Digital Marketing Trends To Watch In 2021 | Post-pandemic Approaches to Marketing
Last year was unpredictable due to the pandemic and a worldwide lockdown. That meant some pre-pandemic digital marketing trends did end up coming to light. While, others, however, did not emerge.
Due to the long lockdowns, eCommerce sales have exploded. In addition, social media usage has increased significantly as well. Digital Marketing started to play even more effective roles. This has radically altered the way brands connect with consumers.
In recent years, they have moved from traditional marketing to a more digital approach. And in case you are wondering the digital marketing trends to watch out for. Don’t worry. We’ve got your back. Here are some digital marketing trends to keep an eye out for in the post-pandemic period:
Artificial Intelligence
In recent years Artificial Intelligence (AI) has played a minor role in optimizing social media strategies.
But even with the current advancement in technology, even the most intelligent people cannot predict the future. As a result, artificial intelligence should complement human intelligence.
Presently, there are already programs capable of beating games and consumer behavior. In the future, it is very likely artificial intelligence will replace the human mind.
In fact, 47% of digitally advanced firms already have an AI strategy. While 84% of business executives believe that AI gives their company an advantage.
And today, AI is more important than ever for running day-to-day business activities as well as transforming the different facets of business and our daily lives. It helps guide decisions on everything from content strategy to SEO optimization.
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The technologies that enable artificial intelligence progress rapidly and become increasingly affordable too. By analyzing consumer behavior and search patterns, AI can now help businesses understand customers better. Thus, it’s high time for companies to capitalize on AI. If you’re still unsure, see the ways AI can help give your firm a significant boost:
Content Creation and Curation
Content created by AI can be useful in certain areas and may attract visitors to your website. It can also save you lots of time and resources. In fact, AI can now write reports and news based on data and information. To create content, you can make use of Wordsmith, Articoolo, and Quill.
Besides generating the content, AI can also curate it. By utilizing AI in content curation, websites can better connect with visitors and present more relevant content. It can be used to show visitors more relevant content, based on what they’ve already looked at on your site.
Digital and Programmatic Advertising
Digital advertising has been most successful at adopting artificial intelligence.
A large percentage of Google and Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising. AI helps drive personalized targeted advertisements on these platforms by identifying the right audiences. And since it attracts the most investment and with the largest financial returns, the use of AI has been significantly rising. Moreover, there are already platforms incorporating AI. And in time, more will be added to the mix.
Programmatic advertising uses artificial intelligence to automate ad buying, allowing for more accurate targeting.
According to eMarketer, 86.2% of digital display ads in the US should be automated by 2020.
This automation is far more efficient and fast, so conversions are higher. As a result, customer acquisition costs are reduced as well.
Email Marketing
Though it is one of the older digital marketing trends, email marketing is still effective if it is properly done.
AI allows brands to tailor email marketing campaigns to specific preferences and user behavior. This makes it easier to connect with prospects and convert them into clients.
It analyzes millions of pieces of data. And then decides on the best days and times to contact prospects. Additionally, it lets you know when to send emails, and figure out titles that get the most clicks.
There can be a material margin of error for A/B tests and they often take a lot of time. And AI is can your best friend when you need to be specific in an era of hyper-personalized emails.
Searches
The combination of AI and search is a perfect match since search is only effective if the user gets what they’re looking for. Generally speaking, search engine tools have problems providing relevant results for all users. Thus, AI can aid search engines to rank results more quickly based on key phrases and results analysis. Over the last few years, AI has significantly impacted content and eCommerce search.
Web Design and User Experience
There was a time when a good website couldn’t exist without a programmer and designer.
But now, AI is being used to design websites based on information from the user. The website looks professional in much less time too. As a result, AI is set to revolutionize website creation and development in the next few years.
AI also helps in developing intuitive interfaces that make the user experience better by applying intelligent algorithms.
A 2017 survey on personalization revealed that 33% of marketers used AI to provide tailored web experiences. In addition, 63% said that it increased conversions and improved the consumer experience. Therefore, be sure to check out how AI can help boost your business.
Chatbots
Although Chatbots are part of AI, they deserve a section of their own to showcase how awesome they are. Chatbots are comparatively newer among digital marketing trends.
Chatbots assist potential customers with finding answers to frequently asked questions. Furthermore, they can help them find the products and services they need.
Chatbots are predicted to remain important in digital marketing. They enable customers to chat with your business in real-time, day or night. Studies show that Chatbots will power 85% of customer service by 2020. Many customers prefer chatting with chatbots because they can answer questions immediately. They also remember buying history accurately and most importantly never lose patience. Thus, these virtual assistants will remain in the game his year as well.
Chatbots powered by AI is good for answering open questions. They use natural and machine learning expertise to find the perfect response.
Apart from that, Chatbots can serve clients 24/7 and retain their data. They’re friendly too. And the best part, Chatbots can simultaneously respond to multiple requests from several customers. Here are some reasons to get Chatbots:
Quick Customer Support
With a chatbot, people don’t have to wait to get answers. As you can offer help to visitors whenever it is convenient for them. You can also use some pre-set questions and answers relevant to all business and customer types. Likewise, with AI-powered natural learning, your chatbot can engage in real conversations. This will make answering questions to your customers easier.
Personalized Recommendations
Getting a bot that offers personalized suggestions will help you achieve one of the most important standards of business. We’re talking about personalized customer service. Upon learning algorithms, the bot can assist customers in making their decisions. Furthermore, it can serve as a reminder and a reference, as well.
Conversational Marketing
Modern marketing nowadays employs a conversational approach. In fact, 82% of consumers want a “quick” response when they ask a question. And brands are adapting to what consumers want. Conversational marketing helps connect marketers and customers in real-time. Chatbots can aid in doing this as well.
Easily Locate Products
With the right chatbot, your customers can explore your site without having to leave the chat. For instance, some bots offer to search and upsell features through chat. Essentially this creates a better customer experience than click-and-search shopping online.
Give Reminders
Online shopping cart abandonment rates typically hover around 70%, year in and year out. There are a lot of factors that make customers ditch their carts. However, some shoppers just get distracted, or get caught up with work, and forget about their shopping. Chatbots can remind shoppers about their unattended shopping cart. Thus, your conversion rates will increase.
Collect Data
Chatbots are a great way to build your marketing lists by collecting analytics data. You can receive Facebook profile data from your customers if they sign in with a Facebook profile. You can also request a telephone number, and an email address, for building your marketing lists.
Send Campaigns
Business owners can gather a lot of data from chatbots these days. And with a chatbot, you have instant marketing lists from email addresses and phone numbers. Combining these data will help you come up with more effective campaigns.
Social Media Marketing
Marketing through social media promotes brand awareness, visibility, and other factors that generate sales. It makes you more visible on sites like Facebook, Instagram, and others.
Social media marketing makes it easy for customers to participate in the branding process. However, not every business uses this affordably accessible medium. Consider these reasons to get a social media strategy if you have not already implemented one.
Effortless Promotions
Many businesses cut their marketing budget to save money, but promotion is crucial in order to sell. This saves you money, as well as keeps your brand relevant among customers. Providing you with cost-effective promotions.
Brand Awareness Boost
Social media is a powerful marketing tool that helps your business promote itself. It’s cheaper too. Moreover, a strong social media strategy will help you build brand awareness and connect with a larger audience as well.
Enhanced Search Ranking
Although social media can influence web searches, it cannot directly affect rankings. Therefore, by sharing links on your page, you can easily drive traffic to your site.
Improved Brand Loyalty
Social media marketing is a must for small businesses, as they cannot invest a lot in customer satisfaction. But, don’t worry. With time and proper strategies, you’ll begin to gain loyal customers through social media channels.
Increased Conversions
Additionally, a larger online audience means a greater chance for conversion. Because each post plays a role in bringing more traffic to your website. Among marketers, more than 51% say that building relationships boosts sales. And SMM makes that possible since consumers prefer to deal with people, so they are more at ease.
To know more, read our in-depth blog on the benefits of Social Media Marketing.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
With the ongoing pandemic, online sales are +on the rise as never before. UGC helps build and maintain trust among your customers.
Nowadays, consumers are more socially savvy, so creating authentic content has become crucial for brands. Consider user-generated content as the online equivalent of personal recommendations. And make use of it to develop content compelling enough to motivate conversions for your brand.
These are some of the reasons why UGC is useful:
Helps Build Trust
Consumers are getting better at identifying trustworthy companies. They do this usually through the use of user-generated content.
In fact, 79% of shoppers said user-generated content influences their purchase decisions. In this sense, businesses ought to embrace UGC and start focusing more on it.
Unbiased Source of Information
As consumers are increasingly looking for brands they know, like, and trust. UGC has become all the more important to provide them with an unbiased source of information.
Establishes a Community
UGC gives brands the power to increase their audience. Furthermore, people become more engaged with brands by becoming part of a community. And UGC creates one when the brand encourages its customers to post for them.
You’ll Save Money
It can be cheaper to source UGC than to create a content piece in-house. With UGC, your customers distribute their content. This makes it easier to spread word of mouth, making this a highly cost-effective method.
Promotes Social Media Growth
An effective UGC campaign paired with a powerful social media platform is a winning combination. Moreover, it can boost your brand and enhance customer relationships.
Therefore, make the most of UGC by creating captivating strategies and responding to them positively.
Ways to Encourage UGC
It’s been basic stuff up until now. But the fun part begins now. We will discuss tips and hacks you can use to boost UGC submissions. Read on, to know more:
Platform Selection
UGC requires a strong online presence in order to be successful. However, brands with fewer followers may want to start by finding their audience’s favorite social media sites.
Additionally, you need to know what kind of content performs best on each social media platform. You can follow Buffer’s recommendations as a basic roadmap:
Get Customer Feedback
UGC campaigns cannot succeed without customer reviews and feedback.
In fact, a BrightLocal survey found that 68% of consumers must see at least four reviews to make up their minds about a brand.
Thus, it’s essential that businesses pay more attention to customer reviews. That way you can prove to your customers that you are trustworthy and reliable.
Run Contests
Run contests to generate more UGC. Contests help with submissions as well as their quality. Additionally, they help create a buzz for your brand.
Develop Content Campaigns
Making content for social media can be challenging, and keeping it fresh and engaging is hard. UGC campaigns give you a content library, so you always have quality content to share. It also makes your audience happy. Making this a win-win situation.
Support a Cause
Consumer behaviors have shifted recently as they are now as interested in a company’s cause as their products or services. Therefore, it is crucial to have a campaign that is visually appealing to encourage participation. Try supporting a social cause that aligns with your brand image.
And Don’t Forget to Engage
And finally, the most important aspect of gaining UGC is engagement. Engaging with your audience regularly demonstrates your brand’s personality. You can’t expect followers to suddenly submit content without first engaging with them, can you?
Therefore, it may be wise to engage with your fans in discussions, reply to their questions, and interact with feedback.
User’s Search Intent
User intent (or search intent) is the intention of searching for information that satisfies a particular need. Additionally, it plays a crucial role in improving your page ranking.
And regardless of what content you produce, the main objective should be to achieve user intent. Because they are ultimately who you want to reach.
Thus, if you fail to include key content that keeps readers interested, then you can never rank on the SERPs. And if you are not ranking among the top ten for your target keywords, you might as well be invisible. But that is not what we want, right?
Users have different intents for their searches. This makes search intent crucial to rank on the first page.
Remember, content that focuses on search intent will boost ranking. If your page does not satisfy search intent, it won’t be able to rank.
In general, people use the internet first to learn. And sites on the first page answer 95% of their questions, with the top results being blog posts or videos.
The audience will try to buy from the provider after learning. So try to determine keywords based on search intent. Thus, figure out what type of questions your audience asks. And then act on it.
What are the Types of Search Intent?
Google has improved its search algorithm over the years so they can distinguish between search intent. In addition, Google prioritizes the pages with the greatest relevance to search terms. As a result, tailor your content to your audience’s interests. Listed below are four categories of search intent:
Informational:
Navigational:
Commercial:
Transactional:
Thus, remember to tailor content to your audience’s search intent. Make websites as friendly as possible. And always strive to simplify their lives.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is undeniably one of the most crucial elements of your digital marketing strategy. Bill Gates realized back in 1996 where he coined the phrase “Content is king”.
He predicted that content would rule the internet. Well, Gates was right. These days, content is everywhere, and one of the biggest factors determining successful website operation.
New content enhances your SEO. It boosts traffic and makes your site rise on the SERPs. It also keeps Google crawlers at bay, helping your site rank higher.
Here are a few reasons why you should incorporate content marketing strategies:
Builds Brand Reputation and Trust
Great content creates a positive experience for potential and current customers. A sign of quality content is that it addresses customer pain points. An enjoyable experience encourages people to return for more This helps establish familiarity and trust towards the brand.
Your content should be geared to answering common questions and objections within your business. Think of questions like What challenges does your target audience face? What makes people choose to work with your business?
Drives Organic Traffic
Google changes its SEO algorithms periodically, so even the largest companies may not be able to keep up to date with the latest requirements. However, experts agree that one strategy stands out throughout these changes: quality content marketing. Organic SEO really helps to bring more traffic.
Make the content more readable by highlighting key ideas or images. Following this, try sharing via Twitter or Facebook. By repurposing content, your company can engage social media users as well.
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Displays Your Expertise
A benefit of using content marketing is its big variety of channels. You can answer customers’ questions in a blog, a video, a podcast, a whitepaper, an ebook, and more. When you provide in-depth content that adds value, it shows that you’re an expert in your field. As a result, potential customers will trust you more.
Helps Build Backlinks
The backlinks you earn when other sites link to your content represent “votes” for your content for the web spiders. This helps your website rank higher in the SERPs. Thus, look for backlinks coming from authority websites that already appear in search results.
Keep in mind that backlinks tend to grow as your website evolves. And in general, it takes time. However, a few high-quality backlinks from an authoritative website can greatly increase your traffic.
Improves Conversion Rates
Conversions are influenced by the content you post. It helps build your relationship with your audience and provides them with the information needed to make informed purchases. Thus, make sure to include a CTA and tell the reader what they need to do next.
To know more, read our blog on why fresh content is important to help you decide why you need content marketing.
Voice and Visual Search
With the rapid advancement of AI, search has taken a paradigm shift. Search is about to become even better and more intuitive than it is today. Thanks to voice search, by way of natural language processing (NLP). And visual search, by means of computer vision. Developing these technologies can completely revolutionize how people conduct searches.
Voice Search
The availability of voice search features is increasing rapidly. And we bet that you have used voice search at least once in the past six months.
In fact, more than 50% of searches are expected to be carried out over voice search in the next few years. And when implemented correctly, voice search can improve a business’s SEO and customer experience.
Voice SEO is a good way to increase search engine rankings. And, these facts will motivate you to think about it:
Based on these data, doesn’t it seem time to optimize your sites for voice? However, many companies are still not integrating voice search, which makes early adoption even more important. So why wait? Add voice search to your enterprise SEO strategy and keep up with the competition.
Please read the full article: Digital Marketing Trends To Watch In 2021 | Digital Marketing in Melbourne (livelongdigital.com.au)
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