With the advent of modern technology, many traditional marketing maneuvers have become history. Innovative digital strategies allow companies to maintain a stronghold over their niche in this competitive economy. These strategies have enhanced the productivity of brands’ marketing campaigns. That’s why companies should adopt these technologies to survive in business and thrive in marketing.
So, here we have compiled a category of nine significant trends your brand requires for progress and development in 2021:
1. Automation and Personalization
Artificial intelligence has influenced many sectors of our economy. And automation – one of many wonders of modernization – has enhanced productivity and increased the effectiveness of brands’ marketing endeavors. Automating these campaigns makes advertising faster and more reliable and provides clients/customers with a personalized touch. It also allows marketers to focus on different challenges, and computer software monitors your ad campaign’s activities. We can see that such software programs will gain more popularity in this decade. Automation will soon become an indispensable technique for progress in the modern digital realm.
2. Voice Search
Voice searches have become a significant contributor to online traffic. Many consumers utilize voice-activated devices. Marketers now focus on voice search optimization, as voice queries are different from text-based ones. Voice searches are more conversational and contain long-tail keywords. And more than half of these searches are made on smartphones. Therefore, companies must also optimize their websites to be user-friendly, even on mobile devices. These tactics will help your brand improve its SEO efforts this year.
3. Consumable Content
Marketers also experiment with easy-to-consume content formats that have massive shareability and impact on the audience. Podcasts have seen a rise among Americans since more than 50% listen to these recorded interviews. That’s why brands invest more in advertising their products in popular podcasts to reach their target audience. Similarly, flipbooks have also seen a rise in popularity recently. Companies utilize the online flipbuilder tools to create these documents that are more user-friendly than ebooks. Since they provide users with a more natural experience of reading an actual book, such content formats will grow as a trend in 2021.
4. Produce Interactive Content
Content marketing strategies will require you to produce engaging, interactive, and educational content for your niche. This content doesn’t just rely on conveying information to the audience but also allows them to respond to the marketers. So, polls, quizzes, and such games have become popular formats on social media and different websites. This content combines education with entertainment to enhance customer experience. Another strategy involves repurposing your old posts to revive their worth and authority. Instead of starting from scratch, you blow life into dead blogs you published a decade ago by updating the statistics and including relevant information.
5. Live Videos and Webinars
Videos have become an effective medium to convey a message to your target audience. Simple videos, webinars, and live-streams will constitute a significant portion of digital marketing in 2021. Such events allow the niche to pose questions and interact with their hosts. A study shows that live videos surged by 50% on Facebook and 70% on Instagram during the lockdown period. Brands can also leverage influencers to promote their brand by creating user-generated content (explained later). In short, relying on mere text-based content won’t work for marketers in this decade.
6. Marketing by SMS
Contrary to what you might’ve heard, SMS and email aren’t dead yet! Updated statistics show that over 80% of Americans communicate via text messages. There’s no indication that SMS marketing will cease to be a thing in this decade. Since people check their phones at least once every day, you can incorporate SMS marketing as an essential component of your omnichannel marketing strategy. This method is quick and direct. Also, you can ensure customer engagement by using simple ciphers and delivery notifications. A report predicted SMS marketing to grow by 10% last year. It will dominate the messaging traffic, beating RCS and OTT services.
7. Privacy And Transparency
Data breaches aren’t uncommon anymore, and companies are responsible for securing the privacy of consumer information. The digitization of industries demands transparency from brands for acquiring public trust. People require marketers to adopt an honest approach towards consumer education. This approach also involves companies protecting a customer’s privacy and save his/her information from being misused. Moreover, communication brands should avoid intruding on their consumers’ privacy with unwanted messages of advertisements. Modern consumers have become smart and demand more respect for the brands they trust.
8. Environmental Sustainability
A Nielsen report published in 2018 revealed that 81% of consumers wanted brands to contribute to the environment’s betterment. No wonder people have become more cautious about the impact of multinational corporations on our atmosphere. Your customers demand companies work for the creation of a sustainable and eco-friendly future. Consumers are even punishing those brands that are damaging the environment. A 2019 survey of British consumers revealed that 77% of them had “switched, avoided, or boycotted” brands to violate sustainability. That’s why companies have to become eco-conscious if they wish to survive in the 2021 market.
9. User-Generated Content
As the name indicates, this content format is created and published by users, e.g., video testimonials. Customers discuss on-camera the benefits of using your products/services. Such testimonies and acknowledgments coming from celebrities or public figures influence people’s purchasing decisions. User-generated content enhances the customer experience by making it humane and memorable. It allows brands to establish strong relationships with their target audience.
Conclusion
We can see that digital marketing allows brands to promote their products/services online to expand their audiences. But certain marketing strategies don’t work as well in the 21st century. Technological advancements have replaced many traditional trends with better ones. Companies now focus on content for human beings since search engines have become smarter. Sustainability and transparency have become the needs of the decade. Your average consumer is now independent and empowered. This consumer is also dependant on social media and online reviews to make a purchasing decision. That’s why you need to adopt these trends for communicating effectively with your niche.