The marketing landscape has changed drastically over the last 5 years, and this change shows no signs of slowing down. With best practices in social media, SEO, content marketing, and PPC rapidly developing and becoming even more technologically influenced, it’s important to be aware of how these changes affect your business.
In the realm of digital marketing, “high-tech” is no longer an option, but a necessity to maintain relationships, generate new leads, and keep your competitive edge. However, it can be hard to know where to start when it comes to implementing new marketing trends. Here are some strategies to help you keep up with industry advancements and, maybe, even get ahead.
Integrate APIs
Using API’s, or Application Programming Interfaces, is becoming an increasingly popular way to streamline e-commerce businesses. These mutually beneficial contracts allow two pieces of software to share limited amounts of information and improve customer service.
Although mostly invisible to users, almost everyone has interacted with — and most likely benefited from — an API. They have almost unlimited application and, even more, are being created and customized every day. Just by implementing a push notification, API businesses can re-target lost visitors and significantly increase conversions at minimal cost. APIs give businesses the ability to smoothly process payments, monitor shipments, embed maps, and run different apps in conjunction with one another to improve customer service and efficiency.
Social Media
If you are not already building your brand through the big social sites, you may want to get started. Social media is one of the best ways to create content that is tailored to the context of each individual, driving engagement and encouraging sharing. For B2C marketing, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are the current heavy hitters — and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. LinkedIn and Twitter continue to grow in importance for B2B businesses for both advertising and recruitment.
Influencer Marketing
Once you have a social media presence, using influencer marketing is a logical next step. This is defined as a form of marketing that involves endorsements from people and organizations, usually possessing a high level of knowledge or social influence in their respective fields. It’s a new way to access word-of-mouth by using key brand advocates to organically attract customers.
Although most people assume it only involves social media influencers. At its core, anyone who has cultivated an audience that is relevant to you could be an influencer for your business. Influencers could be a celebrity, a thought leader on Twitter, or even on a smaller scale: micro audiences stemming from organic user-generated content. Consumers usually trust other people’s opinions; influencer marketing has become an extremely popular and effective way to build your brand and target a specific following.
Artificial Intelligence
AI is a broad-ranging classification, and its application in business and marketing cannot be overlooked or ignored. Artificial intelligence includes any technology that mimics human interaction and intelligence. This ends up encompassing voice search, image recognition, semantic search, chat bots, and more. These relatively new communication channels were highlighted in 2018 and will only continue to increase in importance within the coming year.
Most consumers actually prefer chat bot-based customer service over human interactions. Businesses using virtual assistants are able to eliminate hold times, effortlessly recall customer histories, and provide 24/7 customer service. AI has penetrated industries from food service to insurance, with companies like Lemonade almost exclusively using chat bots on their website. AI allows businesses to anticipate future engagement and purchasing patterns of their customers based on the data they collect. Today, nearly 20 percent of Americans have a smart home device like Alexa, and global leaders are only continuing to invest in machine learning and AI. Therefore, the integration of AI is an important trend to follow.
Video
Video marketing is one of the most influential and significant trends in digital marketing, and likely will remain that way for the next 5-10 years. 72 percent of businesses say incorporating video into their digital marketing strategy has improved their conversion rate. Live video is especially popular. It’s a way to bring in your audience by demonstrating products, giving behind-the-scenes glimpses, and streaming events or conferences. One challenge the industry has faced over the last few years is the increasing shift to mobile devices, making long-form advertisements, text ads, and email marketing less efficient. Video is the perfect way to bypass those issues because you can present the same information on any size screen.
Digital marketing has continuously improved and adapted to meet the needs of customers in an increasingly technologically influenced environment. Increased digital infrastructure has quickly changed how customers engage with their surroundings. Digital marketers will have no choice but to ensure their strategies remain effective year after year.
Nick Andrew Rojas is a self-taught serial entrepreneur who has worked with various startups as a business consultant.
