If you run a business, you know that most consumers and businesses today are online, so a major part of your marketing has to be digital, at least if you want to make any headway in reaching them. The scope of digital marketing application is massive. And it isn’t all about social media marketing.
Marketing has always been on the move, in terms of how it's defined and executed. From the early days of telephone and wireless transmission, the huge TV trend, radio and billboard commercials and the internet, to social media platforms, IoT—and more—businesses and brands have always had to be on their toes to figure out what's coming next.
Who will win, and who will lose?
Businesses that understand the swiftness with which these marketing trends evolve typically start working on their marketing strategy for the next year as early as Q2 of the current year.
This means that any business that wants to thrive cannot afford to stick to what was working for them in the past. Businesses must always be on the lookout for new marketing trends.
Here are just a few exciting marketing developments that have grown in 2017 and are due to explode in 2018.
-
Smartphones will see increased marketing dominance.
The desktop computer's relevance is swiftly going the way of the dinosaur as mobile devices continue to eat up market share when it comes to all-around usage, especially in advertising, customer engagement, and conversion rates. Obviously, smartphones should be every serious marketer's device of choice, regardless of industry, business size, or offering.
And with Google's shift to a mobile-first algorithm, mobile content-indexing and ranking are guaranteed to tilt marketing more in favor of smartphones.
- Location-based advertising will increasingly be adopted by small businesses.
Say you run a flower shop. You can display a special offer ad to a local event within a five-mile radius, a form of geo-target marketing that typically costs less to run but posts higher conversion rates, increasing the effectiveness of your advertising budget.
- Video will continue to dominate other ad media.
If a single picture is worth a thousand words, then a minute-long video is worth a million words. Put another way, video marketing is the new poster child for digital advertising. In the past, video content has proven to be the most effective medium when it comes to garnering traffic and engagement, gaining leads, and boosting conversions.
Videos, in fact, are head and shoulders above other media strategies because they don't just provide content for your website users—they demand engagement. This speaks to the viral ability of videos, as 37 percent of viewers typically watch a video to the end, and 92 percent of mobile viewers share them with others.
For 2018, your business should concentrate mainly on creating memorable video content that stays true to your brand strategy. Do your SEO a world of good by adding relevant video content to your website, landing pages, content offers, and ads (on and off social media).
- The one-size-fits-all content strategy will grow obsolete.
Your audience is likely made up of new, veteran, and prospective customers of different ages and from different cultures and geographic locations. It would be foolhardy of you to expect that they will all respond the same way to the same content. That's why you need to take their individual needs and requirements into consideration.
Focus on creating customer-relevant content for next year. A move like that could very well make 2018 a very good year for your business in leads, sales, and a lot more.
