Digital Marketing Trends
Let’s face it – digital marketing is here to stay. Every business is beefing up its digital presence to reach its customers. And every day, more people are using digital platforms to feed their needs.
The global COVID-19 pandemic became a turning point in the online surge. Being on lockdown created more me-time for individuals. Because of convenience and accessibility, the majority sought refuge in internet surfing as a pastime. By Q1 of 2020, internet usage grew by 47% as contributed by these jaw-dropping statistics:
7 billion minutes of meetings at Microsft Teams in a single day
50,000 years worth of media content streamed by Americans in a single day
200% more videos and calls thru WhatsApp
41% growth in annual profit at Nintendo
27% increase in daily website traffic coming from Facebook
The online world continues to expand and meet the demands of consumers. Busin esses are getting more immersed in digitalization for market penetration. If you’re wondering what strategies can help your business catapult into the digital world, check out our bets that aced this year and will continue to 2022.
- Big Data
No strategy is reliable without the power of data. Having the right data will equip you with an effective action plan. Big data refers to high-volume information that is used to track sales and customers. It looks at consumer behavior, purchase patterns, and market trends.
Big data can be taken from customer databases, business transactions, medical records, and social networks. It has 4 main features that can qualify the gathered information:
- Velocity: the speed of forming and storing data
- Volume: the quantity generated both by a person or system
- Variety: the types and sources of data
- Veracity: the quality and accuracy of data
When big data is processed and used correctly, it provides consumer insights that can tailor a digital marketing plan. That would give a company the edge in audience targeting, price optimization, and sales growth. Some tools can help you if big data is a priority for your business.
2. Powerful Content
Content marketing may be the strongest bet for marketers to bank on. It covers from branding to sales across all digital media. When you think about it, almost everything that you see on the internet is content targeted towards you. The types may include:
- Infographics
- Blogging
- Video
- Podcast
- Emails
- Webinars
- Quizzes
- Free apps
Remarkable content can bring brand awareness, website traffic, and sales conversion to your business. Identifying and learning about your niche will pivot your content to success. So, always make it relatable and interactive to your audience. Make it accessible to where your niche probably will spend their time around the internet. Powerful content can deliver not only your business objective but bolster your SEO.
3. Mobile First
68% of global website visits in 2020 were thru mobile phones. While desktops performed better in bounce rate, page views, and time spent – people preferred mobiles for their easy navigation. Mobiles are perfect for getting quick information while desktops for researching in-depth data.
Google coined Mobile First Design that refers to designing for mobile before the desktop version. This is great for developers because of the flexibility to scale up using mobile features. They can integrate with voice detection, camera, and push notifications that are lacking on desktop.
An improved mobile design has benefits to both user experience and sales conversion. With the right mix of interface and features, companies can effectively guide the consumers to the intended user flow. A mobile-first approach also improves page speed and search engine ranking. If your traffic is 75% or more coming from mobile, this strategy is definitely for you.
4. Marketing Automation
Some days, there are many tasks to handle. This might be the case for businesses that have multiple digital platforms with a growing lead and customer base. The answer that they might not be aware of is marketing automation. This makes flows and processes swift and less complicated for them.
Foremost, determine the processes that have the potential to be automated. These are usually processes that have heavy customer activity and require your immediate attention like email and chat responses. See where the bottlenecks are and the opportunities for automation. There are automation tools to help you if you’re unsure how to do it.
With marketing automation, you can support your digital strategy through different content, channels, and customers. You get the upper hand for your business too:
- Automate your marketing activity
- Lead nurturing across multiple channels
- Improved performance of marketing campaigns
- Reduce marketing costs
- Save time from repetitive tasks
5. Personalized Emails
Email marketing is still one of the best inbound marketing strategies to reach your audience. According to Campaign Monitor’s study, small businesses ranked email marketing second as a tool in brand awareness and customer acquisition. That’s because you have the liberty and creativity to put any content in an email.
For an email to stand out, there must be personalization. Look at how the emails you’re subscribed to have been reaching out to you. Notice the shift from the old way’s generic e-blasts to the now’s targeted conservations. Having hyper-targeted emails can increase readability and conversion. Engage with your audience through a buyer persona based on their demographics:
- Age
- Location
- Interests
- Behavior
- Pages or products viewed
Email marketing’s biggest advantage is you own your data – making it the highest channel for customer communication. It’s also the top channel for return on investment. Therefore, companies ensure allocated budget and effort into email marketing. Just find a way to personally connect with your customers to take it to the next level.
6. Social Media
As of April 2021, there are 4.3 billion active users of social media. An average of 2.4 hours is spent on social media every day. WhatsApp is hailed as the favorite social media platform followed by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
What you can do on social media is quite extensive. It’s a great channel for unique and compelling brand storytelling. You can play around with interactive content from videos to games. To be relevant and capture your audience, be updated on the latest trends. Good ones include social media stories, live streaming, and influencer marketing.
So, why does social media continue to dominate? Human connection. Brands are investing in building social communities to engage with their audience. Adding a human touch will make your audience feel acknowledged and heard. That nurtures brand liking and trust in the long run as said by leading global educator Neal Schaffer:
“I’m not talking about engagement so that your content shows up better in the algorithm, but thanking those people in your community not only when they comment or engage with your content but proactively reaching out to them like a social media user would reach out to a friend. If your business wants to survive in organic social media in 2020, I believe that this sort of humanization of your brand will be necessary.”
7. Social Commerce
Social commerce was born when e-commerce met social media. Driven by social media growth, online shopping is now experiential retail. We’re met with shoppable content that is meant to entice us without even knowing it. Online retailers are also cross-promoting their products on e-commerce platforms and social media.
30% of online shoppers are likely to purchase from social media. Instagram reigns supreme in social commerce where 60% of Instagram users say they find new products there. Several brands publish their shoppable posts on Instagram that, in turn, gain a 1,416% increase in page traffic.
Facebook has been building up its e-commerce features too. As a seller, you can promote your products through posts, stories, and collections. As other competing sellers aggressively promote theirs, you can win your customers’ attention by any of these best practices:
- Offer discounts
- Run giveaways
- Create polls
- Automated check-out
- Product reviews
8. Pay-per-Click
One way to get more visitors to your website is through pay-per-click (PPC). It is a form of advertising that involves bidding on a perceived value of a click-based on keywords, platforms, and audience. You will only pay for the cost if someone clicks on your ad. You can bring home profit if you get a sale that’s higher than the click you paid for. So, imagine paying for a $5 click and getting a $500 sale!
Relevance is vital to having a strong PPC strategy. Brand awareness, lead generation, and sales growth are the top goals when it comes to PPC. As an advertiser, researching your product and audience helps you know the relevant keywords that you can use to reach your goal. Try to exhaust all the possible keywords around your product.
The main PPC platforms are Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. Whichever works for your business best, enhance it with sub-strategies for higher chances of achieving your goal. Determine what could go along with your budget:
- PPC Automation
- Smart Bidding
- Visual Search
- Social Media
- Bumper Video Ads
9. Online Reviews
An online review is like a free ad that can be a win or lose for your business. The top 3 important traits that customers are looking for from a business are reliability, expertise, and professionalism. As to how an online review influences your customers, here’s a rundown:
90% of customers read online reviews before visiting a business
88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
31% of customers are likely to spend on a business with excellent reviews
86% of customers hesitate to purchase from a business with negative reviews
27% of customers find reliability as the most important trait for a business
To get your online reviews ramping up, register your business at Google Business. It’s the most useful and accessible online review. Enable reviews on your social media platforms too as that will attract your audiences there. If getting a review is a bit hard, create some sort of incentive for your customers to invite them to give you a review. This can raise your business’ reputation – and at the same time – have information that can guide you to improvement.
10. Marketing Analytics
The common problem for marketing is not knowing the specific results that you want to see. Setting the metrics can be extra difficult if operating omnichannel marketing. For simplified metric recognition and tracking, a good marketing analytics tool can get you those.
Marketing analytics is the practice of managing and analyzing data to determine the ROI of your marketing efforts. It can track your activities like calls-to-actions, blog posts, channel performance, and thought leadership pieces. The analytics will help in the decision-making and strategy management of your business.
Google Analytics and HubSpot are a few of the analytics tools that you can rely on. They can collect and deduce data with their established algorithms. With a lot of data that these can capture, you can just choose the ones that are significant to your campaign. Analyzing and using these analytics can make a data-informed impact on your business.
- Improved user experience
- Calculation of ROI of marketing efforts
- Planning for future marketing strategies
Final Thoughts
There’s no one-size-fits-all for digital marketing. Start by having a clear understanding of your business and brand. Then ask yourself, what goals do you want to achieve? Our list can be your reference point for strategies.
With so much stuff to roll out in digital marketing, an extra pair of hands makes it a lot easier. You’d be happy to know that a Yokly VA can be your rockstar help in researching and getting things done. They’ll be your arm in improving your business’ digital presence competitively.
