7 Digital Marketing Trends To Watch Out For

Having an excellent digital marketing strategy is critical to the success of your business, particularly in the modern world.

Whether it’s optimizing your website so it can be found easily on search engines or creating engaging content that draws people to your social media accounts, you’ll need to have a variety of digital marketing tools in place to help attract new customers and engage with existing ones. To help you get started, we’ve outlined some of the top trends you can expect to see in the industry over the next few months.

1. More resources allocated to social media

A recent study by Statista found that the average internet user spends 144 minutes a day on social media apps. In addition, the current pandemic is keeping more people at home meaning outdoor campaigns won’t be as successful as they once were. Therefore, bigger budgets will be allocated to social media teams to help businesses stay in touch with their target audience.

2020 has also seen the rise of the social media app TikTok, which now has the highest social media engagement rate per post. Marketeers may begin using this platform in addition to trusted social media sites to engage with younger audiences.

2. Account-based marketing

More and more businesses are turning to account-based marketing (ABM) because of its high success rate. Around 85% of marketeers who measure return on investment said they felt ABM delivered much higher returns than any other marketing approach.

Rather than creating generic content that might not attract the right audience, ABM involves marketing to a very specific segment. These tend to be high-value accounts that will generate big results for a company meaning campaigns can be personalized and as a result, more successful.

3. Video game marketing

To slow the spread of coronavirus, many stores were forced to close for a few months in 2020. To ensure their customers didn’t forget about them and were ready to return to stores once they reopened, KFC launched an island on the popular video game Animal Crossing. Gamers were encouraged to visit the island and find Colonel Sanders, the founder of the chain and now its mascot. Those who successfully located him were given vouchers to use in store.

This was a clever tactic by KFC who saw the advantage of conducting content marketing within a video game. 2021 might see other brands following suit and carrying out video game advertising as a way of attracting customers back into stores.

4. Growth of mobile

More consumers are using their mobiles to search for products and services which means businesses are having to adapt their websites for mobile users; simple things can be done to make a site more mobile-friendly such as removing large videos that take a long time to load and using big CTA buttons that can be spotted easily.

Businesses should also think about updating their details on online directories such as Google My Business. You’ll want potential customers who are local to you to be able to find you easily so having relevant contact details and an up-to-date address on the internet is crucial.

Businesses will also need to consider adapting their SEO strategy for mobile users as they are unlikely to type out longtail keywords. You’ll need to consider targeting short keywords that your audience might type into a search engine.

5. Increased use of data analytics

The rise of AI and big data has been useful for the marketing industry. Software such as Google Analytics has helped marketeers to understand more about the types of consumers that are engaging with their campaigns. Google Analytics also provides data such as bounce rates, entrances and the average time a person spends on a webpage which has enabled marketeers to create more personalized campaigns to turn leads into customers.

6. Influencer marketing

Before social media, celebrities would often endorse products or companies for a fee. However, the rise of Instagram influencers has allowed marketeers to tap into a new form of marketing whereby key leaders in a particular market can advertise their products or services.

When you visit Instagram, you might see the word ‘AD’ before a caption on an image. Often, these signify that the poster is being paid to showcase a product. Brands such as Estee Lauder have successfully done this. In 2017, the brand joined forces with Kendall Jenner, who at the time had over 81 million Instagram followers, to market their products on her platform.

7. Voice search

Ever used Siri to answer a burning question? Maybe, you’ve asked Alexa what the weather’s going to be like on the weekend. Either way, voice search is on the rise with Quoracreative predicting that by 2022, voice-based shopping will reach $40 billion. Quoracreative also states that the top three common keywords used in voice search are the phrases: ‘how’, ‘what’ and ‘best’. Consequently, businesses will need to consider optimizing their websites so that customers can find them via voice search.

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