As technology improves, how business owners market their business online changes. Google updates their rules often.
If you don’t keep up with the shifting landscape of digital marketing, your business suffers. Not only could you lose out to your competition, Google could penalize your site.
It’s easier to keep up with current digital marketing trends. To help you succeed, here are seven latest trends in digital marketing you need to know about.
1. Consumer Behavior is Changing
Consumers have changed their purchasing behaviors. Unfortunately, some companies aren’t keeping up with the latest digital marketing trends. In fact, many companies still operate on an outdated system.
New tools, apps, and systems can help connect you with consumers in new and exciting ways. Businesses have to embrace technology and use it to work for them and keep their customers safe.
Most can’t even measure their social media or content marketing efforts. Without understanding the data, there’s no way to see if your efforts work.
That means, time, effort, and money is being wasted. The strategies that aren’t working as well as they should be. Today’s consumer is hyper-empowered.
Consumers now have a wealth of information at their fingertips. If you’re not supplying them with the information they need, they’ll go somewhere else.
Also, it’s no longer useful to target everyone. Instead, companies should focus on building their brand. They need to target their niche market and search for influencers.
2. New Content Marketing Trends
Content marketing has been a huge part of digital marketing trends for a few years now. Companies need to stay current with the latest content marketing trends.
Customers now want longer content. While 500-word posts are great, consumers want more in-depth information.
But the long-form content must also contain quality. It’s not enough to just write something; it has to be useful, informative, or at least entertaining.
There’s also more of a focus on ROI within the content. Links, keywords, videos, and photos are all part of search engine optimization on your site.
Understanding the data from your content strategies is also effective. It helps you understand your customers better. You’ll also be able to provide those consumers with better content based on the data.
3. Marketing Automation
One of the greatest digital marketing trends to come along is marketing automation. It saves time, money, and eliminates many errors.
Yet, businesses have been slow to adopt a marketing automation system. Even e-mail marketing, which has proven for years to be an effective and easy marketing tool.
Automation tools also allow you to personalize your campaigns. People buy from people, not businesses. The more tailored you can make the experience, the more likely people are to buy from you.
Thanks to marketing automation, there are tools in place to make it easy to set up. Often, all you need is a CTA (call to action) that encourages your customers to give you their e-mail address. In return, they’ll receive in a newsletter or discount.
4. Using Your Big Data
Understanding and using big data opens a lot of doors for your marketing campaigns. You can use the information to create a stronger marketing strategy.
Analytics will help you predict your consumer’s behavior. You can set up effective strategies aligned with how you know your customer will respond.
Real-time data allows you to make changes immediately. In the past, you would have to wait until the campaign was over to find out how successful it was.
You can also create value to increase sales through personalization on your website.
5. Mobile Marketing and Geofencing
Mobile marketing is becoming more popular. 77% of Americans now own a smartphone.
They are using their phone to conduct research before they make a purchase. That trend will only increase.
But there’s also something known as geofencing. It’s taking the latest digital marketing trends to the next level.
Geofencing uses GPS (global positioning) or RFID (radio frequency identification). It creates a virtual geographical boundary around your business or localized region.
When people who have already opted-in cross that virtual boundary, it sets off a trigger.
Customers then receive banner ads, text messages, and even e-mail notifications.
For instance, say you own a clothing boutique in San Diego. Once a customer crosses the barrier, they’ll receive real-time promotions from your business. You can localize digital promotions and even create geographic specific content.
6. Video is Huge in Digital Marketing Trends
By 2019, video will account for 80% of all internet traffic. Facebook already generates eight billion videos every single day.
There are different ways to use video depending on your marketing goals. You can continue to use the 30-second ad style that began 20 years ago. It also comes with a $2 million budget per video.
Now that ad-blocking is available, it’s not as profitable as it once was. Brands have to engage with their consumers in a different way. Usually, that means providing them with entertaining content and native advertising.
Live streaming has become a new and popular trend. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter were all early adopters.
A traditional ad takes 30-seconds. But now more consumers want to view videos that last only six seconds. And they’re not always interested in hearing what the video has to say.
Rather, they’d prefer to read the subtitles in silence while they’re watching the video.
7. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing ebbs and flows. There is still a huge interest in it because of its wide reach and options to engage audiences.
Certain sites like Twitter are beginning to plateau in certain western markets. Meanwhile, Instagram continues to grow in usage.
Even social media giant Facebook is declining in certain areas. One merely has to remember what happened to popular social media site My Space to realize no site is immune.
Despite that, many sites continue to provide innovative targeting and marketing options.
Get Professional Marketing Help
It’s not easy to keep up with the latest digital marketing trends. It’s even more difficult to run a company and create new marketing strategies.
It takes a team of professionals like us who know how to help your business grow and succeed.
But don’t take our word for it, read what others have said about us.