It’s almost unfair for you and your business to just wait for the remaining three months and ‘start fresh’ not fully realizing its goals for the year, right?
Well, if you’re not quite there yet and not ready to walk off the playing field, here are digital marketing trends of 2018 you can still carry out…
1. Behavior-based Personalization
Personalization means understanding your customers more than just their names and demographics. Segmentation and customization allows customers and prospects to feel valued, and their behavior brings important insights for marketers.
According to Marketo, behavior-customized e-mails are 3x better than batch-and-blast e-mails. And Statista reported that the open rate for a personalized message was 18.8% as compared to 13.1% without any personalization.
As a business owner, you can tailor your content and deliver a unique experience to your customers based on their choices and preferences, using data like purchase history, behavior, interests, and links clicked.
Source: digitalvidya
This “Share a Coke” personalization campaign is an example of online marketing tips by Coca-Cola (in USA, 2014) aiming to reach millennials.
2. Meaningful Content Marketing
We are now in the digital age that a well thought out content strategy is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Any brand can develop a content marketing that fits the overall goals but it’s essential to prioritize relevant articles.
Content is not limited to text alone, but also the visual content, images, videos, and social media marketing that have given brands more creative ways to showcase their products. A virtual agent company can even craft, publish, and manage content that is specific for your niche market.
3. Social Messaging Apps
The wide use of social messaging apps is no longer for friends sending emojis and memes with each other. It’s another window for small businesses to upgrade their efforts in expanding their market reach.
Consider these stats:
- 1.3 billion monthly users are on Facebook Messenger
- 2 billion messages per month are exchanged between people and businesses on Facebook Messenger
- 55 billion messages are sent via WhatsApp every day
Source: techcrunch
For instance, when you hire a social media manager, he can setup your Facebook page to have an auto-responder every time a fan or visitor sends an inquiry via Messenger.
Related Article: How to Hire A Rockstar Social Media Manager
4. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The rise of interactive tools such as chatbots can provide real-time virtual support to the site visitors’ queries and expedite them to take a buying decision. Economist surveyed that almost 75% of business executives are considering the use of Artificial Intelligence in the business within next three years.
AI can not only interact with multiple people at once, but it can also analyze their behavior and search patterns, utilize data from social media networks to help businesses understand how users and customers find their products and services.
5. Mobile Marketing for More Sales
93% of marketers are using mobile marketing for online sales growth. Click To TweetMobile takeover in 2018 is unstoppable – from making online purchases, bills payment, banking, to every transaction possible.
Research shows that US users spend an average of 87 hours each month on their smartphones.
This upsurge of mobile phone usage makes it imperative to develop mobile-focused digital marketing strategies to drive online and in-store sales.
To make mobile-friendly pages, you should develop the following in your site: speed, accessibility, clarity, types of content consumption, sound and visual elements.
Related Article: Advantages of Making Your Site Mobile Friendly
6. Consumers Crave for More Deals
When it comes to growing revenue and loyalty among customers, offering promotions and deals is one of the best ways to go. Deals can be a valuable marketing approach for re-engaging a consumer with a particular product and veer their shopping journey back to your site–resulting in a sale.
Customers want savings that are easy to obtain and swift to access. The use of hashtags, coupon codes, and limited time offer truly helps.
7. Big Data Marketing
Big data can be mined from dіffеrеnt ѕоurсеѕ such as social media analytics, sensor data, public web, business apps; аnd tооlѕ ѕuсh аѕ SE Ranking, Buzzstream, DataHero, YesWare etc. Data mining is one of the virtual marketing assistant tasks you can outsource today.
Once you have it and you gain a clear understanding of the overall journey of your customers from search to shopping, you can then implement ads targeting or retargeting to convert known leads or find new ones.
By 2020, the big data market will reach $9.4 billion from just $1.7 billion in 2016 Click To Tweet8. Paid Ads
Speaking of retargeting, there is an effective way to use paid ads in digital media considering that many site users are annoyed by ads that pop up anytime.
One marketing manager said that she finds that customers are more responsive to target ads that appear alongside content they are already browsing. If they’ve checked out your services in the past, they’re more likely to click on an ad that appears to be a subtle reminder.
9. Effective Use of Video Advertising
Source: solwininfotech
This one is a no-brainer. Video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019, and 90% of customers report that product videos help them make purchasing decisions. And no, it’s not just YouTube. You can make live broadcast on Facebook to publicize company events and product launches.
With this in mind, think of creative ways you can leave a lasting impression in your video marketing. You can add subtitles to your videos to make them understandable, or find the perfect length to attract the audience without boredom.
Related Article: Incorporate Video Marketing to Promote Your Business
10. Marketing Automation
The number one reason why you should adopt marketing automation is productivity. Research shows that automation boosts sales productivity by 14.5 percent and cuts down marketing overhead by 12.2 percent. This makes email marketing and social networking much more efficient for business activities.
11. Voice Search and Voice Marketing
Last year, voice search applications on laptops and smart devices made searching, connecting and multitasking even easier. Voice search uses words more naturally than written content; and you can position your long-tail keywords and conversational phrases in these voice apps.
According to Google, 20% of mobile searches are based on voice, and the number will soon increase as the users will get used to asking Alexa or Siri for useful information.
Well, that’s about what you can squeeze in your digital marketing strategy for the remaining months of the year. Did we miss anything? We would love to hear from you! Let us know if these tips worked for you; and if you have questions or any Online Marketing related success stories, please leave a comment below.
Do you have any questions about digital marketing assistant services? CALL US at 1-866-596-9041 and discover how our highly qualified and trained virtual assistants can help in your everyday tasks and objectives.
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