services.
All right. Number 7, last but not least. So subscriptions are nothing new, but they are trending up. So when I talk about subscriptions, I am mentioning tools like OnlyFans or Substack or SuperCast for podcasts. Substack would be for email newsletters. OnlyFans, for example, is like when Neil likes to show pictures of his family and charge you a subscription fee for it. That's the G-rated version, but there's many versions of OnlyFans. Comedians can be on there. Adult film stars can be on there. By the way, I don't know if you know this, Neil, I think they profited $300 or $400 million In the last 12 months. That's OnlyFans.
Seriously?
Yep. And so Patreon, that's what they did over the last 7 years. So OnlyFans is on the rise. And it's funny because they started with adult film stars first and everyone went to it. But anything you want to add before we go?
What was hilarious is I was talking to one of our mutual friends, Dan Fleshman, and I was just like, we were talking about influencer marketing and he was telling me some influencers and their rates. And I was asking him about some of the influencers and he's like, yeah, they do well. This one has like this car, this one has a Lamborghini. I was like, how did they afford it? And he was like, OnlyFans. And I'm like, what the heck is OnlyFans? And he's just like, it's a Patreon but for people who want to show more with less clothes. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. I didn't realize it was that big until he told me that people are just making a killing from it. And then when I Googled OnlyFans Crunchbase, because I was trying to see who owns it and who invested.
They didn't raise money.
Yeah, they didn't raise money and there's not much data about them on who owns them or anything like that.
Yep. Anyway, so that is it for today, guys. Let us know if you'd like us to start an OnlyFans. Neil will be the first one to show you skin, but that is it for today. Go to marketingschool.io/pro, $1 for 14 days to be a part of our marketing community. It's the first trend that I listed. And that's, yeah, that's it for today. See you tomorrow. Hey everyone. So Neil Patel and I are doing an education program around Marketing School Pro, and all you have to do is put in $1 for a 14-day trial. And what you will get is exclusive content. You get monthly ask me anythings. You will get an ad-free version of the podcast. You'll get monthly show notes as well, and you'll get access to a marketing community of geniuses such as yourself. So if this is something you're looking for, I always talk about the power of peer groups, then all you have to do is click to learn more. All it is is $1 for 14 days and you will get massive value or you lose a dollar. All right, so that's it for this. Hope to see you inside.
