Digital marketing happens to be one of the most effective ways to grow your business in 2021. As you may know, digital marketing efforts allow your business to discover new leads and boost conversion rates. However, you must identify the latest trends in digital marketing to stay on top of the competition.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses across different industries to make several changes in the way they operate. There have also been some serious changes in digital marketing in the past couple of years.
Due to this rapid shift, digital marketers need to stay updated and continue adapting to the latest trends to retain their competitive advantage as a brand.
So, what does the future of digital marketing hold for us in 2021 and beyond? Let’s take a look into the latest trends –
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Voice-powered search and digital activities:
More and more people are now using voice commands to find information on their smartphones and other smart devices. The technology has evolved so much that every time a user talks to the system, it fulfils their command or answer the query.
Smart speakers and “assistants” have been around in the market for quite some time now. However, they have gained popularity only after 2017 as smart devices like “Google Home” and “Amazon Echo” saw massive growth in users.
With the rise of voice-activated mobile devices, marketers now need to think of ways to produce content that ranks higher in voice searches. In other words, content can now be optimised even for voice search to boost traffic and conversions.
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Increased use of social media to engage with the audience:
You need to deploy more marketing resources o social media strategies in 2021 and beyond. Reportedly, social media marketing budgets accounted for nearly 24% of the total marketing budgets in the US during the second quarter of 2020. In 2021 and the years to come, marketers will increasingly prioritise customer retention and lead generation.
Since last year, a major section of the population is now spending more time online. Moreover, they are researching products, brands and organisations online before they make any purchase decision. The shift in consumer behaviour has created new opportunities for marketers to use inbound digital marketing to reach new audiences and re-engage with existing customers.
You should make a content plan, create regular posts and updates, monitor and drive customer responses and reviews, and attract new business.
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Interactive marketing content:
To retain the visitors, offer them value and boost their engagement with your brand and content, it is vital to introduce interactive elements to your website and social media platforms.
For instance, assignment help providers can consider adding a GPA calculator or other useful tools to their website that offers great value to their primary visitors (the students) and increase their engagement. You must use a Spell Checker tool to check and remove all the possible grammatical errors.
While boosting engagement on the website and social media pages, businesses can also learn a lot about the likes and dislikes of the users.
If you go back to the same example of the GPA calculator, it can help the assignment help provider understand where the students are struggling to score better. This information can be used to refine buyer personas and offer-targeting.
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The rise of micro-influencers:
Most of us are aware of the impact influencers can have on the sales of a particular brand. Influencers are those who have built a massive social following by producing engaging content. They can be YouTubers, Instagram stars, Twitter influencers or TikTokers.
These influencers are often quite relatable, and they are trusted by millions of users online. The opinions they convey can influence the behaviour of their followers, something that every brand wants. So, when you collaborate with an influencer, you can connect with customers, promote your content and products, and build brand awareness.
In 2021 and the next few years, brands will increasingly join hands with micro-influencers, including them in their digital marketing mix. Brands should look for influencers relevant to their target audience and use their influence to boost their individual brands’ visibility.
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Use of Google listings and local SEO:
If you are running your own business in 2021, the best thing you can do is increase walk-in customers while boosting your online presence. This will help you verify your local listings across different search platforms available to you.
For business-to-customer (B2C) businesses that depend primarily on local customers, online listing services such as Google My Business are extremely useful. They allow the businesses to list their contact information, services, service hours, geographical location and other crucial details that help the local customers discover them online.
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Customising content for the customer:
Personalisation of content is now a useful marketing tool. This is because of the increased online traffic in 2020. Customised content helps build effective sales email campaigns, educate your audience, drive new and existing customers to your website, and accomplish other goals in the digital landscape.
However, personalisation in 2021 has gone beyond just customising email messages. It will add artificial intelligence (AI) input to make data analyses more effective while making hyper-personalisation possible. Furthermore, AI solutions can help you select the perfect email template for the target customer and develop content that fits their needs.
This will also allow you to make better content decisions in the future. You need to consider investing in AI solutions and use hyper-personalisation to target customers based on their previous activities and browsing history in 2021.
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Mobile inbound marketing:
There is no denying that mobile phones have become an integral part of our daily lives. And people are increasingly using their smartphones to consume online content.
Moreover, with mobile marketing, you can produce instantaneous results and are more likely to become viral. Therefore, it is evident that brands will continue optimising their content and websites for mobile devices in 2021 and beyond.
However, it is not just about mobile-friendly content. Businesses need to focus more on the user experience (UX) and user design interface (UI) of the website and mobile apps.
The UI/UX trends have a significant impact on the search engine ranking. In 2021 and the next few years, businesses will have to pay more attention to the UX/UI design of their website and mobile apps to offer a seamless experience to the customers.
Final thoughts
There is nothing more dynamic than the field of digital marketing, with new trends cropping up and evolving all the time. Looking at the trends mentioned in this blog, you will see that digital marketing has gone beyond just creating content and optimising it for search engines.
So, incorporate these changes in your business strategy to use these latest trends to your advantage in this competitive environment.
Author bio: Ethan Taylor is a senior marketing manager at a reputed eCommerce company in Sydney, Australia. He is also a part of the team of experts at MyAssignmentHelp, where he offers Essay Typer and MBA assignment help to students on requests.
