Online marketing trends change very quickly. You therefore need to stay up to date on what is trending in your niche. These changes also mean that the audience is becoming more reachable. Some of the techniques were very new. They have however been used by some companies and people, and their effectiveness can now be seen. Here are the trends that will form a bulk of online marketing in the future:
1. Going Mobile
As a marketer, you need to reach your customers where they are. A recent research showed that businesses that fail to optimize their sites or landing pages for mobile result in a $1 trillion loss in sales. Your site, landing pages, emails, and even campaigns should all be mobile friendly.2. Content marketing
Content marketing establishes you and your brand as an authority. It creates a connection with your audience, and increases their confidence in your brand too. It is also helpful in SEO and search rankings. Here are some formats for content:- Dedicated social media posts
- Infographics
- Video
- Blog posts
- Interactive quizzes
- SlideShares
- Ebooks
- White papers
3. Creating videos
In future, this will be one of the most effective and beneficial online marketing trends. Cisco predicts that video will constitute 79% of consumer traffic by 2018. Video appeals to almost all audiences, and it is also easy to consume, especially when compared to reading text on a mobile device. Your videos should be based on customer demographics. Your audio should be loud and clear. This includes music, voice and effects. You can create landing pages videos, explainer videos and even videos based on audience updates and product demos.a) Promotion
You then share the video across various platforms. You can post it on your site, add it to a blog post, and share it on social media. You can also record a webinar and avail it for future visitors.b) Hosting
You can host your video on various platforms:- You Tube - it does not have much analytics and tools however
- Vimeo - this platform has impressive HD hosting and the analytics are okay. The videos here are also more artsy
- Wistia- this is a great forum for video marketing. It has a focus on lead generation.
c) Paid Hosting
You can choose to go for a paid option. There are companies that produce video for companies, for instance, CrazyEgg, Wunderlist, Netflix, DemoDuck, Wyzowl, and MotionAuthors.4. Leverage email marketing
This online marketing strategy is probably the oldest among other digital marketing techniques. But before you skip this part of the text, Litmus recently published an infographic which showed that email marketing averages a return on investment of $40 for every dollar spent. When compared with other online marketing trends, email marketing is here to stay, since it has the highest rates of conversion.a) Segmentation
To reap even more from email, you need to utilize another technique called segmentation or personalization. Separate your email lists into more manageable segments. For example, if you are in the fashion niche, you may split your audience into male and female. You may further split it according to the different age groups. Segmentation allows you to tailor your message to the people on the different lists.A recent study by Vero showed that using personalization in email marketing increases click through rates by 50%. Personalization could be just a customer’s name. Here are some options for segmentation:
- According to:
- Signup date
- Activity
- Demographics
- Interests
- Goal activity
- Any other information that is relevant to your brand
b) Integration
Another reason email marketing is still the winner is because you can use the information you get from email to create different landing pages, depending on the different segments that you have. You can use just one form with multiple fields to segment new subscribers.To do this:
- Create a copy or two of your landing pages
- Tailor the content to fit each different segment
- Link to the pages from different ad campaigns
c) Tools
There a number of email marketing platforms which offer extensive capabilities for segmentation, for instance, Mailchimp and CampaignMonitor. Better still, you could both segment and automate your emails. Some effective tools here are: Customer.io, Vero and MailChimp.Note that segmentation does not mean that you should ask for more personal information from your visitors. There are tools that help you to fill in missing information about customers, for instance, Twitter names, biography, full names, Facebook profiles, and current employer. All you need to do is fill in the customer’s email address.
5. A/B Testing
This is an online marketing trend that is still picking pace. It is also a bit technical. However, the companies that have used it effectively have registered significant increase in their conversion rates. The fact that you do not understand the technical aspect of this online marketing technique doesn’t mean that you cannot use it. Here are some useful tools: VisualWebsiteOptimizer, Google Analytics, and Optimizely.Interestingly, A/B testing entails even simple techniques, for instance, changing the color of text on your site. Interestingly, this could significantly increase your conversion rates. However, you may never discover the need for this small tweak. A/B testing extracts data from user behavior. A/B testing also comes in handy when big changes are required. It can help you test images, calls to action, layout and design too.
A/B testing helps to cut down on the time that you would spend in trial and error as you try to find the techniques that work and those that do not. It also enables you to implement a number of strategies at the same time, and track each.
Conclusion
Online marketing trends change extremely quickly. The above online marketing techniques have grown over time and seem to be becoming even more advanced. They are clearly going to be a part of the future of online marketing.
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