7 DIGITAL MARKETING TRENDS YOU NEED TO USE IN 2021

Do you use digital marketing to promote your business and clients? The majority of people will say yes to this query. The explanation is simple: the internet is ubiquitous, strong, and here to stay. In January 2020, there were 4.58 billion internet users, representing a 57 percent penetration rate. This means that digital marketing can cover nearly half of the world's population.

Does this, however, make your work any easier? No, it's not true. Digital marketing is rapidly changing. Advertising and other marketing tactics that performed brilliantly in the past are losing traction. Chatbots and influencer marketing are two comprehensive approaches that are gaining momentum. As a result, marketers must keep up with the latest developments in digital marketing strategies and technologies.

When it comes to digital marketing, well-thought-out plans lead to well-executed campaigns. According to a CoSchedule survey of 3,217 B2B and B2C marketers, marketers who consciously plan their marketing plans get 356 percent more returns than those who don't.

As a result, I've compiled a list of seven groundbreaking digital marketing tactics for 2021. This article/blog, however you want to call it, will clarify how to get the most out of each approach.

You'll lose customers if you fall into a rut in your marketing strategies. Customers today are discerning, and they are willing to change their commitment to products that meet their needs. I didn't want you to waste time, money, or effort by investing in just any marketing strategy, so I have compiled a list of the top 7 digital marketing strategies that will succeed in 2021

They are as follows:

• Influencer marketing

• Mobile-first marketing

• Marketing automation

• Multi-platform content strategy

• Brand storytelling

• Chatbot marketing

• Voice/visual search

INFLUENCER MARKETING

People or other living or non-living entities that are trusted by a group of people known as "followers" are known as influencers. Collaboration with influencers to promote the brand, goods, or services is known as influencer marketing. In exchange, you provide monetary compensation, free goods, exclusive offers, or other advantages.

According to a study conducted by Edelman, at least 66 percent of people no longer trust brands as much as they once did. Consumers, on the other hand, despise commercials. 74% of people use ad blockers, change their viewing preferences to avoid advertisements, or pay for ad-free subscription services to avoid commercials. Audiences are backing away from all kinds of overt self-promotion. How can brands reach out to customers and gain their confidence in such a situation?

Influencers are the solution. Influencer recommendations are trusted by 63 percent of people rather than what advertisers say about themselves or in advertisements. Celebrity fame was overshadowed by their relatability.

Influencers not only help brands gain credibility, but they also influence buying decisions. After an influencer recommended a product, 58 percent of people purchased it.

Ultimately, influencer marketing is less expensive than conventional marketing. Influencers generate $5.20 worth of earned media for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, according to the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2020.

You might be shocked to hear that influencers with limited follower groups (nano- and micro-influencers) are willing to promote your brand for free. They are often more than satisfied with the association's visibility and experience, or simply with the free goods. Influencer marketing is divided into many parts, namely influencer identification, partnership, and campaign management, and ROI measurement and analytics. While most brands do influencer marketing in-house, influencer marketing platforms can provide end-to-end services at a low cost.

MOBILE-FIRST MARKETING

Any forward-thinking company must consider mobile marketing. According to Salesforce's State of Marketing survey, 68 percent of businesses have incorporated it into their overall marketing strategy. Since customers are glued to their phones, brands, and advertisers must fall into line and prioritize mobile marketing.

Customer preferences are the driving force behind marketing. Brands cannot disregard the mandate if customers want a consistent and seamless experience across all devices. According to Google's 2020 study, marketers must take a mobile-first approach because:

• 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly from the SERPs.

• 59% of respondents favor brands that allow them to shop via mobile.

• 58% of people like companies whose mobile sites and apps remember their past online behavior and history.

Businesses must invest in mobile sites and apps due to increased market demands and changing purchasing habits. You can provide faster, more responsive, and device-agnostic service to your customers this way.

If you want to stay in touch with your on-the-go clients, you'll need a mobile site. Responsive website templates look great on all screen sizes and resolutions. For mobile sites, the “less is more” solution works best. Users are intimidated by text-heavy websites. You should also make extensive use of white space.

Responsive design is only the beginning of mobile-first marketing. When building your marketing strategy, you need to take a mobile-first approach from beginning to end. Blog posts, emails, advertisements, and social posts should all be designed with mobile in mind, just like your website content.

Mobile users are wowed by videos and graphics. They often hold viewers' attention for longer periods of time and have a much greater effect than plain text content. You can cater to various user groups and channels by combining audio, video, and text content.

Mobile apps play an important role because of their demonstrated ability to increase sales. Global users spent USD 23 billion on mobile apps in the third quarter of 2020. In just one year, 32% of app users revisited an app they liked 11 times or more.

A one-time investment in developing an app continues to pay off by increasing sales and customer retention. Your app's user interface should be extremely user-friendly, and the onboarding process should be quick and painless. Keep in mind that 29% of app users will uninstall an app if they don't find it convenient.

MARKETING AUTOMATION

In layman's terms, marketing automation entails automating repetitive tasks so that machines, rather than humans, can complete them. It encompasses a wide range of marketing activities, from sending triggered emails to website visitors to utilizing AI chatbots to answer customer questions.

There are numerous advantages to marketing automation. It can increase the productivity of your sales team if used for lead generation and nurturing. Some tools can send discount coupons to customers who are on the verge of making a purchase. They can retarget lost site visitors with offers tailored to their purchasing or browsing habits.

Your contacts and leads can be segmented and scored using sales prospecting software. Your sales teams will receive more qualified and ready-to-sell leads. Patterns that the human eye may miss can be deciphered using such tools.

Consistency is the most difficult aspect of marketing. Routine tasks like posting on social media, sending welcome emails, and assigning tasks to teammates can all be handled with scheduling tools. For this and other reasons, 75% of brands use marketing automation in some form.

As shown in the graph below, companies use marketing automation in a variety of ways:

Social media post scheduling, email marketing, and social media advertising are the top three uses of marketing automation. Because post creation necessitates creativity, it is not widely automated. Messaging and chatbots, on the other hand, which require some level of sentiment analysis, have become prime candidates for marketing automation.

Target, an eCommerce store, excels at automation. They collect data on infrequent site visitors. Then, via SMS alerts, they send a link to download the app. After a user downloads and opens their app, they will continue to receive promotional messages via email. They display a product review window after the first purchase, allowing customers to rate their experience both in-app and in the Play store.

MULTI-PLATFORM CONTENT STRATEGY

If you want your brand to be seen, you need to be active on all of the major platforms that cater to your target audience. You should also be active on the channels that your top competitors use to get the majority of their traffic.

A multi-pronged content strategy may appear daunting at first, but it becomes easier over time as one channel feeds the other. You'll be able to communicate with customers and gather information about them through a variety of channels.

To reflect a consistent brand personality, you must modulate your online and offline content offerings. Your print material, newsletters, social media content, and ad copy must all work together.

Nike has mastered the art and science of creating multi-platform content. They have a slew of social media accounts, including ones for football fans and fitness freaks. Their Facebook fan pages are among the top ten. Localized content and local celebrities are featured on accounts for different geographies.

BRAND STORY-TELLING

Humans purchase from other humans. In this age of automation, your brand can't afford to be a faceless entity. Brand storytelling ties together company values and products to create stories that appeal to customers' emotions. Finally, it fosters loyalty and repeats sales by forging a trusting bond between a brand and its customers.

Talking about the journey that shapes your brand will set it apart from the competition. You can draw attention to your unique concept without sounding like a salesperson. Instead of touting its products, a brand can cultivate trust more effectively by being transparent about its value system. It's critical to think of unique ways to tell your brand stories. The key is to be genuine and to send out a consistent message to your audience.

CHATBOT MARKETING

Chatbots on Facebook Messenger can be used to automate drip campaigns and close sales. As a result, by 2021, 80 percent of brands expect to use chatbots in their operations

Chatbots are popular because of their on-demand and always-on capabilities. They improve the user experience by responding to customer inquiries quickly and personally. Users don't have to lift a finger to type questions because advanced bots have voice and face recognition capabilities.

Bots can collect important customer data and insights that sales and marketing teams can use to pre-qualify leads. Furthermore, because a single bot can handle the workload of many sales reps, bots significantly reduce labor costs. This may explain why 57 percent of businesses believe conversational bots are a good investment.

Marketers are experimenting with bots in novel ways. Customers at Pizza Hut and Starbucks can use voice commands to place orders with bots. Spotify's bot creates playlists for you based on your favorite tunes. The Mastercard bot can figure out how much you spent on eating out in the previous month. By providing tutorials, Sephora's bot helps you master your makeup game.

VOICE/VISUAL SEARCH

Your business should be prepared to handle voice and search queries, which will account for a large portion of all mobile queries by 2021. Google anticipated the trend and introduced Search by Photo for visual search and Google Assistant for voice search. Every forward-thinking business should jump on board with the trend.

Voice search is popular among consumers because it allows them to search without having to use their hands. They particularly appreciate the ability to multitask by using voice commands to find favorite tracks, make restaurant reservations, or set alarms. By 2021, 36.6 percent of people will use voice search on any device at least once per month.

When a searcher uploads an image as a Google search query, you can inspire crawlers' attention by enabling onsite visual tagging. Because mobile devices account for 53% of all visual searches, you can provide a seamless shopping experience. You can improve your customers' in-store experience by responding to voice queries with prices, reviews, and item locations.

In response to Google Lens, Pinterest launched Lens, a visual search tool to find themes and images related to photos uploaded from smartphones or Pins. They've now added Shoppable Pins, which provide product information as well as a direct link to the product's website for purchase.

CONCLUSION

The landscape of marketing is constantly changing. If you want to beat the competition and stand out from the crowd, you must stay on top of the latest trends. These cutting-edge digital marketing strategies are backed by expert advice and examples to serve as motivation. Choose the methods that are most cost-effective for you and get started.