Digital Marketing Trends 2018
2017 has been a great year for online marketers. Emerging technologies such as deep machine learning and voice assistants are changing the digital marketing landscape.
A new kind of communication and creative approach were born that aim to serve the consumers' needs instead of pushing the product itself. If you want to belong to the new age marketing group, you need to make sure that you keep an eye on the digital marketing trends and act upon.
Let's see those hot digital marketing trends for 2018.
Digital marketing allows you to target your audience in the most sophisticated way at the lowest possible price. You can optimize acquisition and improve your strategy as well. It's something that can't be achieved with traditional marketing.
Google has embraced their theory of micro-moments. More and more companies recognize the importance of tailored messages at the right time.
Mobile has changed the way consumers search on the internet. Creating content that helps consumers to solve their problem at a given moment is the key to success. At these moments people use the internet to find the answers to their questions, mainly on their smartphones.
When your audience has those moments - the I want to-do moments, I want to-know moments, I want to-buy moments and I want to-go moments; you need to make sure that you are out there and grab their attention.
As the technology evolves marketers have more opportunity to use their imagination when it comes to video content marketing. There are several exciting techniques you can use.
Live video streaming is getting more and more popular, especially on Facebook.
It allows brands and customers to communicate in real time. There isn't a more powerful thing than an interactive chit-chat.
Experian uses this technique on a weekly basis using the #CreditChat hashtag. They give financial advice which educates their audience. It's a nice way to get your audience form a habit and join the conversation every now and then.
Virtual Reality videos are still an undiscovered territory.
Big brands like Heineken have started producing VR videos already. At the moment companies with big budget can afford it but we can bet that more businesses will come up with this kind of content soon.
360° video is a big one.
I'm sure you've seen several 360° videos on your Facebook feed, even from your friends. Well, businesses discovered them too. They started to produce content that consumers can have a look at from different perspectives.
Not only the fashion industry uses this method but surprisingly, even more serious sectors such as banks are picking up.
Brands love this tactic. It's based on the so-called one-to-one marketing strategy. It requires accurate data that you can use to learn more about your audience and tailor a special offer for them for instance.
Buyers personas are the starting points. Personalization starts with breaking down your personas into smaller groups. Once you have these groups you can target them with specific messages.
After you identified your customers you need to differentiate them by preferences and needs.
The following step is the communication. You need to know where your customers are in the digital space, what social media channels they use.
Are they more likely to react to emails? Then rock on with a great email marketing strategy. It might sound an outdated way of communicating but it's still working. Emails have the highest conversion rates during the customer journey. According to Wordstream 59% of B2B marketers said that email channel was the most effective in terms of revenue generation.
Customers benefit from this process as they don't get overwhelmed by useless offers and messages but get what they need to solve their problem. The danger of disturbing your audience with irrelevant messages is real. Most people unsubscribe newsletters because of this reason.
Coca Cola's personalization strategy is on another level. Their “Share a Coke“ campaign was a great success so they keep offering the opportunity of buying a bottle of coke with your name on it. Making consumers feel special. That's what you need to shoot for as well.
It's still not clear whether chatbots are a fad or a trend. I think they are the future. Businesses and customers will be able to communicate in the quickest and most effective way.
Chatbots are huge because the number of people who use it constantly grow and seems to be effective to improve customer service. Mobilemarketer's study shows that 40% of millennials use chatbots each day. This number is incredibly high, image how often the Z generation will interact with these apps.
According to Emarketer 1.82 billion people use messaging apps now. And this number is increasing.
Companies recognized that messaging apps are great tools to engage with customers and make the buying process more seamless. Technology allows them to communicate via Facebook and Whatsapp so they can automize conversation and provide solution.
There is a downside though. Chatbots work perfectly when they handle a simple situation but when the task is more complicated they tend to lose the customer context.
There is a long way to teach these bots to imitate human behavior and not to mess up the conversation. Another obstacle can be that people still prefer to talk with real folks. The success of chatbots depends on how people can adapt to them.
Voice Search SEO
At the age of Siri, Alexa and Google Now businesses have to pay attention to improve their voice search strategy.
At least 60% of searches occur on mobile and many people use voice search instead of typing their queries in the search bar. Voice assistants can talk with people in a human way, that's why they are so popular.
However, unlike in the case of traditional search, people use more natural language when searching.
What I love about voice assistants is that they have a great sense of humor. I regularly have a chat with Siri and ask him to beatbox for me because I think it's funny. But sometimes they don't get every accent and it can be pretty frustrating.
Authentic Audience to influence
This is the new wave of influencer marketing. People are growing tired of seeing all these bloggers and yoga teachers who clearly promote a product because they are paid for it.
Consumers sense it as advertising. We know it's not a good sign.
Brands still want influencers to promote their product but in an organic way. It's not about saving money but getting true advocates who are trustworthy.
Brands challenge the status quo
We can witness a trend in brands’ marketing as they are pushing for a more gender-neutral and positive body image narrative. They are putting models of all sexual identity, skin colour, shapes and sizes in their advertisement, saying “We are all created equal, let’s embrace our differences!”
Brands, such as Zara and Selfridges have already built campaigns around this idea and created gender-neutral clothes collections.
The feminist movement was fighting for gender equality and now we can witness how gender-neutral approach is taking its own place. Promoting transsexual or overweighted models is the way of saying that it's ok to be different. Embrace it!
Nike has also stepped up to challenge political, religious and social norms.
I can't emphasize enough how important mobile marketing is.
The importance of having a mobile-friendly website is the most important trend you must keep in mind. We are shifting to a mobile-first world.
The study conducted by Zenith predicts that 73% of internet consumption will happen on mobile in 2018. This number is just crazy. The internet is the mobile internet itself. Period.
Boost your revenue by developing a great mobile marketing strategy. It will pay off, I promise you.
Creating better content is becoming more and more important. Instead of Facebook likes and engagement, the main KPI is conversion or ROI. Quality is far more precious than quantity, that's why businesses focus on quality, original content.
Remember, content marketing is not about advertising. By better content - which is based on in-depth research - you can ensure that you'll appear on the SERP and can reach your target audience.
Define your customers' pain points and start creating content that has value for them. Use the content matrix to develop a great strategy and produce the right content for the right purpose.
AI is changing digital marketing
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is one of the most exciting trends that happen in digital marketing nowadays. Machine learning lets us shorten long processes such as research.
I'm sure, if you've ever tried to write an article, you spent hours, even days by researching. It's especially very difficult if you aren't an expert on a certain topic.
How do you know if your sources are reliable at all? How do you know whether the topic you write about does have value for your audience? What about SEO?
Unless you are a T-shaped marketer, you may have trouble with using many programs and craft the best article you can.
Intellyo has found the solution. Intellyo uses machine learning to gather data and show you what topic you should write about, based on social media and SEO data. AI allows the Intellyo engine to stalk your competitors as well so it can give you a recommendation on what to write.
There is more. It also recommends you titles, subheaders and keywords using live data. Once you have these tips you can start crafting your article in the editor and collaborate with the editor and the designers.
Of course, content creation doesn't stop here. You need to distribute your article in the best possible way.
Intellyo is working on this solution well. You'll be able to choose from the recommended platforms and post your piece of art. After that, just lay back and watch how the Intellyo magic works.
We can't predict exactly what will happen in 2018 but for sure it'll be an exciting year for us.
Mobile and content are going to be more important than ever. The good news is that they don't require a crazy amount of budget.
Make sure you also take advantage of machine learning to improve your marketing efforts. Keep an eye on the digital marketing trends, be creative and use technology in the best possible way.
What do you think what trends can be predicted for 2018?