Marketing is a field dominated by those with the foreknowledge to plan ahead, anticipate change and jump on the trends before the competitors. Some marketers believe that the internet space is going to expand further with more companies entering the digital world. While others say, there will be a complete makeover of how users and search engine giants give preference to the massive amount of data available on the net. Digital marketing has gained a lot of popularity with millions of large and medium-sized businesses benefiting from the online presence. They promote their services and products through numerous social media channels and platforms.
It is important for businesses to foresee the digital media trends of 2017 that will help them grow online and of course, impact the business with high returns.
1. Content marketing
Always remember content is the KING. Content marketing is the key driver towards brand positioning, engagement, and recall. Content needs to be in line with how your target audience receives communication. The keywords they get attracted to and most importantly the keywords that will drive them to the call to action.
Many businesses are using strategic approaches when it comes to the content. The use of infographics and video content is increasing as users recall that type of content 80% more than just the plain text. Throughout the year 2017, a lot of businesses will focus on Measuring Content Marketing ROI as the cost and competition within content marketing increases.
2. Social Media Marketing
Facebook is having billions of registered users and the whole social media ecosphere on the upward trend it is not only hard but impossible to ignore social media marketing in 2017. Facebook coming with new ways of advertising on videos (similar to YouTube) will look to take away a significant market share in that category from the largest video-sharing website.
Also, large and medium size businesses will look to now keep aside a certain budget for just social media as organic reach will be a history and spends will more likely to be entertained and promoted.
3. Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) / Improving website experiences
Businesses spend heavily on digital marketing expecting huge returns within days. They forget that before advertising heavily, optimization is needed along the way. Search Engine Optimization or Social Media Optimization is known my many. However, what businesses forget is optimization the conversion rate on the website by improving user experience on the site. Unfortunately, many businesses are missing out on a more data-driven approach to increase leads and sales from their websites.
It is important first to audit your website, know the errors, correct them, optimize the call to action and work with an integrated strategy to materialize the traffic coming to the website.
4. Native Advertising
Worldwide there are nearly 200 million Internet users that have installed ad blocking software. Approximately from 34% to as high as 63% Millennials have blocked digital advertisement. Furthermore, more than half of internet users won’t click on ads because they don’t trust them.
However, marketers continue to spend massively on online advertising. After SEM, online display advertising (banner ads and retargeting) has the biggest share of online spending at 34%, representing roughly 10% of total marketing budgets.
Native advertising may be the answer which is viewed 53% more than banner ads. The growth in B2B digital ad spending over the past two years has been due largely to an increase in spending on native ads, while the display has become less important.
5. Internet of Things (IoT)
The IoT is a modern marketing technology applications of the last 2-3 years. But it is of most relevance to the devices makers and retailers. Therefore, it is high-up in the ranking of priorities.
It is estimated that there will be 75+ billion connected devices by 2020. It means 10x as many devices will be able to talk to one another. The implications are said to be enormous and far ranging. All the sharing of the data will transform the way we live our lives.
6. Marketing Automation
Let your leads find their own path to purchase to close more deals. Marketing automation helps you to see each lead’s behavior to tailor emails, content, offers, and outreach at scale.
Many Softwares are available in the market, but it is always best to have it custom built because every business has different requirements. Compromising on one aspect to save bare minimum cost may hurt your margin expansion in the future.
7. Mobile Application and Marketing
On an average, a smartphone user has around 36 mobile applications on its phone. This is enough to state how hooked we are on our phones. Therefore, businesses are offering web-based purchases on mobile by creating purpose-built apps that are increasing revenue and fighting competition.
Businesses that aren’t moving fast in the digital world are missing out on market share and will seriously find it tough to survive once the digital ecosphere is all crowded up. Therefore, it is very important for companies to advertise on mobile applications and offer it consumers application for fast sales and less clutter.
8. Search engine optimization and paid search marketing
Search engines are the go-to thing for any internet user. It makes the life a lot simpler than just guessing what is needed and where to go online. Google AdWords is the most important form of Pay Per Click in the paid search marketing.
Web-based SEO will remain the most preferred in 2017. However, mobile marketing SEO techniques will be particularly important in 2017. This is because of Google’s recent announcements about the mobile index and AMP. We saw huge increases in AMP smartphone traffic since September 2016 when Google rolled AMPs out beyond Google News. It is targeted at publishers but should be considered by businesses with an active blog too.
9. Online PR (including influencer outreach)
The online PR of today is totally linked with content marketing, SEO and Social media. If you want to increase visibility, throw back the negativity then it is a must. Businesses are investing in image marketing for decades and this trend is definitely trending to change target groups’ perception and acceptability of the brand.
10. Big Data
The Big Data plays an important role in determining the digital media strategy and automation. It includes the market information, customer insight and predictive analytics.
You need to first know the 3Vs of Big Data. The Data Velocity, Data Variety and Data Volume.
The Data Velocity gives you access to the real-time data, such as live analytics of interactions on the web, mobile sites and also social media interactions.
The Data Variety shows new types and sorts of unstructured data. Social media interactions and suggests the potential of integrating different sources of data to gain more consumer insight.
Whereas, Data Volume is the total count of existing digital data.
They are the key trend selected by many, who have already experienced the increase in volume, real-time data and data formats in their business. They want to exploit the value to increase sales through personalization on websites and email marketing and predictive analytics. It’s also closely tied into machine learning where Big Data is mined to identify the propensity to convert different customer characteristics and behavior.
