Digital Marketing Trends
“Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.”
- Joe Chernov
And if the customer feels smart, all the efforts you made for marketing your products/services achieve success.
Digital Marketing is everywhere today. It has become so crucial that if you don’t employ it, your product is likely to achieve much less success than it deserves to. No matter how potent and top-quality your product is, it can not gain you profits if it is not properly marketed.
An article by SearchEngineJournal has the title, ‘LinkedIn lists Digital Marketer as a top in-demand job’. Digital Marketing Specialists was found to have the most number of job openings available, job growth over the past four years, offering a great salary, and the required skills can be learned via online resources.
What else do you need to go with an online marketing program?
With the pandemic hitting every corner of the world, bringing the world to a big halt, it has impacted each and every business. Numerous organizations have found it crucial to go online to keep in touch with their customers as they are bound to go online for shopping and every other routine task.
Eventually, there is a surge in the number of companies looking for trained and skilled digital marketing professionals. Though there is a change in the strategies for online shopping, the digital marketing adoption and implementation by the companies is not new.
In this article, we will explore the top trends in digital marketing this year.
Digital Marketing Overview
Simply put, Digital Marketing is the process of utilizing the Internet to reach customers. So, digital marketing is all about using the Internet, mobile devices, search engines, email, social media, etc.
The popular Digital Marketing channels include website marketing, Pay-Per-Click Advertising, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing, SMS Messaging, Video Marketing, etc.
Top 10 Trends in Digital Marketing
Artificial Intelligence
According to Techgrabyte:
“Artificial Intelligence is the biggest commercial opportunity for companies, industries, and nations over the next few decades, and will increase global GDB by up to 14% between now and 2030”. This implies that the companies that have still not adopted AI for digital marketing will find themselves lagging behind in recent years.
AI is believed to allow companies to acquire a competitive advantage and will help in reducing costs considerably. Technology lies in the heart of global businesses and industries.
The most common example of the application of AI in marketing is chatbots.
Artificial Intelligence is the driving force behind many areas including Product recommendation, email personalization, basic communication, eCommerce transactions, and content creation.
Programmatic Advertising
When AI is used to automate ad purchasing so that you can target a more specific audience. The most common example of programmatic advertising purchasing is real-time bidding. This automation results in higher conversions as well as lower costs of customer acquisitions.
Also, programmatic advertising is revolutionizing digital marketing so effectively that as per eMarketer, by 2020 nearly 86% of digital display ads in the US will be programmatic.
Chatbots are expected to dominate customer service
Can you believe Oracle that states that 80% of businesses want chatbots by 2020?
Surveys also state that by 2020, 85% of customer service will be powered by chatbots.
The benefits of chatbots include instant responses to inquiries, 24*7 service, and answering efficiently to simple questions.
Also Read: Best Digital Marketing Tools
Good Content Matters
Content marketing continues to influence people and is an essential component of digital marketing. But quality always matters and that’s why emphasis should be on context and targeting.
Point to be noted: Content marketing is going to stay and grow.
This is the reason that Google is developing a deeper, advanced understanding of online content. So, marketers should think meticulously about their target market and the ways to tailor their content more precisely in 2021.
Conversational Marketing
When users have questions, 82% wish to have an immediate response.
Chatbots are more conversational as they facilitate one-to-one, real-time connections between customers and marketers. It is a personalized approach to online business. This can be done with chats, voice assistants, chatbots, or any other variety of conversational AI.
Personalization
Have a look at some stats on personalization:
- Nearly 80% of people say that they are more likely to do business with an organization that offers personalized experiences.
- 90% of people believe that they find personalization appealing.
- Nearly 63% of people find generic advertising blasts annoying.
The most amazing example of the potential of personalization is Netflix and Amazon that offer tailored recommended products and movie titles. Other companies that successfully implement personalization today are Cadbury’s, Starbucks, Easyjet, and many more.
Video Marketing
We know that videos are a really effective medium of influencing people. When we look at an advertisement, we are likely to click it more than the advertisement made of just text.
The following are the stats that make you realize the significance of incorporating video content for digital marketing strategies:
- Nearly 70% of users state that they have shared a brand’s video.
- Around 65% of executives click on the marketer’s website and 39% make a call to the vendor after watching the video.
- 52% of users feel that watching videos related to the product makes them more confident about making a purchase.
- If your site includes videos, it becomes 50% more likely to drive organic results as compared to text.
Videos have always been the most preferred medium if you wish to learn anything. If you wish to try your hand at any science experiment, learn a new concept, troubleshoot a problem in your laptop, a new recipe, or just any household chore, you switch to YouTube, isn’t it? Or the latest trend, TikTok! This platform has an organic engagement that is higher than Instagram! Which would make it the best platform at this point to create videos and get views, and audience participation.
Interactive Content is Vital
Interactive content includes 360-degree videos, Augmented Reality Advertisements, Polls, and Quizzes.
So, interactive content is anything that users can click on, swipe, tap, or interact with online. Nearly 93% of marketers consider interactive content as highly effective at guiding users, according to Outgrow.
Interactive content utilizes cutting-edge marketing technology to offer people a more engaging, immersive experience. These days, consumers are happy with this type of fun content from brands, as it makes them feel confident and connected with the brand.
Omnichannel marketing works wonders
Omnichannel marketing refers to the practice of marketing your products/services across multiple channels that include apps, social media, email, and your website blog. You might have found an ad of the same brand on YouTube, Facebook, eCommerce sites as well. This is omnichannel marketing.
When you adopt omnichannel marketing traits, you get much better customer retention, purchase frequency, and higher average order value.
Instagram is on its high.
Instagram has become popular among youth as it offers interactive and visual user experiences. In 2020, the number of Instagram users crossed the 1 billion mark. This means that it is one of the most quickly growing social media platforms.
The majority of marketers state that they get great results if they put interactive content over Instagram and other social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and many more.
Apart from the top ten trends for Digital Marketing, there are more trends to consider such as
- Social Messaging Apps
- Visual Search: Pinterest Lens, Google Lens, CamFind, and more.
- Micro-Moments
- Smart Speakers and Voice Search
- Social Media Stories
- Browser Push Notifications
- Social Commerce and Shoppable Posts
- Growth of Geo-Fencing
- User-generated content
- Progressive Web Apps
- Blockchain Technology
- Big Data and Deep Learning
And many more.
Conclusion
You have now seen the most prominent trends for Digital Marketing this year. To keep up with the marketing strategies, companies are looking for digital marketing experts in every corner of the world.
If you wish to launch your career in Digital Marketing, or simply wish to market your own products or services, you should learn all the traits of Digital Marketing. The learning goes easily and effectively if you take up an online training course and get certified.
Enroll yourself now!
