Marketing is ever-changing and businesses need to adapt their strategies to fit with this fluid landscape. Here are some marketing trends you need to incorporate into your strategy.
SMS marketing
With astonishing open rates (98%) and users engaging more with SMS than ever – and using their mobiles for pretty much everything to boot – you’d be silly not to jump on board with this trend. Take a look at www.globalmessaging.co.uk for more information.
Video marketing
With 65% of people sharing videos via social media, it makes sense to at least investigate this trend. Creating branded video content for your business can be time-consuming but if you get it right, the pay off can be huge.
Local events
While the focus has been on digital for a long time, we shouldn’t look past more traditional methods. Interaction with your customers is so important and small, local events are a great way to push past any digital barriers and create a human connection between you, your staff and your customers.
Digital PR and blogger outreach
Traditional PR still has its place but digital PR can often be just as effective, when done right. Contacting bloggers and websites can help you to reach new audiences in new and effective ways.
Personalised communications
Personalising your communications with customers can make your offering more relevant than ever. For example, if you send out emails to past customers, look at their previous buying history and base your emails on those details. Also, don’t forget that personalisation is different to segmentation and there’s a place for both in your communications.
Platform-specific social content
The audience of Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and so on are all subtly different so it makes sense to target your content to the people you’re going to reach on each. For example, there’s an older, more professional demographic on LinkedIn than there is on Twitter so make sure your strategy reflects that.
Humanising your brand
We’re bombarded with faceless brands from every angle these days, so to take a step ahead you need to show the human side of your brand. This might be with informal blog posts, video content opening the door on your office culture or maybe events.
Brand partnerships
Teaming up with a brand or personality can help you reach a wider customer base. Brand ambassadors will give authority to your offering while teaming up with another brand will mean you can share things like email lists. You’ll also be able to combine your marketing power with your partners to really make waves.
Mobile-friendly content marketing
Mobile is such a huge part of marketing these days that you should make an effort to target mobile users. This might be with a responsive website (something that’s become even more important now Google is penalising businesses without a mobile site), content designed just for mobile, or SMS discounts for loyal customers.
Quality content
Gone are the days of content written purely for SEO purposes. Content needs to be engaging, shareable and informative. Call on the services of a professional writer, such as a journalist, to be able to deliver quality content that catches the attention of your audience.
These marketing trends are probably here to stay for a while but the sooner you jump on board and implement these strategies, the more of an advantage you’ll have over competitors.