Three Digital Marketing Trends That Will Take You Closer To Your Customers

To thrive in business, you have to go where the customers are, and customers are online more than ever. At Infosoft Solutions, we have discovered that more than half of the population uses the Internet and social media and 60 percent of that population spend most of their time online every day. Lately, our industry experts carried out a study to discover new trends in the digital marketing space, determine changes in costumers’ behavior, and how those changes will affect digital marketing and advertising in the future.

From the results, our analytics experts discovered three significant digital marketing trends already impacting the business space. In the next few pages, we will discuss these trends with you so that you can leverage them to get closer to your consumers and increase your chancing of succeeding in your marketing campaigns.

1. People are more attracted to Visuals, Videos, And Voice

Meeker reported that Americans spent 6.3 hours a day using digital media in 2018, an increase of 7 percent from 2017, and even over that figure in 2019 and 2020, respectively. People get information from many sources too, which makes it hard to capture their attention. But here is how to do it.

Images: According to the findings by Meeker, image-sharing is becoming how people communicate, as technology developments like faster wifi and better phone cameras, which have encouraged a surge in image-taking. More than 50 percent of Twitter impressions now involve posts with images, video, or other media.

Always take the time to make sure that your visuals accurately represent your brand image. Use fonts, photos, graphics, and logos that reflect your brand, and ensure each of them is consistent. Then, use social media to get those images in front of your customers.

Video: Online streaming is currently taking over the globe. People now prefer watching videos online than downloading them. According to findings, Americans spent 32 percent of their daily video-watching time on digital video in 2020, compared to 28 percent in 2019. If you observed, you would discover that the number of people that stream videos on YouTube has increased exponentially in recent times. And the consumption of video is expected to keep growing.

You should start making more promotional videos if you are not. To enable you to gain the benefits of video marketing, you should create multiple versions of your video ads and tailor them for different platforms. Some videos may need to be longer, depending on the outlet. For example, most Facebook users are probably not signing onto the platform specifically to watch videos, so shorter ads that are only some seconds long might be more suited to the site. In contrast, YouTube users are actively looking for video content and may be more amenable to watching longer videos.

Voice: Voice-based technology is growing very fast, and its importance is beginning to be known. It is a far productive marketing strategy than videos and images or another form of digital marketing. One in every three people in the world is either listening to voice notes or music every one hour. If you visit parks, schools, hospitals, business complexes, gym centers, etc., you will discover that one in every five persons you see there has their earphones even listening to a song or voice-note via loudspeaker. It is becoming more convenient for people because it allows them to listen to anything while also engaged with another task or activity. In case you have not realized it yet, they are a larger number of people on Podcast daily than even on YouTube. Even our schools are beginning to offer educational resources and lectures in voice recordings. Voice search is already making inroads into traditional search engine marketing. You should start leveraging it if you have not started yet.

You should start by optimizing your content for voice, not just traditional SEO. The main guiding principle of SEO applies: Provide users with the best experience. Begin by determining what questions your target audience is likely to ask, and then add content to your website that answers those questions. Answer them directly and in a conversational tone, keeping in mind that the content could be read aloud by a voice assistant.

Also, make it easy for search engines to discover and process the content by developing an FAQ page that uses structured data. In summary, structured data helps search engines understand what a page is all about.

2. Programmatic Ads Are Big

Programmatic advertising, which is the use of software to buy digital advertising, is growing fast. According to Meeker, programmatic ads now make up 62 percent of all digital display ad buying.

Forrester predicts that digital marketing spending will reach $146 billion by 2023. In another report, Forrester predicts that there will be a new emphasis on quality over quantity, a dynamic that will reintroduce human intervention into programmatic ad buying. This change will likely reward those who have built their solution sets and bolstered their team for that market growth.

Ensure that your team understands the capabilities of programmatic advertising and every platform that support these efforts. The different advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc., already have built-in programmatic elements like dynamic bidding that advertisers can leverage immediately.

As Meeker rightly states, time spent on computers is on the decline. The majority of the growth in time spent with digital media comes from mobile and other devices. Therefore, you should ensure your programmatic ad campaigns are mobile-friendly and optimized for on-the-go users.

When drafting a programmatic strategy, you should first think about who your audiences are and how they use their mobile devices. Are they consuming content in apps or a mobile browser? What type of content do they consume — video, audio, news?

Then, make use of creatives that breaks through the clutter and distractions that exist on mobile devices. Different ad formats can be tested —from traditional banner ads and video to audio and native ads. Ensure you optimize ads for the mobile experience: Ensure that the message is legible with a strong and clear call-to-action.

3. Customer Data Reigns Supreme

Meeker’s report highlights the importance of data plumbing and how it can help businesses better understand their customers and make smarter business marketing decisions. Indeed, all digital marketing — including mobile, social, email, video, SEM, and SEO — should be data-driven. The truth is; many of the highly successful digital platforms are already leveraging data to determine the type of content each of their users engage the most with and predict future interest. Some IT firms are also applying data analytics to drive critical business decisions and boost sales in their business.

Raw data, collected and analyzed, can be turned into actionable insights that you can use to gear your campaigns and meet the people’s needs. Over time, you can use artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to make campaigns smarter and more responsive to evolving trends and customer purchasing patterns.

You can start by using Google Analytics to measure page views, bounce rates. Link Google Analytics to your Google Ads accounts so you can see how paid search clicks translate to website activity. Eventually, you can start applying historical data to help you better understand what has worked better in the past so you can optimize your campaigns for future success.

The digital marketing environment is rapidly changing. The old rules of the game may no longer be as effective as before. You should be ready to adopt new marketing strategies and tools to stay ahead with your customers.