Digital marketing is often misunderstood and misused. With the advancements in digital marketing technology and analytics, it becomes more prevalent to utilize digital marketing to your advantage. With the new year comes a new way to operate across all digital channels – especially as customer behavior changes. This year, expect another shift in customer behavior and digital channel trends that will affect the way you engage with your customers.
Social Media
Social media will become a top-of-the-funnel play. Discovery is important to digital marketing – it always has been an important element, but as technology progresses it is evolving in ways that put the brand front and center. Being higher in the funnel allows the customers to engage with the content, without making a commitment. The direct path to purchase in social media is a thing of the past because of eroding trust factors seen in the social media space. Seeing the shift in strategy in brands to be more upper funnel has benefited brands like Starbucks and Target. The drive to have engaging content may not lead to direct purchases but it does provide an avenue to reinforce the brand and reputation.
Paid Search
Privacy has been a prevalent talking point in digital marketing circles for years. In 2015, Google started applying the (not set) rules in Google Analytics to protect user privacy. It didn’t stop there. Bing and others continued that trend. Privacy plays an important role in paid searches because of how you bid and how you spend. As keyword data becomes sparse, it becomes more important to rely on machine learning and Google AI to help find what your customers are zeroing in on. Bid dynamics are changing to compensate for machine learning, to excellent results. When setting up or reorganizing your paid search strategy, reliance on keyword data will give way to less exact keywords and more on broad match terms.
Some companies employ a batch and blast email strategy. Inundating your inbox daily, sometimes twice daily, is going away. Brands flooding your inbox daily as in years past will learn a hard lesson when their email efforts fall flat. Open rates and clickthru rates improve when you don’t have the appearance that you’re “desperate” for a lead or sale.
Content Marketing
Content is one of the most organic ways to reach your customers. There has been a shift in how people engage with content, largely following the way of visual and video content (see TikTok and Instagram). Content will take a more visual form in 2021. Brands are starting to improve their content, and by extension, their brand, through engaging videos and stunning visuals to complement or replace written text. However, written text still has value. It’s in trying to find the right balance and content that will win the day.
Call us today at 405-688-7093, or email us to see how we can help you with your digital marketing needs.