Trends and techniques continually evolve in today’s digital landscape. As a result, businesses and their marketing teams must keep up to avoid being left in the dust by their competitors. This includes utilizing new channels that can help in achieving goals. Whether it’s driving more traffic to their website, engaging and nurturing customers, or increasing their revenue.
The same applies to ecommerce businesses. Now that the world is more connected than ever and most transactions are conducted online. It’s crucial for ecommerce businesses to establish a robust online presence. Doing this will involve creating a digital marketing strategy that attracts visitors. Also, it provides them with excellent customer experience, gains trust, and turns them into lifelong consumers.
When it comes to creating a good marketing strategy, knowing the current trends that have shaped the digital landscape provides you with a competitive edge. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to tap into what is new and say goodbye to what is outdated. The folks at Serpwatch have examined the hottest trends in digital marketing and illustrated how they can be harnessed in their brilliant infographic.
The graphic shows how digital channels are projected to fare in 2019, as well as the dominating trends you should keep up with. To help you plan your strategy, we’ve gathered 7 of the most vital trends and their benefits.
Mobile Search Optimization
The world has gone mobile. With this comes people checking their phones on the go, accessing what they need – from emails and social media to websites and ecommerce sites – with a single tap. People can now go shopping while waiting for dinner to bake and answer an email while on the train. What does this mean for businesses?
There’s a great need to adapt to the changing times and ensure that your potential customers have the best experience possible while visiting your site. This involves optimizing your site for mobile use. People need to see your content and navigate around your site properly while using whichever device to access your shop.
Having a mobile-friendly site is also good for SEO, giving you a higher chance of ranking on search engine results pages and snatching more site traffic.
Video and Content Marketing Integration
These days, customers have different tastes when it comes to the content they consume. If you’re maintaining a blog for your online shop, it’s important to provide visitors with entertaining and engaging content. That will make them want to stay on your site longer and explore other sections.
Video marketing is the best way to engage customers – much more than any other type of content. Product videos, for example, can drive up purchases by 144%. It’s impressive but not altogether surprising given that most consumers research by watching product and demo videos before making a purchase.
Getting to Know Chatbot Technology
Most companies want to run effective, productive, and cost-effective marketing campaigns. However, many ecommerce brands cannot afford to provide everything to consumers, particularly when it comes to quality customer service. They tend to have limited resources in terms of manpower and budget.
But since customer service is integral in running a business, especially those online, investing in chatbot technology could be the perfect solution. This technology can address customer concerns and problems 24/7, taking the pressure off the sales and marketing team.
AI and the Importance of Data
While AI has been around for a while, its significance has become even more apparent nowadays. Data is crucial in enhancing customer experience, especially when it comes to online shopping. It’s key to understanding customer behavior so that retail companies will be able to provide the best buying journey for them.
The amount of data that can be gathered through different channels, however, can be overwhelming for manual work. This is where AI comes in. It can analyze large amounts of data, ascertain consumer preferences. And provide recommendations based on analyzing to make products and related content more compelling.
Running an Email Marketing Campaign
Sending emails might not seem like an obvious marketing strategy given the widespread presence of social networking sites and search engines.
However, it’s still one of the most popular channels for communication with many people regularly checking their emails every day. ecommerce brands can use email to follow up and convert their leads into paying customers.
Email marketing is often personalized and sent to consumers based on their online behavior, search history, or special events. Aside from increasing conversion rates, email marketing is also an ideal nurturing tool that can maintain the seller-buyer relationship way beyond the buying cycle.
Optimizing for Voice Search
The emergence of voice technology has made it easier for consumers to demand information from search engines and get it right away, even if they are on the go. Online retailers must try to include voice search optimization in their marketing strategies given that the technology is not showing any signs of slowing down. Failure to do so might lead to losing customers who have embraced this new technology.
The Rise of Influencer Marketing
If you go on social media regularly, chances are you’ve seen the growing number of companies taking advantage of influencers with a significant number of followers. This allows companies to strengthen brand awareness, expand their reach, and acquire more followers.
Influencers are at the forefront of digital marketing trends as consumers have become more sophisticated. They are tired of being bombarded with advertisements that disrupt their online time. Marketing gimmicks are no longer as effective as they once were.
Rather, their trust lies in real personalities who have used and experienced the products they are interested in. Consumers feel that influencers have the credibility and authority to provide suggestions and reaffirm what marketing campaigns are claiming.
Knowing all of these marketing techniques is essential when creating an ecommerce marketing plan. They can enhance your strategy and give you an edge over your competitors. Just remember, however, that marketing trends continue to evolve. That is why it is important to keep pace with changes to ensure your business will not only remain relevant but also stay competitive.
