Digital marketing is a complex and dynamic field. There are so many facets of digital marketing including email marketing, social media, website design, mobile applications, content marketing, search engine optimization, analytics, digital kiosks, paid advertising / PPC, management, ecommerce, and much more that make it difficult to stay on top of. Here are 10 areas of focus to keep in mind when planning and executing your digital marketing strategy:
1. Digital Marketing Mainstream Expansion & Integration
Businesses of all kinds have been shifting to digital marketing in droves because it's affordable, flexible, and measurable. Overall advertising budgets will continue to shift towards digital marketing from traditional television, radio, and printed publications. The smarter traditional media should already be integrating their advertising efforts with their digital campaigns. Every print ad should include their website, social media icons, hashtag, email newsletter, or whatever is applicable to get the most bang for their buck. I wouldn't invest the majority of my advertising budget in traditional media, and most companies will continue shifting their perspective in that direction even more.
2. Cut-Throat Competition
International and local competition is fierce and only getting more intense. Business rivals can come out of the woodwork, scale quickly, and poach your profits in a matter of weeks or months. You have to be ready to compete globally for website traffic, search rank, advertising bids, mobile domination, Kickstarter campaigns, investors, sponsors, screen space, and most importantly ATTENTION SPANS. Can you hold the attention of a reader, viewer, or customer long enough to convert those leads, make that sale, or display those ads? Can you make the customer experience an exceptional one that they will remember and share with their friends? How will you stand out from the pack?!?
3. Be Ready To React
Digital campaigns run at warp-speed now and can be seen by more people than ever. Each year everything gets cranked up another notch. Videos, images, and posts can go viral in a positive way or implode spectacularly. You have the opportunity to help a customer resolve a problem effectively or share their positive experience with the world. On the flip slide, if you have a large corporation or controversial product, you are very susceptible to damaging negative social media backlash or even online sabotage . Your company's Monday - Friday 9-5 office hours social media monitoring isn't going to cut it anymore. You might have to check your LinkedIn and company Twitter accounts more than once a week now! Customers, prospects, and critics are viewing all over the world and potential problems could amplify by the minute. Create a specialized team and comprehensive plan of social media monitoring, customer service, conflict resolution, consumer appreciation, and digital security.
4. Must Master Mobile
It will be a year dominated by mobile media. As you may already know, more traffic is coming from mobile phones and tablets than ever before. In the past couple years, mobile traffic has begun to exceed desktop traffic. People are also making larger and more frequent purchases on mobile devices than ever before. It's no longer a choice, it's a must: go mobile or go home! You must optimize your websites, user experience, and ads for the mobile user or lose traffic, customers, and Google PageRank.
5. Make A Good Impression
The definition of a valid digital ad "impression" has been tested and critiqued in recent years and will get even more specific. With more rigorous guidelines, digital ads should be more effective and statistics should be more accurate. If you are a publisher, it might mean a little less ad revenue and more vigilance on your part to display engaging and optimized advertisements. If you are purchasing digital ads, you'll be getting more value with more ironclad criteria for what is considered a valid impression. But then again the use of ad-blockers is growing exponentially so the ads you purchase or ads you display for revenue may not be getting seen as often
6. Virtual & Augmented Reality
Virtual Reality is finally here! This is completely new technology, which requires a new marketing approach. Currently companies like Facebook's Oculus Rift are still developing their technology’s 3D capabilities and we already can play many different video games on their devices. Oculus has now finally been released to a lot of excitement for gamers and movie-goers alike. Samsung has joined the fun now and gaming companies are also jumping on board. Let's also not forget about Augmented Reality gaming which became a phenomenon with the incredible (if only temporary) success of the Pokemon Go app.
But how will virtual reality technology influence marketing? In the beginning it will do it in the same way as any other type of content. Companies and entrepreneurs will post VR videos to download in order to improve their content marketing strategy. With the further development of VR we can expect companies to use this technology for helping customers to experience their products in the best possible way. Currently VR is mainly used for gaming company promotion, but soon tour agencies will take people to Bahamas even before they book their flight and real estate agents will make more detailed home tours to buyers... all with a little help from virtual reality technology. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are also coming into play as well in a big way. The possibilities are endless and many marketing companies are starting to take advantage.
7. The Future Of Twitter (& Now Shaky Snapchat)
Twitter's future has been uncertain for many years with declining usage, disorganized leadership, stagnant revenue, disassembling of Vine, and possible sales rumors to Salesforce / Microsoft / Google and other suitors. But one thing is for certain: Twitter isn't dead yet. Need proof? Just look at this past election with businessman Donald Trump literally winning because of his Twitter account and 40+ Million followers. And don't get me started on all of the media outlets Twitter usage and Wikileaks. I'm apolitical but as a Twitter marketer the implications of this are astounding.
It is still acclaimed by media companies as one of the best apps for on-the-spot news sharing. Fast development of smartphone technology enables companies to target their audience anywhere and at any time. Twitter, with its smart user interface and real-time character, is going to help them to do that. The reason for this is also the fact that about 80% of Twitter users now log in from their smartphones as opposed to destkop or tablet. Keep that in mind when planning your marketing strategy.
In the past, companies mainly used Facebook pages as their prime digital marketing channel. Now the game is changing and Twitter’s swiftness and simplicity makes it widely used by both marketing and customer relations experts. And we all know the importance of social signals and traffic generation on your website SEO including the biggest search engine Google. Twitter is great for that! The only aspect to monitor is the increasingly growing competition from newer popular platforms like Snapchat and Instagram.
And now Twitter is actually close to being profitable for the first time ever!
Snapchat on the other hand has suffered greatly after a strong IPO after Facebook (via Instagram) successfully stole their popular "Stories" feature.
Who would have thought a year ago that Twitter would be bouncing back with authority while Snapchat was on the serious decline?
8. Geolocation Technology
Although brick and mortar stores are slowly being replaced with e-commerce ones, now they will be able to boost their revenue a little by introducing new location-based marketing technologies. Recently big retail chains started using iBeacons. These are small Bluetooth transmitters, compatible with Apple’s iBeacon protocol. They send promotional messages to nearby devices, enabling stores to promote their sales and special offers. iBeacons capabilities doesn’t stop there. They can also be used for promotion and information sharing on crowded places like: seminars, Super Bowl games, political rallies or concerts. Although this probably won’t bring brick and mortar stores back into spotlight, it will definitely help them to increase their on-spot sales. Companies just need to ensure that they are keeping their data secure.
9. Customer Experience (CX) & Service
Currently many big companies are switching from maintaining good customer relations to becoming customer obsessive. Growing customer service measures create many opportunities (especially for ecommerce stores), but it also spoils customers and can create more required work. In today’s world anything less than perfect is simply not enough, which is why companies need to constantly improve their customer relation procedures. They should do that by:
● Creating more personalized outreach, launched through a wide variety of social network channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, and Snapchat.
● Answering all customer complaints in the fastest and most professional / personal way possible
● Introducing ‘Pay what you want’ deals, and other innovative personalized options. This will really stand out in the mind of the consumer
● Create content like blog posts and FAQs that will help out current or prospective customers while minimizing customer service complications
10. War On Ad Blockers & Popups
Ad blocking software is currently becoming more popular and it has become one of digital world’s biggest mainstream website trends. In recent years more than 250 million internet users have used ad blockers, and today that figure has most likely doubled. This growing trend scared marketers from all around the world, and big online publishers like Forbes who earn millions from their website ads decided to block visitors who use ad blocking programs. Bans and blocks are definitely not a good way to tackle ad blocking, and marketers and publishers need to ask themselves why internet users are so frustrated with their ads.
Ads can be quite annoying, which is why invention of ad blocking software might be one of the best things that ever happened to digital marketing. These programs will eradicate annoying ads and enable marketers to easily launch their creative ideas in form of useful web content. In this battle between publishers and ad blocking software, the latter received unexpected support from Apple. They announced last year that their newest iOS will incorporate Safari ad blocking software. More operating systems and browsers can certainly follow suit. Ad blockers are here to stay, and marketers will need to adjust to this new software by finding more creative ways to engage their audience.
Also keep in mind that Google recently announced they will begin punishing websites that have popup ads automatically generated when visiting a website if they take up the majority of the screen or making web navigation (nearly) impossible. This is certainly something to keep in mind when it comes to ad revenue generation or display advertising purchases.
We all know that banner ads just aren't going to cut it anymore when it comes to a viable digital marketing strategy. We all need to strive to do better and expect better from others.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is constantly evolving and it will be another big year of expansion and maturation. You need to be on top of your game if you want break away from your marketing competitors or take your business to the next level. Evolve or dissolve! As you read this post keep in mind that my professional experiences in digital marketing are primarily in the retail, food, health, fitness, automotive, and publishing industries... so my perspectives and priorities might be different than yours.
There are dozens of other major areas of change for digital marketing in modern business. Unfortunately I can't summarize them all in a single article. My advice is that you stay up to date on the latest business, marketing, and technology news and bring the best to your business every day. Get educated and get motivated! Bootstrap Business is here to help.
I hope you enjoyed this article about digital marketing domains to master in the fiercely competitive business landscape.
Interested in more articles about digital marketing?
Read My Posts:
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Published by Michael J Schiemer
Owner of Bootstrap Business
Money - Marketing - Motivation
Digital Marketing | SEO | Social Media
Mike Schiemer Builds Better Business
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