As we head towards the end of a magnificent year where we have seen a tremendous emergence of new digital marketing trends, it would be interesting to review how these trends will affect businesses the next year.
Today’s highly competitive businesses place great demands on their marketing teams to keep up with industry trends if they are to face the competition in a bullish manner. What can we except next year when it comes to digital marketing trends?
Read on to find out more so you can be prepared to implement and leverage the power of the latest digital trends before your competitors does.
Emphasis on Content Marketing
With each passing day, content marketing is becoming even more important, particularly in the eyes of Google. As Google continues to release new algorithms, it enforces the need of high quality content on websites so users can enjoy a better experience. Poor content automatically results in a ‘demotion’ in search engine results pages.Apart from search engines, today’s consumers are wiser and more demanding. They now have so many options at their disposal that they are not bound to any single brand or website to get information or avail products or services. This means if you truly want to engage your target audience and want to establish yourself as a leader in your industry, you will have to utilize a comprehensive content marketing strategy.
Enhanced Conversion Optimization Efforts
Also commonly referred to as the conversion rate optimization (CRO), this submits to the process of maximizing a website’s number of visitors who become your customers. This can be accomplished through split testing, where two somewhat different web pages are revealed to consecutive searchers to see where they click. This practice helps marketers understand which aspects of a page or its layout are ideal for producing the greatest number of conversions.Conversion optimization will continue well into 2016 as more and more businesses try and increase the number of visitors that become customers.
Sharp Rise in Development of Mobile-Friendly Websites
The importance of having a mobile-friendly website cannot be overemphasized. The number of people using mobile devices to access the internet is increasing, and will continue to increase. After all, who isn’t inclined to whip out their tablet or smartphone while lying on the couch, and browsing the Internet?If a website does not work well on mobile devices, users simply exit. They have many options on their hands and they can head to the website of your competitor. Apart from the added convenience for your visitors, Google has also started to penalize websites that are not mobile-friendly.
In this day and age where mobile devices have become a tenet of life – the need for getting responsive websites designed has become more of a necessity than a luxury. In case, if you seek professional guidance, you can always consult with web developing experts.
Utilizing of Marketing Automation Tools
Even though marketing automation has been around for some time, it has only been a few months in which it is being vigorously implemented and utilized by marketers. The primary driving force behind this has been the explosive emergence and popularity of social media networks. With so many social media platforms, businesses find it difficult to manage their marketing campaigns and engage their audience in a timely manner.This has led to the popularity of marketing automation tools that allow businesses to plan their social posts in advance, while the automation tools post them at a pre-defined date and time. This enables companies to reach out to their customers even outside of business hours, such as in the evenings and weekends when traffic on social media is the highest.
The demand for marketing automation will continue to grow as consumers become more and more dependent on mobile devices, which in turn, increases their use of social media.
Use of Video for Marketing
Marketers have started to use videos to promote their products and services since the past few years. It is a trend that has been more popular among larger brands because it provides a more interactive way of explaining things beyond what mere text or images could ever allow.As we approach the end of this year, there has been witnessed a growing use of videos for promotional purposes by smaller businesses too.
Regardless of the size of business, this trend will be among one of the hottest in 2016. With video platforms such as YouTube available, you can gain traffic to your website by creating videos and posting them online. Many promotional videos have gone viral, giving immense profits to those who created them.
Increase in Social Marketing
Even though a lot of businesses have realized the potential that social marketing holds for their businesses, there are many who actually do not even possess even the slightest of know-how about social conversion. The aim of all social media campaigns is, and should be, to generate leads. This could be done in a number of ways, say, by getting ‘likes’, ‘shares’, and of course, purchases.With that said, it is imperative that you promote your content in a way that is not only entertaining, but relevant to your industry (and platform). You shouldn’t only be posting links to your content.
Those marketers that are not utilizing social media for their marketing efforts will find their companies lagging way behind their competitors.
Less Reliance on Google
Google has become something like a star, where the marketers orbit around Google trying to get as much energy as possible. While Google undoubtedly should be a crucial part of your overall marketing campaigns and the recipient of your efforts of trying to get more search traffic to your website, in 2016, reliance on Google alone would decrease.Diverse marketing efforts, such as those involving social media, email marketing, PPC, video channels, and more are important to actually develop interest in your audience instead of just trying to get a good ranking in search engines.
If you wish to remain ahead of your competitors in 2016, you will need to implement the above digital marketing trends in your marketing strategy and use them to your advantage.
Infographic courtesy of: Microsoft.
This is a guest contribution from James E. Hein.
