Are you eager to discover new tricks and tips to boost your digital marketing game? Do you constantly strive to check up on the latest trends and how they can benefit your business? Then this article is just perfect for you. Here we discuss in depth the new and upcoming digital marketing trends that will drive the marketing industry to new heights.
So let's dive deeper into the world of digital marketing.
Digital Marketing and It’s Importance: Facts Over Talks
We can start off by defining digital marketing as the promotion of brands and businesses through the medium of modern technologies and the internet.
The 2021 Gartner Digital Marketing Survey echoed a similar positive response about digital marketing performance, stating that “70% or more respondents said their organizations had met or exceeded a range of 2020 digital marketing goals, though that positive outlook may reflect performance against goals revised midyear versus set prior to the pandemic.”
With the already tremendous amount of people online, if I were to say that the number of people going online is still increasing, would you believe me? If not, you may believe these numbers:
Source: Techjury.net
Classic Vs Modern Marketing: Which To Pick?
If you’re wondering which type of marketing tactics would best promote your business, we can easily fix that thought. By classic marketing, we are referring to traditional marketing tactics including the type of marketing channels used, i.e. billboards, radio advertisements, television and print media.
While most of the companies have completely shifted to using solely digital marketing as their form of promotion, some industry giants still make good use of all the promotional channels available to them, maintaining a healthy balance. This holds true especially if their target audience is in the older demographic who still rely on radio and television as their primary mode of entertainment.
Marketing has always been about connecting with the right people, at the right time, and at the right price. Today, these meetings are more likely to happen online than offline, hence driving the shift of marketing focus on digital areas. While traditional marketing methods are one-way communication, through digital channels marketers have been able to establish a two-way communication channel with their audiences. Knowing what and how the public likes to see, paired with the where and when, makes digital marketing a much more effective channel of communication.
This direct interaction and feedback may be the key point why digital marketing has overtaken traditional channels.
The Building Blocks Of A Well Rounded Digital Marketing Strategy
It's time to introduce you to the most prevalent forms of digital marketing tactics followed by all the influential brands and top tier marketing agencies across the world.
1. Affiliate Marketing- Let Your Network Expand
According to Investopedia, Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a company compensates third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads for the company’s products and services. In this model the third party is called an affiliate and is incentivized through commission fees to promote the client company’s products and services.
This model of marketing was popularized by e-commerce giant, Amazon, when it started an affiliate marketing program wherein websites and bloggers who interlinked Amazon products and reviews on their posts were paid advertising fees whenever a purchase was made through their link. This kind of pay-per-performance strategy turned out to be really beneficial for digital content creators.
Affiliates with high viewership and multiple websites can be hired directly by brands to promote their products with banner ads on their sites too. This win-win solution to sales is a digital marketing tactic that really blew big due to its profitable nature.
2. Content Marketing- Let Your Words Weave The Magic
Content is present in every text, image, or video we may stumble upon. There is always a stream of intent behind every form of content posted online. The intention may be to promote a certain product or gain more followers by posting engaging content on social media, but it is always present and affects the way the content is designed and presented for viewers to consume.
As per Statista over 60% of B2B and 40% of B2C content marketing budgets were increased in 2021. A proper content marketing strategy encompasses the trends followed by content consumers in that period of time. It is thoroughly proofed with SEO keywords to increase the relevancy and gain excellent ROI for its creators. Blog posts, guest posting, infomercials, short ad films, etc are good examples of long-form content marketing, while Hero text and brand taglines are quick to catch public attention.
A good example to learn creativity in content would be the marketing campaigns produced by Coca Cola.
Source: Coca-Cola Official Youtube Channel
Polar bears relishing coke while watching the Super Bowl
The company relentlessly leverages their popularity by creating meaningful yet clever and endearing advertisement campaigns that leave competitors in awe. One such memorable ad campaign would be the Coca Cola- Polar Bowl ad in 2012 which showcased polar bears watching the Super Bowl. The full ad was released on social media channels as the company found the TV slot time constraining.
If you’re in a creative drought, you can avail the expertise of professional content marketers to help you with your content marketing tactics.
3. Email Marketing- Keep In Touch Consistently
With the latest and upcoming reforms of digital privacy laws and regulations, the relevancy of email marketing is about to soar again. As companies hasten their quest for gaining more first-party data to de-rail from their dependence on third-party cookies and data which will become obsolete in the near future, email marketing is a strategy that can reach out to millions without breaching any privacy rules.
For instance, imagine checking your email for important updates when you receive a mail offering you special discounts on your wishlist items or a discount coupon for your birthday that could be used within a limited time. Wouldn’t you feel a sense of value and attachment towards said brand?
Companies and brands can simply communicate via emails to their existing customers as well as potential referrentials through emails promoting their new seasonal products or other deals and discounts. This way you can keep reminding your customers about your brand till they are ready to shop with you again.
4. Influencer Marketing- Talk That Talk
Influencers are mini-celebrities with a huge online presence and followership. They are regular people who have succeeded in gaining the attention and trust of a huge demographic of local or international audience through their content.
Source: Digitalmarketinginstitute.com
Hiring influencers to endorse your products can help people develop a genuine interest in your product. Celebrities have become overrated these days with the amount of brands they endorse for a great sum of money, the reliability factor lies low with them. Whereas influencers often showcase the functionality of your product in a very real-life circumstance that leads the audience to rely on their review and recommendations more.
Additionally, contracting multiple influencers over numerous social media platforms is more cost-efficient than hiring a mainstream celebrity for a one-time ad. You get a variety of fresh content and higher brand visibility.
Source: Nikkie Tutorials Official YouTube Channel
To better understand this, let’s take the example of beauty influencers, they create videos on tips for skincare and makeup and often recommend certain brands, like Garnier or Maybelline, and their products, this is a classic example of sponsored content.
5. Podcast Marketing- Listen To The Experts
Streaming online podcasts has gained popularity in recent years where there is too much viewable content and you can relax your eyes by switching onto listening podcasts containing similar content.
One might think that the public has stopped listening to the radio with so many internet shows available but instead they have shifted to listening to online podcasts about topics that specifically interest them. People spend a lot of time commuting between places, and to occupy this significant amount of time where their main concentration has to be on the road, streaming their favorite podcasts is a good alternative.
Brands can reach out to customers by contracting podcast ads, product reviews, sponsoring shows, or even launching interviews about relevant industry topics. Giving the eyes a break, you can penetrate the minds of your audience through delectable voices instead.
Let’s say you’re listening to a podcast about tips and tricks of marketing, the channel host can invite a guest from another channel or a related industry, like a finance expert from LinkedIn, and talk about the importance of a well-planned budget for a good marketing campaign. This sort of cross-promotion benefits both industries and participants.
6. Mobile Marketing- Make Smart Use Of The Phone
As per Forbes, people around the world spent a record 3.8 trillion hours on mobile apps in the year 2021 which is only set to increase in the year 2022. As astonishing as this piece of information may seem to you, it is the truth. The pandemic pushed us all deeper in the trap of internet and mobile apps. Today we have an app for everything, from counting your daily steps, to knowing world news in 60 words, you think and it's either already there or in making. The amount of time we spend on our mobile devices is directly proportional to how vulnerable we are for digital advertisements and online shopping.
Brands are doing their best to boost their app traffic through any which way possible, making the apps more mobile friendly each day. E-commerce has evolved in M-commerce and people want everything to be available at their fingertips. Releasing mobile friendly apps, in-app ads, and push notifications is one way companies are fighting to gain the attention of consumers.
7. Social Media Marketing- Stay Visible, Stay Relevant
Amidst so many popular channels of social media, which one do you choose to invest in and promote your brand? The answer is all of them. Promoting on only one form of social media may limit your exposure to a larger audience, hence you should try a variety of promotion methods to attract their interest in all forms that you possibly can. As mentioned above, hiring influencers is one way to promote your brand on social media, you can create short films too.
In their most recent social media marketing promotion, food market giant McDonald’s, brought back their new and improved Szechuan dipping sauce. They used a multi-channel marketing strategy to gain traction and higher visibility for their new product by promoting it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram simultaneously.
Paid advertisements, an official brand page, and sharing new product and discount links are a few other methods to start promoting on social media. Viewers who are often redirected to official brand pages through caption links are more susceptible to buying products from the page than to the main website. Convenience is the leading factor in such customer engagement.
So for an all-round social media strategy, use all the popular social media channels to always stay visible to your customers and incite their shopping spree.
8. Streaming TV Marketing- Let Content Engage The Audience
In layman’s words we are talking about OTT marketing. Yet again, the pandemic gave rise to many OTT platforms that are currently giving Netflix a run for their money. Popularized due to the intense demand to view movies and shows without stepping out and the convenience of their home and television, OTT platforms became the next big thing for advertisers.
Apart from Netflix, all OTT platforms have some form of compulsory and skippable advertisement while hosting movies and shows. Just when people thought that by switching to OTT platforms for their movies and shows they may be able to avoid long breaks between their binge watching, they were proved wrong. Since the ads on these platforms are skippable and short, similar to youtube, people can bear with it. The ads present a great opportunity for marketers to promote their products, services, shows, or even online games.
9. Voice Marketing- Voice Enabled
Voice marketing is targeted at audiences who use voice assistants such as Alexa (Amazon), and Siri (Apple). These often use SEO snippets for whatever search the user demands and provides them with the best and most popular information to what they are seeking.
The audio content may be pre-recorded or in case of livestreaming and podcasts it may be promoted live. It reaches out to the communities that don’t have access to viewable content due to any circumstance and can still raise brand awareness pretty effectively.
Use of voice devices has been on the rise due to higher accuracy of understanding and advancement in AI technology. Marketers can use this form of promotion to have first-mover advantage by making their content accessible in voice formats to their audiences.
10. Video Marketing- Show Them How It Works
Source: Oberlo.in
The best example to quote when explaining this form of advertising is YouTube. The free online video streaming service has been a great platform for all sorts of video marketing based on your other searches, customized through third party cookies. So the ads you often see are relevant to your demographic, interest, and product preferences.
The youtube algorithm allows viewers to skip some of the ads, mostly ads that are longer than 30 secs, while others are compulsory to continue watching the video you clicked on, digital marketers can make use of this information and produce their video ads accordingly. These ads are beneficial for both the advertiser and content publisher. Many content creators often put ads spread out sporadically through their video content to gain commission fee and increase their income.
People also often choose to watch infomercials and review videos of the products they intend to purchase, video marketing helps finalize that sale intent when watching how functional the product is.
Conclusion
There is no one perfect strategy in marketing that will give you success. Rather it is a healthy mix of all the mentioned tactics and a few more, mainly offline marketing channels such as billboards and on-site shopping deals. You can always boost your marketing strategy by constantly keeping in touch with the latest trends in marketing and media. More importantly, what strategy and mix of marketing elements will work best for you will always depend significantly on your current and target audience so devise your plan by keeping them at the heart of your marketing strategies.
