Top Digital Marketing Trends To Keep Up With
Digital marketing trends are constantly evolving and consumer’s preferences are always changing. Sticking solely to old marketing methods are no longer viable, and it is important to keep up to date with new marketing trends in order for your business to grow even further. Especially with the huge advancements in technology today, digital marketing has risen exponentially in popularity that it has become an essential part of every business. Here, I will provide you with the top 8 digital marketing trends that every business should consider.
Top 8 Digital Marketing Trends
1) Chatbots
85% of customer interactions will be handled without human agents by 2021
Source: SmallBizGenius
69% of consumers prefer to use chatbots for the speed at which they can communicate with a brand
Source: Salesforce
In the fast-paced society today, efficiency is key. People often require answers as soon as they pose a question. They make decisions quickly and want answers immediately. You cannot afford to let your customer wait several days just to get a reply.
Chatbots provide immediate automated response throughout the whole day, making them highly efficient and a preferred choice of communication for many. Many companies are already exploring the use of chatbots in their businesses, and you definitely won’t want to be missing out!
Some free chatbot tools that you can check out are ManyChat and Chatfuel. These tools allow you to create chatbots for your website easily without needing any coding experience.
2) Video Content
84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video
Source: Wyzowl
Customers love visual content. Video content has always been a hit among users, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon. They are highly engaging, which makes it an effective way to promote your brand and its products or services. Video content can also take the form of live videos, for example on Facebook and Instagram. Live videos are a great hit among users as they are engaging and interactive. Instead of merely receiving one-way information from the streamer, viewers also get to send in their comments in real-time. Any questions that they have can be clarified on the spot by the streamer, which will also benefit the others watching the live video.
The creation of videos need not necessarily be expensive, as brands with budget constraints can explore free video tools such as OpenShot, Lightworks, and Clipchamp to create quality and engaging videos.
3) Influencer Marketing
87% of shoppers were inspired by an influencer to make a purchase
Source: Streamline
Influencer Marketing is a great way to publicize and promote your products or services due to the large following the influencers have. It is one of the best ways if you want to get your brand known by many in the shortest amount of time. Influencers tend to be figures that are looked upon by others, and people are usually curious towards products that influencers are using or have endorsed. The good thing about influencer marketing is that you can choose to work with an influencer whose image and feed is more suited towards your brand so that it is more targeted towards audiences who are more likely to be interested and thus increase conversions. For example, if you are selling beauty products, you might want to engage a beauty influencer to promote your brand since their followers would lean more towards those interested in beauty as well.
An example of influencer marketing by popular beauty influencer Jenn Im:
4) Voice Search
48% of consumers use voice assistants for general web search
Source: Search Engine Land
There is an increasing trend of people using voice search due to its increased convenience. Almost half of consumers use voice search when making searching on the web. This makes it an important component of digital marketing that companies should start focusing on.
However, the way people search through speaking and typing is different. When people type, they tend to type out the main points in a short and concise manner, but when they speak, they speak out in full sentences in a more conversational style.
For example,
Typing: Fun indoor activities
Speaking: What are some fun activities that I can do at home?
Hence, you need to carefully conduct keyword research as well as revise the keywords you have used in the past. Try thinking from the user’s perspective instead. As people often use voice searches to ask questions, the 5 Ws- Who, Where, Which, Why and What should be included in your keywords, as well as ‘How’. Long-tailed keywords should be considered as well.
5) Create Stories
Stories are a great way to engage your audience. Instagram and Facebook stories were a hit when they were introduced and are now used by over 500 million people daily. There are many interactive features for you to use such as polls, questions and even quizzes. These features are especially useful in helping you gather feedback for your business and they also allow you to find out more about your consumer’s preferences.
To make your stories more appealing, there are stickers and GIFs available for you to use too. As a form of engagement with their fans, brands such as Benefit Cosmetics have created their own GIFs and encouraged fans to use them with their stories.
These make stories more engaging and interactive as compared to normal posts where it is mainly one-way information. Viewers are also more likely to engage in your stories since the only person able to see their votes, input and feedback is the account that posted it, which makes it more private and personal.
6) Shoppable Posts
130 million accounts tap on shopping posts to learn more about products every month
Source: Instagram Business
Shopping on Instagram is the new in-thing! Users can now shop and purchase products on Instagram. Given the huge number of people using Instagram, shoppable posts are definitely something that you should leverage on for your business.
Ecommerce stores can now create shoppable posts where they display images of their products, and a tag containing the product name and price will appear when users click on them. To make a purchase, users simply have to click on the tag and the option of viewing it on the website will be displayed.
7) Augmented Reality (AR)
With the great advancements in technology today, AR is increasing in popularity, and many are looking to incorporate AR into their businesses. For example, IKEA’s mobile app uses AR to allow shoppers to see how their furniture will look in their own homes. This allows shoppers to make better decisions and find the furniture best suited towards their home. Makeup brand NARS also allows people to try on different shades and models of their beauty products through AR on Instagram. However, this feature is only available for certain brands at the moment as it is still in the testing phase. This feature increases convenience as people can now try out the products at home instead of going down to the store personally. This also enhances their online shopping experience as it is a lot more engaging and interactive, and helps them to decide on a product more easily.
8) Personalization
80% of those who classify themselves as frequent shoppers say they only shop with brands who personalize their experience
Source: SmarterHQ
I cannot stress enough on the importance of personalizing your website to suit your customers based on their different needs and preferences. When a website is not personalized, the content shown is likely to cater to a general audience. However, every individual has different preferences and the content shown to them might not be what they are interested in. Personalizing your website will ensure that the content displayed is catered to the user’s specific needs and interests, and ensures that the content is relevant to them. Thich would increase the chance of them converting into customers.
An example of a good website personalization is Amazon, where it recommends you products that you might be interested in through analyzing what you have searched and purchased previously. This has proven to be a highly effective strategy for them, as 44% of customers purchase items from their recommendations.
Looking to increase your conversions?
The first step towards creating awareness of your brand and attracting people to your website is by having knowledge of the current digital marketing trends and using these marketing trends to your favor. The next important step is to work on getting conversions, and one such way to effectively do so is through the method of social proof.
Social Proof has a huge impact on a consumer’s decision-making process. When done right, it can be a very effective method to increase conversions and drive up sales. However, for it to be effective, choosing the right tools is important as well. That’s why at Ping Proof, we provide you with just the platform to get it done.
With Ping Proof, you can create and customize notifications to your website visitors in a matter of minutes.
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Random Review An interactive way for users to give feedback about your site
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Informational Fully customizable informational message for your users
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| Video
Easily display a small widget with an informative YouTube video.
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Email Collector
Easily collect emails and generate leads from your users.
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Many competitors out there have already implemented Social Proof on their websites. You simply can’t afford to miss this step. Want to convert your website visitors to customers? Start your journey now with Ping Proof! Request for a 14-days free trial with us today!