The technological advancements that are being made daily have given people tools that they could have only dreamed about in the past. As it stands today, virtual and augmented reality are both a part of everyday life. Social media has become the primary avenue through which people obtain information.
The times have changed, and some companies will scramble to adapt, but by staying on top of the latest digital marketing trends, you can set your company up for success moving forward.
Social Media Marketing
Social media has quickly become one of the most significant trends in not only marketing but in the entire digital world. Social media networks are constantly adapting to meet the needs of consumers. They have evolved from simple platforms to stay in touch with friends and family to an integral part of life for most people.
Consumers are engaging with social media at record rates, with 79% of Australians using this technology. People are always connected, even when on the go, thanks to developments in smartphones and app technology. When you take into account how often people are checking social media, it becomes clear to see why it has begun to play such a massive role in the digital marketing strategies of successful businesses.
Each social media platform caters to slightly different audiences. As a result of this, some marketing strategies work better than others, depending on which platform you are utilising. However, they do all have one thing in common. The content must be engaging. One of the components of social media that makes it so great for advertising is the ability to share content.
If you want to run a successful online marketing campaign, you need to invest your time and energy into creating the kind of content that your target audience will find useful. If you’re able to accomplish this, your consumer base will share your content within their social network. This pattern will continue and lead to large amounts of exposure for your business.
Brand Loyalty
In addition to providing your business with more exposure, social media marketing is an excellent tool for increasing brand loyalty. If you want to take your social media marketing strategy to the next level, you should aim to update your social media profiles regularly.
Having a strong social media presence and sharing quality content consistently will have a positive effect when it comes to the reputation of your company. Consumers are more likely to continuously purchase from companies that demonstrate a willingness to interact with their customers.
If you don’t have the time to do this yourself, hiring a content strategist or working with a digital marketing agency can help tremendously with demonstrating consistency on social media.
Influencer Marketing
Despite all the ways to gain information in modern times, people still trust word of mouth more than just about any other source of information. It is for this reason that product reviews and business reviews through business directory platforms hold such weight when it comes to whether a company will see continued success.
There are people out there who gain large followings on a variety of platforms like YouTube and Instagram. They have earned the trust of their viewers and have a steady flow of new and returning fans that listen to their input. These people are referred to as social media influencers, and you can pay them to recommend your products to their fans. Social media influencers often have large followings across a variety of platforms, and using one is a great way to break into new audiences on platforms that you aren’t familiar with using.
Large corporations have been reducing the use of celebrity endorsements in favour of social media influencers. This is because people trust other consumers like them more than they do the rich and famous. Social media influencers are cost-efficient and more effective for a variety of markets. This is great news for startups that can’t afford expensive celebrity endorsements.
Voice Search
Voice search has been around for a few years now, but improvements that are being made with the technology have caused its use to skyrocket. It is estimated that by the time we reach the year 2020, nearly 30% of all internet searches will be done with voice search technology.
Smart speakers and voice assistant technology allow consumers to seamlessly complete a variety of tasks without having to do any typing or screen scrolling. Due to the rise in popularity amongst voice search devices, many companies have begun to roll out voice search technology of their own. This means that SEO strategies will need to be adapted to accommodate.
Optimising For Voice Search
As voice search continues to grow in popularity, search engines will begin to favour websites that are optimised to provide a smooth voice search experience. Here are a couple of starting points.
Write Your Text In A Conversational Tone
People use different words and phrases when using voice search than they do when typing phrases into a search engine. Focus on long-tail keywords rather than short, choppy terms. Adjusting the language that you use in your titles and headlines to be in alignment with what a person may speak when performing a voice search can give you an advantage over competitors who do not take the time to do this.
Keep Your Content Concise And To The Point
Just like with regular SEO, voice search favours websites that break their content up into easy to digest segments. In addition to this, you may want to create a “featured snippet.” A featured snippet allows business owners to provide a small segment of focused data to be utilised for search purposes. Creating a featured snippet will increase your chances of ranking in voice search results.
Visual Search
Visual search has been making great headway in the past year thanks to a variety of apps and devices that allow users to search through the use of images. Visual search technology allows users to access information like product reviews and the best product prices by merely uploading a photo of a product that they are interested in buying. By optimising your company for the use of this form of visual search, you can boost your sales as a result of this technology.
Augmented Reality
Visual search has taken local SEO to the next level using augmented reality. When using augmented reality devices, people can walk down the street and automatically receive bits of information about the businesses and companies around them.
By optimising your brick and mortar businesses for visual search and augmented reality, you can provide users of this technology with information about your prices, reviews of your products and whatever other information you would like them to have in real time as they approach the areas where your business is located.
Chatbots
Businesses have been using chatbots on their websites for a while now, and the trend is not going anywhere anytime soon. Chatbots are a form of artificial intelligence technology that allows for consumer interaction and communication any time of night or day.
When programmed properly, chatbots can effectively recall information about customers, answer questions and handle a variety of other customer service tasks.3 They automate tasks that are repetitive so that employees can use their energy to focus on other more important aspects of the business. Chatbots have saved many companies money increase revenue by lowering the costs associated with hiring customer service representatives.
Chatbots For Outbound Marketing
Chatbots are useful for more than improving customer service. They can also be used to follow up with customers and to improve consumer engagement. Companies can utilise chatbots to complete tasks like notifying consumers about sales, sending messages about new products, as well as for taking feedback about products and services.3 All of these things work to improve customer engagement, and in turn, improve your branding.
Personalised Marketing
Personalised marketing is a great way to set your business apart from competitors. It has been gaining a large amount of traction in recent years, and it has been proven time and time again that it works wonders for improving sales.
It has become easier than ever to track consumer behaviour through things like purchase history and website engagement. By utilising the power of data collection, you can begin to send out content that feels personal and tailored to the individual receiving it.
Here are some examples of how personalised marketing can be implemented.
- Targeted emails
- New product recommendations
- Social media interaction
Get Your Business Ready For The Future
The trends discussed here have already begun to take root in a major way. By getting in on at least a couple of the digital marketing techniques mentioned here, you can set your business up for success as old technology fades away in favour of methods that are in alignment with the future of consumer engagement.
If you feel like you’re in over your head with all of the changes being made, it is likely in your best interest to hire a team of professional marketers that have a proven track record with getting businesses the results they’re after by utilising these techniques.