Operating in a digital world means that things are evolving constantly. With your business, you must decide whether you want to keep your techniques from 2017 and risk being stuck in the past, or see what’s new and how you can integrate it into your current system. We have made it extremely easy for you to stay updated by compiling a list of the five biggest digital marketing trends that will take place during 2018. These trends will help your business integrate your digital marketing into your overall marketing strategy, a key element in the success of your business.
Digital Marketing Trend 1: Integrating personalization into the user journey and customer experience
Personalization of websites is an amazing tool that boosts communication with consumers, but can be a lot of work and is rather expensive. Over the years, lower cost options have become available and will be become much more accessible. With the increase in online shopping that takes place, consumers now expect a digital experience that is practically identical to the overall experience they would receive in-person. When working toward personalization there are three steps that you must take in order for it to reach consumers and attract them. First, businesses must perform experiments such as AB Testing, Multivariate testing or Google Optimize to see what their current users prefer when it comes to website design. Next, your company must segment the market and find the different relevant groups so that you can better match their needs through personalization. Lastly, 1 to 1 personalization will be fulfilled once the artificial intelligence technology is implemented.
Digital Marketing Trend 2: Integrating video into the customer journey
Over the years, YouTube has become one of the biggest search engines used by consumers. This is due to the fact that users can find a wide range of content, in a much more engaging way. As the site continues to grow, marketers must use it to their advantage to promote their brand through ads before the intended video, explainer ads on site, and retargeting through video. Now, when most users see an ad appear before a video, their automatic response is to skip it. That is why YouTube introduced pre-roll ads that users aren’t allowed to skip because they only play for 6 seconds. This creates a challenge for marketers as they are forced to promote their brand in a small window in time, but there is a higher rate that it will be viewed. Second, explainer ads are short (typically 30-90 second) videos that are usually animated, and just give a brief explanation of what users can expect from your brand. These are extremely easy to make and if done right, can be entertaining to watch! Lastly, retargeting through videos can be done on many social media platforms and plays a huge role in lead conversion.
Digital Marketing Trend 3: Integrating content marketing into the customer journey
Content marketing is extremely important to good digital marketing and is finally being recognized for its importance and integrated into the overall marketing strategy. If this isn’t something that your business has considered doing, we recommend looking into it! Developing content that is catered towards the different segments you identified back in trend 1 will be more appealing to each customer segment. One way to ensure that you are delivering the right information, to the right people, and at the right time, is by creating a content map.
Digital Marketing Trend 4: integrating search marketing into your content marketing activities
When it comes to digital marketing, all businesses are trying to be the top result when users conduct a quick online search. Results can be improved both organically or at a cost, and most of the innovations of this year come from Google Adwords. For example, some new features include Enhanced Cost-Per-Click (ECPC) bidding and Smart Display Campaigns. Google is continuously rolling out new tools that works to ensure your ads show where they will get you the most business and automated ad creation from the information you provide. Google Adwords has evolved considerably over the last few years and has become more user-friendly. Don’t leave this powerful tool out of your digital marketing plans in 2018.
Digital Marketing Trend 5: integrating Digital Marketing Insight sources
We’re always looking for ways to be more organized and learn new things in the digital marketing world. With the huge influx of information on a daily basis, it is quite difficult to monitor all of the news sources and screen for vital information that will help your business. Digital marketing insight sources such as Freedly and Zest have worked to make it incredibly easy for users to acquire information from a number of credible sources. Through their RSS feed, primary marketing news sources are curated to only give you the best information in an accessible and timely manner. Information provided by marketers for marketers will help you constantly gain knew knowledge that you can use towards developing your business.
This sums up the 5 biggest trends that iRISEmedia expects to take place in the digital marketing world in the upcoming year. Every year, digital marketers strive to provide a fully integrated program for their customers so that they have an overall wonderful experience with the brand and are enticed to shop with you again, ultimately becoming a loyal customer. We think that these trends will get you one step closer.
