As you look to the year ahead, it’s important to understand digital marketing trends to help you identify new opportunities that you can tap into.
But with so many ways to market your brand digitally, what should you choose to focus on?
Here are the 5 trends in digital marketing we think you should be paying attention to and leveraging in 2021.
1 | Engaging Content: Video is Still King
Creating content that is engaging is key to attracting new leads and maintaining existing customers. Video is still one of the most effective types of engaging content, so make sure you are continuing to use it or use it more often in 2021. Video is a great way to give more insight into your brand, allowing you to share more information with users. Remember, YouTube and TikTok aren’t the only platforms for video. Use it on any social platform that your target audience is on like Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. No matter where you put your videos online, a user’s positive experience with a video ad increases their purchase probabilities by 97%.
2 | Shoppable Posts
2020 has been a wild year and upended how many brands conduct business, including putting more products and services online. This trend will continue into the new year and a great way to meet customers where they already are is through shoppable posts. This is because customers are more likely to buy with a streamlined shopping experience. It’s all about minimizing hassle and mitigating the loss of customers when moving between sites or apps. So take advantage of social apps that offer direct selling through shoppable posts, such as Instagram, where 81% of users say they use the platform to search for products and services.
3 | Online Reviews
Online reviews are powerful. A study by Invesp shows that 92% of users will use a local business if it has at least a 4-star rating. This means that positive online reviews can help you attract new customers. To get reviews, simply ask your happy customers to leave one. Don’t believe us? A BrightLocal study found that 68% of consumers will leave a review if asked!
One of the easiest ways to ask is by sending customers an email with a link or links to leave their online review. These reviews can be through Google Business, Facebook Recommendations, Yelp or through your own platform on your website. Beyond getting positive testimonials that can influence potential consumers, reviews can also increase your site’s SEO!
4 | TikTok
If you want to reach younger consumers (30 and under), TikTok is where you need to be. In 2020, TikTok use exploded not just in North America but around the world, with the app having more than 1.5 billion downloads and 800 million monthly active users!
There are several different options that TikTok offers advertisers to reach their target demographic including:
- In-feed video: Ad appears in the native news feed
- Brand Takeover: The ad completely takes over a user’s screen for a few seconds before turning into an in-feed video ad
- Hashtag challenge: Ad appears on the Discovery page and encourages users to participate in user content creation challenges; can include a shoppable component for retailers
- Branded AR content: Ad appears as branded lenses, stickers and other 2D/3D/AR content for users to use in their own videos
- Custom influencer package: Ad appears as part of sponsored content created by a TikTok user with influence in your market
5 | Messaging
Utilizing the direct messaging options on social platforms and dedicated messenger apps (like Snapchat) are a great way to maintain engagement with your target audience. In fact, Facebook Messenger is the third most-used app in the world! And according to Facebook, users exchange 2 billion messages with businesses every month! You can use messaging to deliver content that your target audience will find useful, new products, invite them to events, sign up for newsletters, provide customer support and more! Take it one step further by enabling chatbots, like the ones on Facebook Messenger. What are chatbots? They are a piece of automated messaging software that uses AI to converse with people. They are programmed to understand questions, provide answers and execute tasks. Some of the advantages that chatbots offer include saving you time and money, identifying new leads, handling e-commerce transactions and keeping users engaged. And if needed, a human can take over the process at any time.