Marketing trends are like fashion trends. It is sometimes hard to understand what will happen and what will be applicable for our own specific case.
In this post, I will go through the main points to keep in mind and follow in 2018.
Needless to say that, nowadays, all marketing has to include digital marketing. If you are not visible online you factually don’t exist. You are not visible. Nobody can’t find you or your offer.
A website, Facebook page and Instagram account are now the basis, even for aspirational entrepreneurs.
In the many articles I read for the preparation of this post, several points came frequently. Let’s go through them together.
Content is still king
This trend appeared some years ago. Consumers are not interested anymore in being sold products or services. They want to be seduced by stories, values, messages that will speak to their heart.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and content marketing optimisation are still very important to integrate in your marketing do-do list. What are the topics, issues faced by your audience that you could talk about? What are the main keywords they use? What kind of content are they consuming on your website?
These are mandatory data to know and to follow up.
Video content is the place to be
2017 saw the explosion of video content consumption. Easy to watch, no need to be actively involved in the content consumption process as for an article, videos are the new fav, especially for the new Gen Z.
Just see the number of videos uploaded on Youtube:
1,300,000,000. 300 hours of video uploaded every minute,
5 billion videos are watched every day.
Yes, quite impressive…
YouTube is not the only plateform allowing video sharing. See also Instagram and Snapchat.
Instagram to surpass Facebook
Speaking about Instagram, some expects forecast this app to surpass the king Facebook. Why? Because Instagram is more imagery oriented and, more important, drives a higher level of engagement.
If you have a Facebook page and an Instagram account, just make the test with one post and compare which one drove more engagement…
Instagram is also one of the preferred social media for the new generations.
Likes and followers are not enough now
Engagement won’t be about the number of likes and followers you have anymore. Engagement will also include how your audience react to your posts like comments. Shares.
Influencer marketing
Bloggers relationships are not just a trend anymore but a reality. Bloggers are real business people. Just look at Chiara Ferragni and her fashion blog The Blond Salad.
Bloggers are influencers to their audience and are now considered as long term partners by brands. No matter if you decide to work with micro influencers or superstar bloggers, it is important to integrate them into your marketing strategy.
In the look for personalisation
People are more and more looking for individual and personalised offers. They also want to identify themselves to the stories, brands and products.
The trend will be to give them recommendation of specific products or contents depending on what they saw or read previously. In the same system as Netflix or Spotify can recommend you films or music depending on what you already looked at.
Everything goes mobile
According to EMarketer, people spent around 4 hours per day in 2016 on their phones.
Which is a huge amount of time!
Phones are not used anymore just to call. We check our emails, our social media profiles, use a lot of apps to manage every part of our life, browse websites, communicate with messenger apps. We buy online.
That is the reason why it is now not just important but mandatory to have your website mobile friendly.
I am one of those who just exit a website which poorly shows on my mobile. And I guess you are like me too…
Authenticity and transparency
Consumers are looking for more real experiences based on authenticity. They still want to be sold dreams, but not fake ones.
Be authentic in your messages, in the way you communicate. You don’t have to be perfect or to show perfection. Mistakes and tries will prove that you are a human after all. And your potential consumers will better identify themselves to you and your brand.
Voice content
A new trend appearing is the voice research and voice-optimized content.
Typing your request takes time. More time that just dictating it to a software. Siri from Apple is one of the examples of voice researches softwares.
Many other trends can be added to the list as:
Augmented reality content
The emergence of artificial intelligence tools for life chats on websites for example
Micro moments aiming at addressing immediate interests, desires and cravings of the consumers.
Many things are happening in the digital marketing landscape. And it may be difficult to stay up to date. On my part, I will focus on these following trends:
Content and video content
Instagram the new place to be
High level of personalisation expected from the consumers
Authenticity and transparency in the way to communicate
Focus on the new generation as new consumer targerts
Messenger applications as the new way to communicate