Groundbreaking Digital Marketing Trends for 2021
Digital trends are the backbone of a marketing strategy. These trends are backed by an analytical approach and are powered by technological advancements. The motive of digital marketing is to predict the customers’ interests and requirements, and offer a best-fit solution that is practical and convenient.
Digital marketers heavily rely on the buying behavior of a socially conscious consumer, while preparing a marketing strategy for a given brand, especially in the current scenario of a pandemic.
COVID-19 has flipped over our definition of normality so much so that we are now somewhat habituated to expect the unexpected. If there’s one thing that has given some hope to modern businesses to survive in this pandemic, it’s the internet.
While opening physical stores is not a viable option, taking business operations online has worked out for businesses, thus minimizing the economic impact of the crisis.
Considering this situation, it makes more sense to create a marketing strategy that is ideal for online operations. In this blog, we will discuss the power of digital and how certain digital marketing trends will empower businesses today to survive during these tough times.
Social Commerce
Social commerce is going to flourish unexpectedly because convenience is the most seeking factor for customers. When you offer products on their most-liked platforms such as Facebook and Instagram rather than redirecting them to your company’s site, click-through rates may spike up.
You ask why?
According to Hootsuite, Social commerce was an $89.4 billion market by the end of 2020 and is further expected to grow to $604.5 billion by 2027.
By simply building a presence on social media platforms, brands can make a great impression on potential buyers. This impact is so huge, according to a Facebook survey, brands that are present on Instagram are perceived as popular (78%), creative (77%), entertaining (76%), and relevant (74%) by the platform users.
Additionally, a single platform like Instagram can enable the buyers to explore what is trending, check product reviews, as well as make the purchase without having to move out of the application.
Social commerce is all about finding potential buyers where they already are spending most of their time — on their favorite social media platforms.
Video Content
According to SEMrush, posts that don’t contain a video get 92% lesser traffic and 24% lesser shares than posts with at least one video. So, what does that mean for marketers? Video content is the gold mine that they need to dig to attain maximum engagement and ROI as well as gain brand visibility and trust.
Numbers suggest that people are spending more than an hour a day watching videos online, may it be in the form of disappearing stories on Snapchat, trending Tiktoks, live sessions on Instagram, or an informative video on YouTube.
While apps like YouTube and Facebook are getting billions of video views, newer platforms like TikTok witnessed a massive growth in a short span, just because people enjoy watching videos. This is a great opportunity for marketers to make sure their marketing strategy or at least their social media marketing strategy is video-centric.
Virtual Events
Virtual events started out of necessity during the lockdown, but they are here for the long run. Not only because they are safer in these times of social distancing, but also because they help brands reach wider audiences by eliminating the location constraint.
How to get the most out of this trend?
Get creative with the content, invite amazing speakers and deliver valuable content that will drive engagement and set your company as a trendsetter in your niche.
Virtual events also offer you an opportunity to connect with your audience on a personal level. Remember, branding results get multiplied when there is a blend of an emotional pinpoint.
Hence, virtual events have come out as an outstanding alternative to in-person events unless your brand can afford to miss out on benefits like flexibility, accessibility, and connectivity.
Augmented Reality + Marketing
In these times when social distancing is a norm, augmented reality is a great tool to increase online product interaction and conversion. It provides a try-before-you-buy feel to the consumers, which is one of the only missing factors when it comes to online shopping.
According to Invesp, “63% of consumers say augmented reality would improve their shopping experience, and 35% of consumers say augmented reality would make them shop online more often.”
Another instance of the increasing popularity of augmented reality is filters that we use on various social media applications. A lot of brand campaigns incorporate a personalized filter to increase brand awareness and make it fun at the same time.
Just like video content and virtual events, augmented reality is also about providing an interactive brand experience to the customers, what makes it better is, augmented reality allows the consumer to explore the product on their own and therefore feels much more real.
Using these digital marketing trends to your advantage, your business will not only survive the difficult circumstances but also gain a competitive advantage of being as close to your customers as you were before the pandemic started.
