Top Digital Marketing Trends That Are Transforming Businesses Worldwide

By Nick Brown

Trends are a fickle beast in any area. They tend to come and go as they please and all of them shake and shape the market. Ignoring or failing to capitalise on time leads to massive financial losses and a shrinking customer base. View trends as boosts, injections and opportunities that will be the chance your business was for. Keeping one ear on the ground will differentiate between the best and the rest. Without further ado, let's start!

1. Modern wonders

Technological breakthroughs are seemingly happening daily. What was new and exciting just before becomes obsolete in a blink of an eye. Modern tech trends bring forth a whole new market to profit on. If you told someone in the 90s that everything will depend on one search engine, they would probably ask what a search engine is. And today, people don't even have to type in what they want to search for but use voice search commands. If you are wondering how you can get in, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri are some examples. Others include optimising your SEO for voice search.

2. Emails still matter

Yes, email filters are sensitive as ever, and ninety-nine per cent is probably spam that comes into your inbox. But that one per cent is worth its weight in gold. Many businesses view emailing as an obsolete form and opt out of it, leaving them a vacuum for you to fill in. People receive over a hundred emails per day, so yours needs to stand out.

By a lot because generic or seemingly bad emails go into the spam folder, and once you are flagged there is no going back. People value their privacy, and violently intruding on it will get you nowhere. Personalising emails, appealing to people's needs and handcrafting your message will get you that open rate you are looking to achieve. Once that's done, and you find what clicks, all you need to do is stay true to the trend.

3. SEO of all things

SEO is still a fresh young trend, ripe with investment and innovation. That one quirk you find and exploit can get you to the elusive number one Google search result. The dream of many becomes a reality for few who ride the SEO wave and make the best use of it. When your business is looking for a quick way in, the best practice is to outsource your SEO needs to SEO experts and get a head start. SEO practice consists of tips & tricks, practical know-how and expertise that don't come overnight if you start from scratch. And if you don't want to miss this trend, you need to hop on in and invite the pros. The benefits of such actions will far outweigh the costs once your business is front and centre on the first page of Google.

4. Social Commerce as the new buzzword

The days of buying items from websites are fading and a new trend of even closer interactions is heading straight our way. Buying directly from social media platforms is becoming the norm as companies inch closer and closer to their customers and offer direct means of sale. The term is Social Commerce, and it cuts away one step from the process. 

Before it was an ad/post, then a click that leads to your site. But now, that click is gone, and your service must be available from the get-go! All your social media marketing, posts and content have to offer instantaneous means of purchase. The most convenient way for customers to get what they want and for you to shrink the selling process is here, and companies that acknowledge and implement it will be at the forefront.

5. Influencer culture

Companies are often seen as soulless and lifeless objects. Something that ordinary people can hardly connect with or put a face on. Lucky for companies, that's where influencers and influence culture come right in. Building a public image is done via influencers or established persons in the market. Why build your market, and spend time and money on a slow process, when you can hire or buy it? Influencers are a quick way to get your share of the market and make a breakthrough. They always have a loyal audience that listens and responds well to them. 

As they resonate with their core audience, any product or service that they use will be presented to their core base. When it comes to influencers, it can be tricky to pick out the right one, as outsourcing this department too many dilutes your brand. Also, if you pick the wrong one, it will cause more damage than good. People have associated the influencer with your brand and product, and it can be difficult to remedy the situation. Diligent research is required to capitalise on the trend of influencers.

6. Personal content

Generic, mass-produced and cold messages go nowhere. When people see that you treat them as some uniform mass, they distance themselves. And why shouldn't they? If companies don't put in the effort to know their customers, why should the customers care about the company? Going out of your way to know your ideal customers and to find out anything you can about them will produce a far more direct and fruitful message. People like attention and respond well to them as it shows you care. When a company does that, people built loyalty as they like to be treated well. 

Personalised messages resonate far better and with such content, you can always present a personal service/product that the customer needs. When you get to know your customers, you will get to know their needs and how to best satisfy them. From that, a profitable exchange can happen with greater ease than forcing your universal message upon the masses. Personalised content also reduces costs, as you are targeting a specific niche or individual. As the one-by-one customer gets won over, they will provide the basis for your customer base.

7. Omnichannel marketing

Last but not least, it's important to highlight a trend of uniform publishing. People are connected online from the moment they wake up till they go to sleep. They browse their social networks in the morning, listen to podcasts and radio in the car, see advertisements everywhere, browse the net once they get home and watch TV before bed. This is just one example of how you can utilise different media to channel your business towards your customers, utilising the strength of each channel, but keeping your message the same. Sure, some adapting is in order, but the overall goal and message remain the same. A unified message on a diversified front brings in far greater results than a mono-channel one. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

 

Trends present a gold mine but one that has a short window open. Trends come and go in a flash, and those that miss that opportunity get lost with them. Keeping your one ear on the ground, constantly being on your feet and never comforting to standards will keep your business mind agile. Our world is ever-evolving, and we need to keep up. What's new, hot and fresh won't stay like that for too long, and that's a reality we need to accept. Those that do, flourish while the rest get stuck in the past. We wish you all the best.

 

Author bio:

Nick is a blogger and a marketing expert currently engaged on projects for SEO Services Sydney. He is an aspiring street artist and does Audio/Video editing as a hobby.

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