Digital Marketing Trends for 2017
It would be very difficult to predict trends when it comes to digital marketing because of its accelerated evolution and the sheer volume, and variety of initiatives. The most creative of digital marketers subtly weave their strategies into the daily digital life of people that they are unaware of being influenced. This helps because people tend to be uncomfortable when they are openly pursued. If you own a business and are looking for digital marketing ideas to boost some online traffic, the intelligent approach would be to consult with creative minds from good digital marketing agencies who have dedicated their lives to connect people with brands. Nevertheless, based on some consumer tendencies and research from last year, these are a few things that might just stick to click.
Videos
Video marketing is certainly not new, but stands to be a clear winner. Videos are inexpensive to produce and with some creativity anybody can make the most of it. Even small businesses get the opportunity to level the playing field with big companies and their slick, expensive videos. Video sharing has skyrocketed more than ever this year, especially in social media. Even better results are brought about by live videos. Live videos let brands connect with their consumers in real time.
Expiring content
‘FOMO’ fuels marketing through expiring digital content. The fear of missing out is what made apps like Snapchat go up to $24 billion in market value. When there are too many options and a lot more time to choose, what urges you to act is something that does not wait. The thought of losing an opportunity brings fear and this fear converts.
Influencer Marketing
Taking word-of-mouth marketing to the next level is influencer marketing. Brands collaborate with people with a solid digital presence and huge social media following (bloggers, vloggers, reviewers etc.) to promote their products. People trust people. What makes influencers more credible is that they are experience-driven whereas ads are cash-driven.
Content Still Rules
Floating around in gazillions are blog posts, infographics and white papers, published and marketed online by numerous companies trying to reach out to their target audience. Time has passed when the goal was to spew your content around like there’s no tomorrow. Today content is expected to know what resonates with the user and keep itself always-fresh. Also, less is more when it comes to content — shorter copy aimed for the right reason at the right frequency.
Accelerated Mobile Pages
For all those business who haven’t researched on mobile indexing yet, it’s time they caught up. Mobile has taken its rightful place in the digital marketing spectrum as users rely on mobiles for most of their online activities. As mobile optimized webpages were soon gaining some momentum, AMP happened. Providing a faster viewing experience, AMP further optimizes the optimized mobile web experience. When it comes to SEO, faster is better.
Machine Learning and Big Data
Marketers had already realized the value big data analytics bring to their initiatives. Applications that gather customer insights and perform predictive analytics are all over the place. Applying machine learning to big data will have some interesting results in digital marketing, the major one being, capability to optimize automated marketing communications in terms of tone, language and subject matter to be more interactive, personalized, and engaging on a one-to-one level.
With digital marketing, the creativity of marketers are constantly challenged because what works today may not convert tomorrow. The best thing to do is capitalize on the strategies and technologies that does it for your business today and keep a close watch on the possible future.