With the fast expansion of technology within the marketing sector, there is no shortage of ideas to help grow and expand your business. However, it is definitely overwhelming trying to keep track of the newest trends and development in the digital marketing sphere. With that in mind, we have looked at the key trends that you should be keeping an eye on.
Content Marketing
No other component of digital marketing has taken off quite the way content marketing has, and it does not seem to be slowing down for 2017. Content marketing is a great part of overall marketing strategy, since it establishes your brand as relevant and trustworthy, while providing customers with valuable information. Content marketing is a solid way of establishing loyalty within customers, while allowing brands to exercise some creativity.
Think about content marketing as a long-term strategy, and find a niche to better market your brand. A survey conducted by CEB shows that 84% of marketers are planning to increase their content marketing in the next 5 years. Therefore, it is extremely important that brands build and deliver creative content that stands out to ensure it does not get lost in the noise for 2017.
Big Data Marketing Analytics
Brands and businesses have more access to information on consumers than ever before. In 2017, that will continue to remain a staple within the marketing landscape, and those brands savvy enough to harness the power of big data will definitely reap rewards. Understanding customer behavior through analytics should be a key component of marketing strategy for the year, and should ideally be tailored for that.
Using analytics strategically means tailoring your business to fit the needs of clients and customers and personalizing the experience to retain loyalty. For 2017, use big data to understand who your client or customer really is, and what is important for them in terms of experience. Creating a deeper understanding of your base will help the marketing process and create campaigns and measures that resonate with your customer base ultimately.
Google AMP
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project is sure to revolutionize digital marketing, so it is definitely worth keeping an eye on to understand how fits with your overall marketing strategy. Ultimately, it is a method designed to fast-track content loading on mobile devices.
And as more customers use their mobile devices to access businesses, the more worth AMP will have – especially in terms of SEO practices. Content that enables AMP will load faster and better ideally, which means more customers will flock to it and it will rank higher in searches. Plus, it would be able to provide analytics as well, which would be useful for future marketing plans.
Marketing Automation
Technological evolution eventually breeds automation, and digital marketing is definitely starting to see that in 2017. More brands will rely on automation for digital marketing efforts such as emails, social media campaigns and other such repetitive tasks to increase efficiency and focus on long-term projects.
Expect to see more software in the landscape that assists in automation to streamline processes, as businesses and brands will steadily rely on automation technology and increase their usage for most tasks.
Automation is certainly a good practice to look into for digital marketing in this year, especially for components of marketing such as social media and emails. By reducing manual effort in digital marketing, businesses will be able to focus more on innovating ways to retain customers and clients.
Conversion Rate Optimization
One of the focuses in digital marketing is definitely going to be conversation rate optimization, as businesses will further increase their focus on developing ways to turn site visitors into loyal customers. You should definitely expect to see digital marketers use analytics and user feedback to develop their online presence to a more targeted, niche audience and learning more about what drives their customer retention.
Conversion Rate Optimization will be a focus for brands going forward in the year, since it is a valuable way to turn one time visitors into returning customers. Businesses and brands will be using digital marketing tools and some of other components discussed previously as a means to create a stronger brand that resonates with users.
