Content originally posted on Marketing Insider Group
Marketing operates on a foundational set of principles that shift with turns in technology and society. Think about it; when society relied on newspapers for information, marketing gravitated towards print advertising – but now with people looking to search engines and social media for their news, digital marketing has gained traction. With the close of 2017, a year when digital media was more present in our lives than ever, new digital marketing trends emerged to meet consumers head-on.
We’ve rounded up 4 of the hottest digital marketing trends predicted to grow stronger in 2018. Learn what they are and how you can integrate them into your marketing to warm up your leads this year.
Voice Search
Digital marketing’s continued prevalence in society is guaranteed as the world continues to digitize nearly every aspect of daily life. One trend that’s made its way to the forefront of the digital marketing movement is using smart speakers to search the web.
As the popularity of smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home increase, search behavior is changing accordingly. In fact, 7 percent of Americans now own a smart speaker1 and subsequently, most search queries are taking the form of spoken questions as users search the web without ever touching a keyboard. To cater your marketing strategy to web surfers who are talking through the web, rather than clicking through it, retool your existing keywords and create permutations of successful ones in the form of a question. Consider a few examples:
- Best manufacturing companies Vs. What are the best manufacturing companies?
- Supply chain management Vs. Where are supply chain management companies in my city?
- Industrial Lighting Vs. What is the cheapest industrial lighting for a warehouse?
AMP Mobile Sites
As more and more users continue to do their online shopping and searching from mobile platforms, the marketing potential on mobile devices is skyrocketing. Google is moving towards mobile-first indexing and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) making mobile marketing even more critical.
Google recently announced that there are now over 2 billion AMP pages covering some 900,000 domains that are loading twice as fast as non-AMP mobile pages2. To make sure your web presence is optimized for mobile-first indexing and AMP, follow these tips:
- Have a separate sitemap for your mobile pages so Google’s bots can crawl it more efficiently
- Build your mobile pages using AMP; it’s free and effective!
- Make sure your pages load quickly on mobile devices; mobile pages have a 40% higher bounce rate compared to desktop, mainly due to pages loading too slowly3
Interactive Content and UX
Anyone can make a stagnant website with bodies of text and a few images – but how valuable is it really to the user?
With sites like Buzzfeed racking up views in the millions due to interactive quizzes and features, consider applying the same interactive principles to your website. Animation, interactive elements and creative presentation are critical components of involved user experience (UX) on your site.
Pro-tip: Include a quiz as an introduction to a product or service; Paradigm Life’s financial literacy quiz is an excellent example of this. It allows the visitor to have an interactive experience that serves as a natural transition into the business’s products, resources and webpage.
Making visitors to your site feel like they’re really having an influence on the viewing and purchasing process of your product or service can help drive loyalty to your brand and more visitors to your webpages.
Video, Video Everywhere
While traditional ads have their place, when it comes to digital marketing videos are a must. With 87% of marketers using videos as their most common form of content4, it’s nearly impossible to peruse any social media platform or company website without seeing at least one video.
Videos continue to be one of the most effective digital marketing methods available, from full-blown video ads that highlight a product or service to longer explainer or demonstration videos. For leads nearing the end of their buyer’s journey, a live or pre-recorded demo video is a proven technique for moving them closer to signing on the dotted line.
Wrapping Up
Digital marketing is undoubtedly the way of the future. Sure, traditional marketing has its place in an integrated marketing program, but as the technology advances, along with the interconnectivity of the online experience for millions of users, digital marketing is a trend that cannot be ignored in 2018.
With the continued domination of established digital marketing mediums, such as videos posted to nearly every page we surf and the emergence and adoption of once futuristic technologies, like smart speakers that verbally relay search inquiries back to you, 2018 will continue to see digital marketing tactics dominate the field. By employing these hot trends from 2017, you can give your brand the leg up it deserves while also giving your leads the user experience they desire.
Sources:
- NPR survey: Americans love their smart speakers, 42% call them ‘essential’, Search Engine Land
- Google’s AMP now powers 2B+ mobile pages and 900K domains, loads 2x faster, Tech Crunch
- Mobile vs Desktop Usage: Mobile Grows But Desktop Still a Big Player, Stone Temple
- Report: The state of content marketing, Outbrain
