Small businesses such as realism tattoo Vancouver and self storage SEO agency stand to gain the most from AI technology, as they already tend to have strong customer relationships. Adding the power of AI to their marketing strategies will enable them to deepen those bonds, elevate their experience, and grow.

From enabling unprecedented personalization to using data to optimize ad campaigns, here are a few ways AI is helping small businesses do more with their marketing and advertising. 

Prioritizing Personalization  

One of the biggest benefits of using AI is the ability to personalize consumer experiences. When you think about the brands you typically engage with, the ones that stand out probably go above and beyond to make their customers feel valued and understood. Every message feels timely and relevant, and that feeling keeps them coming back again and again. AI is a great tool to help create that type of experience.

Salesforce reports that personalization is much more than a preference these days – 56 percent of consumers expect offers to be personalized. Letting AI handle the hard work of analyzing customer behavior can help ensure campaigns are more engaging and relevant to each customer.

Another report shows that companies that grow faster than average gain 40 percent more of their revenue from personalization than their slower-growing counterparts. So, if you want to grow, focus on personalizing your communications to customers. 

Using AI to Create Content

If you’ve ever struggled with writer’s block, or wondered what might make someone more likely to open your email, then AI can bring you a lot of value. As we’ve seen recently with the explosion of interest in ChatGPT, AI has the power to automatically generate content after a few simple prompts. This has immediate implications for small businesses when it comes to creating marketing campaigns. 

Take email marketing, for example. Most small businesses are only marketers by necessity, so the need to regularly create new email campaigns to communicate customers can feel confusing and overwhelming. Luckily, AI technology is smart enough now to automate the writing process, and the resulting copy is often very polished. 

That means small businesses don’t have to iterate for hours about the words for their next campaign – they can create something great in seconds. AI removes the guesswork and speeds up the content creation process so business leaders can focus on keeping everything else running smoothly.

I’d recommend going beyond just email, though. AI is a great tool to help small businesses improve text marketing campaigns, and even generate social media copy. 

Make Ad Campaigns Go Further

AI is also becoming the new norm in the advertising world, and for good reason. Its data processing power is invaluable when it comes to audience identification and acting on a customer’s recent actions or preferences.

While many small businesses don’t do the same amount of advertising as their larger competitors, there is a clear draw for those that do. Using AI to test messages for different audiences, or fine-tune a specific cohort of potential customers is incredibly valuable. It allows businesses to target their ads more effectively and eliminate the outdated one-size-fits-all approach to marketing. 

What Happens Next

AI will continue to reshape the world of marketing and advertising as the quest to understand what makes consumers want to make a purchase continues. The best part about this trend is that AI tools have never been more accessible to small businesses, and there are plenty of tools that were purpose-built specifically for that audience. Time will tell how AI will advance, but it’s clear that it will continue to improve the way we target and interact with customers. 

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This level of hyper-personalized advertising defines the modern digital marketing landscape. Instead of sharing broad-appeal ads with an equally broad audience and hoping for the best, digital marketers use detailed segmentation, sorting audiences by gender, age group, ethnicity, education, interests, and many other factors. And with those segmented audiences in place, they craft micro-targeted campaigns with these specific customer profiles in mind.

But now, just as digital marketers mastered the art of segmentation, the game is changing again.

Micro targeting in Flux

Detailed segmentation is even more challenging, given recent privacy laws restricting first-party data use and limiting profiling and targeted advertising. While these policy changes strengthen consumer privacy, they also throw a curveball at digital marketers: the precision that makes microtargeting click — getting a highly-tailored message to a niche audience — is at risk because of broader audience requirements.

These shifts have pushed marketers to reassess their strategies, with half now questioning the value of traditional customer segmentation models.

So how can digital marketing adapt to this new landscape?

The good news? While detailed segmentation may be losing effectiveness and availability, technologies like generative AI marketing and predictive analytics have grown powerful enough to fill the gap. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI), advanced platform algorithms have improved remarkably over the past decade. Tech giants like Google, Meta, and TikTok, among others, argue that algorithms are now more effective than detailed segmentation. These platforms are also beginning to require advertisers to target larger audiences to access certain features and ad formats.

Algorithmic Evolution

With micro-segmentation growing more constrained, marketing tactics need to be adjusted. Digital marketers must let go of the manual work central to audience segmentation and trust algorithms to analyze data and determine the most relevant audience.

More importantly, marketers must shift toward a broader targeting approach, extending outreach to a larger audience — but with a finely tuned strategy that directs algorithms toward desired demographics. For example, if young urban foodies are the target, using creative imagery and text that resonates with this demographic is essential to guide the algorithm effectively.

Digital marketers can also leverage algorithms to delve into values and psychological drivers that connect with the audience. It’s like an election — just like voters choose candidates based on political leanings and attitudes, consumers make spending decisions guided by emotions and beliefs. Marketers can identify these driving forces by setting hypotheses about what they may be, and testing them through tailored messaging.

A good example? Let’s say your audience is those young urban foodies. To test the hypothesis that these audiences value hassle-free restaurant booking experiences, marketers could create campaign messaging speaking to this value proposition. By analyzing how people respond to these messages, the agency can more precisely pinpoint primary drivers among this audience.

In this scenario, campaign messaging becomes a form of new micro-segmentation. Instead of relying solely on detailed data about individuals, marketers can now tap into broader motivational factors that influence a larger audience. This helps navigate privacy regulations and allows for a more dynamic and effective approach to reaching diverse customers. The focus shifts from targeting based on explicit individual data to crafting messages that resonate on a broader yet psychologically relevant level.

All this marks a significant departure from what is the current norm in digital marketing, and change always comes with resistance. Much like there were skeptics of micro-segmentation, some marketers are reluctant to shift toward algorithms. Especially among customer-based marketers, a strong inclination toward detailed segmentation persists.

But evolution is inevitable – and these aren’t the final changes coming down. Google, for example, plans to start phasing out third-party cookies next quarter, nudging everyone toward broader strategies based on algorithms. Savvy marketers must refine their game plan now before the runway comes to an end.

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More Cost-effective Ways to Spend Your Marketing Budget

Many businesses have turned to alternative ways to spend their marketing dollars rather than falling back on the more traditional methods of marketing. Although this transition may be born out of necessity, many brands find these alternative methods particularly cost-effective, sometimes even delivering a better return on investment than they may be used to from other forms of marketing.

Some exciting examples of alternative (and cost-effective) ways for a brand to market itself include:

• Pop-up events: Pop-up events are a great way for brands to interact with potential customers hands-on and face-to-face. Some of the most successful, cost-effective pop-up events are built around a pre-existing local event, such as hosting a booth at a convention or even a local crafts fair or farmer’s market. These types of pop-ups have a built-in audience that often aligns with a brand’s customer profile.
  
• Strategic partnerships: Brands have had tremendous success forming strategic partnerships with others whose goals align. Take Starbucks and Target, for example; the coffee shop and the retailer are not direct competitors but share a common target customer. By placing Starbucks outposts in Target stores, Starbucks drummed up extra business while Target was able to offer increased value to their customers.
  
• Sponsorships: Although they can get somewhat expensive, depending on the scale, sponsorships can be an excellent way for brands to increase their visibility. By sponsoring events with an audience similar to their target audience, a brand can put its name in front of the eyes of plenty of potential customers.
  
• Corporate Social Responsibility: Many companies have found success in corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns, where they support a cause they are passionate about. Although authenticity is key in a CSR campaign, this approach can show customers that a brand aligns with their values.

Experiential Marketing Helps You Stand Out from the Crowd

Many of these methods fall under the umbrella of — or are often used in conjunction with — experiential marketing, which is the practice of marketing a brand or product by creating an experience for the customer. Compared to traditional forms of marketing, especially advertising, experiential marketing tends to form a deeper connection with the customer because it beckons them to interact with the brand and its message directly and more intimately.

Experiential marketing works because it allows the brand to meet the customer on their level. A strategically executed experiential marketing campaign is targeted to the unique interests and needs of the brand’s ideal customer. 

For example, a brand looking for a hip, young audience might consider hosting an activation at a farmer’s market, as they will likely find this type of consumer there. This type of targeting is a great way to show the consumer that the brand shares their beliefs, interests, likes, and qualities and that they are becoming part of the community.

Targeting the Younger Consumer

Another massive trend in the marketing industry in 2024 is a shift toward targeting younger consumers, who now represent an increasing portion of the buying power in the United States and globally. Because this younger target audience is more technologically savvy than past generations, innovative tools like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are becoming increasingly powerful in the marketing sphere. 

While virtual events became necessary during the pandemic, many brands gained valuable insight into what worked and didn’t work to form connections with the consumer, and have applied those learnings upon their return to in-person events. VR and AR are other approaches through which the customer can engage with the brand and its offerings. 

Many younger customers also connect with short-form videos thanks to the popularity of bite-sized content on social media platforms like TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts. These platforms are effective because they cater to the decreasing attention span of younger generations. If a brand successfully creates content that resonates enough with social media users to go viral, these platforms can be a marketing method that is not only powerful but also cost-effective.

Streamlining the Marketing Process

On the operational side of marketing, tools like artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to streamline the marketing process significantly. Brands can use AI to analyze data, empowering them to make smarter decisions and improve campaign performance, driving increased customer satisfaction and new business. With the unprecedented levels of consumer insights offered by artificial intelligence, brands can improve their marketing campaigns in ways that make them more effective while enhancing their value for the customer.

Similarly, the marketing industry is shifting towards more performance-based strategies. The goal of these approaches is to keep everyone feeling accountable and motivated. Experiential marketing, in particular, must have specific, measurable outcomes to succeed. 

For example, a brand may define success as reaching a certain quota of customers, getting a particular number of individuals to sign up for a mailing list, or meeting a set sales threshold. These goals set a clear definition of success for the campaign.

Navigating the media landscape is about to become much more difficult in 2024 for many brands. However, understanding these cost-effective ways to approach marketing can help a brand stand out in the eyes of consumers and form a genuine connection, allowing them to resonate in a more crowded than usual marketplace.

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1. Micro-Influencers

As digital media continues to grow in importance and reach, micro-influencers have emerged as one of the key drivers of engagement and ROI for brands today. By leveraging relationships with niche influencers who have cultivated a loyal following, brands can tap into specific target audiences and garner more attention than they would through traditional advertising channels like T.V. or radio ads. Micro-influencer campaigns also tend to cost significantly less than celebrity endorsements while generating higher engagement rates among followers.

2. Short Videos Will Make a Massive Impact

Another trend likely to shape the U.S. market in 2023 is short videos—typically 3 minutes or less—have become increasingly popular as a way for brands to engage with their audiences on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Short videos are powerful because they allow brands to tell stories quickly and easily, capturing attention within seconds and simultaneously driving engagement across multiple platforms. Short videos enable brands to creatively showcase their products or services without committing too much time or resources to a single campaign or ad spot.

3. Podcasts Provide an Opportunity for You to be Heard!

In the last several years, podcasts have become a go-to marketing tool for brands looking to reach their target demographic with audio content that can be consumed anywhere and anytime without extra effort from listeners. Podcasts also allow brands to connect with their audiences more personally by featuring interviews with industry experts or company representatives who can directly share unique stories about their brand’s mission and values with listeners. This makes podcasts incredibly valuable when engaging potential customers in meaningful ways that build trust and loyalty over time.

4. The Metaverse Is the Future

The metaverse is essentially the virtual world created by combining augmented reality (A.R.), virtual reality (V.R.), artificial intelligence (A.I.), and other emerging technologies into one immersive experience where people can interact virtually with each other as if they were genuinely present within that space physically. This technology has enormous implications for marketing as it allows brands to create virtual spaces where customers can interact with product demos or attend virtual events hosted by the brand. All without ever leaving home! As these technologies become more commonplace in 2023, marketers should start looking at ways to leverage them creatively to create unique experiences for their customers that can’t be replicated elsewhere, online or offline.

5. The Hispanic Market and Its Growing Economic Impact

While the U.S. Hispanic population is often overlooked in marketing campaigns, this demographic is increasingly impacting the economy significantly. As of 2019, Hispanics accounted for 18% of all consumers and have become one of the fastest-growing consumer markets in the country. This means that brands willing to invest time, energy, and resources into engaging this demographic could reap significant rewards in terms of sales and loyalty in the years to come. Additionally, Hispanics are more likely than other demographic groups to use social media, so brands should look at ways they can leverage influencers and other digital marketing tactics creatively to reach this unique audience.

Conclusion

All five trends mentioned above will undoubtedly shape how businesses operate in 2023 – whether it be through leveraging micro-influencers, creating short videos, utilizing podcasts, exploring new virtual realities, or connecting deeply with Hispanic consumers. Keeping abreast of these trends now will help you stay ahead of your competition in developing innovative strategies that keep your brand relevant while taking it into uncharted waters well into next year! At Digital Piloto, we have the expertise to design systems that will take your business to the next level. We’ll customize a plan just for you that ensures maximum reach and impact – get in touch with us immediately if you need help getting started on digital marketing services!

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That being said, the industry trends I’ve seen throughout 2022 have been truly eclectic. They reveal the magnitude of the post-pandemic shockwaves marketers have ridden since 2020, and they also point to tremendous opportunities and potential. Here’s a breakdown of what’s been going on this year:

1. Agency Owners Are Becoming More Proactive

Being an agency owner can be energizing, especially when you have to solve problems on the fly. But it’s not feasible to stay at such a heightened level of awareness for too long. For two years, you’ve been on guard. Now, you’re tired of reacting.

Everyone is pretty tired of the unexpected. However, the upside to this is that plenty of agency owners are getting off this emotional rollercoaster. Things are slowing down and normalizing. Leaders are finding a better balance. The result of this? Greater success. Getting on your feet, recommitting to your role, and taking back control have an overall positive effect on your team. They’re proactive — and proactivity is good for business.

2. Clients Are Asking Agencies to Help Them Prove ROI

Marketing clients know they want to work with agencies, but they have to get their leadership teams on board. That’s why clients are asking agencies to assist them in connecting the dots.

This is a major chance for you to show your worth. Agencies that can use data and reports to pinpoint ROI will stand out from the competition. They’ll land contracts. They’ll receive referrals. And they’ll hit their numbers.

Of course, this requires you to get creative with not only the assets you generate, but also the way you prove your firm’s value. Technological tools play essential parts in swaying C-suite members’ minds.

3. The Work-from-home Debate is Settling Down

Some agencies never went home during the pandemic. Others were already dabbling with remote work and chose not to return to the office. But most agencies settled in the middle, allowing the telecommuting pendulum to swing unrestricted. As such, the hybrid work model has grown in popularity.

The agencies getting the most out of this model are the ones maintaining calendar consistency. It’s hard to run an agency if people are out of the office on different days each week. It’s much easier to collaborate and contribute to the overall culture when everyone works on a set schedule. To flourish with a hybrid model, you have to know when and where workers will be on any given day, barring emergencies.

4. Employees are Making Bold Demands

One trend that’s surprised a lot of agencies is the shift in power; employees are moving to the driver’s seat. For instance, they’re asking owners for sizable raises. I’ve heard from many agencies that are digging deep just to keep their top performers from going elsewhere.

But increased salaries aren’t employees’ only demands. Flexible scheduling, additional benefits, and more are all on the table now. One agency owner told me about an employee who walked in the door and announced they were relocating across the country the next week. The employee just assumed that the move wouldn’t affect anything.

You don’t want to deal with turnover, of course. So, make concessions — for now, anyway. Workers seem to be slowly moving away from an “I want it all or I’m leaving” attitude, which shows stabilization in the labor market.

5. Micro-influencers and Walled Gardens are Crushing It

Want to wow a client? Try offering a micro-influencer program or creating a walled garden.

As a reminder, micro-influencers don’t just make a living influencing professionally. A micro-influencer is a subject matter expert like a doctor or professor with a significant but modest social media following. Make no mistake: Their followers are loyal and engaged. If you negotiate sponsorships and endorsements with micro-influencers, you’ll help your clients grow.

Walled gardens are private member environments. A private Facebook group or invite-only proprietary forum are good examples of private member environments. Though it costs money to keep the community running and engaged, walled gardens can be worth the investment to nurture prospects and former clients.

The marketing industry is ramping up to a strong 2023. Although agency owners are still shaking off the pandemic, they’re poised to do big things. Learn from the best and take advantage of these trends as you finish out the year.

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How do you know what the best marketing strategy for your business is? How can one decipher between a passing fad or a long-lasting approach to engagement? Here are some of the biggest marketing trends for 2022 and some insight into how to choose the best route for your business.

Stronger Brand Ambassador Roles 

Instead of relying on one or two posts by a popular influencer, brands are partnering with brand ambassadors to establish more long-lasting influencer relationships. This allows brands to become a part of the influencer’s story, instead of simply a one-off post amid unrelated content. 

This approach leads to stronger engagement and better brand recognition by consumers because the content is more consistent. When a trusted influencer is weaving a brand into their content consistently, the trust in the brand increases.

High Tech E-Commerce

With everyone hunkering down at home over the past two years, artificial intelligence in online shopping and virtual shopping experiences has increased exponentially. Consumers have come to expect a highly-tailored experience when they shop online. Businesses on the cutting edge of technology utilized to serve their customers’ needs will see the benefits of this to their bottom lines, compared to the businesses stuck in the dark ages of e-commerce.

A Return to In-Person Marketing 

One of the perhaps unintended results of the pandemic shutdown has been craving for social interaction of any kind. As our societies have begun to open back up, more businesses are planning in-person events, one-on-ones, and innovative ways to get in front of their target market in a more personal, intimate way. People are itching to put the worst of the last few years behind them and get back to a handshake-and-a-smile way of doing business (as safely as possible, of course).

Inclusion and Diversity Matters 

Today’s consumers care about the reputation of the companies with whom they decide to do business. They want the companies they spend money with to be diverse, inclusive, environmentally friendly, and have values aligned with their own. 

The days of “staying out of politics,” or doing things the old-school way in terms of hiring and promoting, may be over for some companies. In this culture of rapid social media news spread, one slip-up could swiftly cause a company to be “cancelled” by the market. The consumer marketplace can be highly polarized, and brands will have to step up their game to appeal to a wide variety of people, opinions, and views. 

Increased Visual Content

If Instagram and TikTok have taught us anything, it is that people respond to visual marketing. A well-crafted Instagram feed can bring in massive engagement, even turning into revenue if it’s leveraged correctly. 

Reaching younger generations of consumers through visually-dominant platforms like TikTok can be a boon for a company if they can pull it off successfully. This means not simply copying the latest TikTok trend, but coming up with compelling, unique content that tells your story and leads to organic views.

What Doesn’t Work Anymore 

Spamming 

I’m not sure if this ever worked, but it has definitely fallen out of favor. While email marketing is still a valid way to reach your target market, emailing your list too often with the same information is bound to annoy them and lead them to mash that unsubscribe button. 

The same goes for cold messaging on Instagram or Facebook. Consumers today want a more tailored and personalized experience with a brand; they don’t want to feel like they are just receiving a bevy of form emails. 

Pop Up Ads 

There is nothing more annoying than trying to read an article, watch a video, or otherwise engage with content and then closing out a bunch of pop-up ads. While you may get a click-thru or two from pop-ups, it’s bound to irritate more than effectively engage.

Bad Imagery or Low-Quality Content 

Content is king, and if your content is low-quality, consumers will move on to someone who has funneled more time, effort, and passion into what they’re putting out into the world. Make sure you’re putting your best foot forward with images, videos, website elements, logos, and other marketing imagery. 

What’s Right for Your Business 

No business should jump on every marketing bandwagon that comes along. Each business is different, and what works for the company up the street may fail miserably for your venture. 

What are your business goals? Do you want to up your follower count, get into a new industry or market, or perhaps you want to give your current followers better content? Businesses should assess their goals at the beginning of each year — or quarter — to see what marketing trends could best help them meet those goals. 

For example, if your goal is to uplevel engagement on your Instagram account, posting more consistent, dynamic content may be something you want to strive for. If you want to drive more traffic to your e-commerce site, making that site very interactive and personalized could lead more people to want to spend money with your business.

Asking your customers what they would like to see from your business is also an excellent way to tap into consumer behavior. Profile your existing customers and look at what marketing approaches have appealed to them in the last year. This will give you insight into your target market and what they are looking for from your business.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to try some things, fail, and try again. No one gets it perfect right out of the gate, and trying a new approach may take practice. Look for indications of best practices in your industry to guide how you may choose to approach a new marketing trend. 

Marketing trends come and go, shifting with economic changes, cutting-edge technology introductions, and consumer behavior. Staying on top of what is working (and what may be a flash-in-the-pan) is a great way to remain competitive and innovative in your industry.

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If you want to compete and grow revenues this year, you must understand how to navigate marketing trends successfully.

Here are 5 of the hottest marketing trends for 2022.

If you’re looking for more trends, read about seven more hot marketing trends for 2022. 

1. Good Customer Experience is Essential

Customer experience is the secret sauce of a successful marketing strategy and a successful brand strategy.

Conversations and Stories

To win in 2022, you have to tell engaging and consistent stories using multiple marketing channels and social networks.

Do this while improving your content to be more conversational and personal. 

What does this mean for you, as a business owner or marketer?

To successfully market in 2022, you must find ways to engage customers and prospects. Among other things:

• Build marketing campaigns based on carefully planned strategies.
• Build an authentic, trustworthy brand.
• Create compelling, high-quality content that tells memorable stories. This is especially critical if you’re marketing to women.
• Don’t be pushy or sales-y.
• Give your audience accurate, actionable information they can use in their daily lives.
• Create educational content that helps your target audience understand your products and services and teaches them something actionable and valuable.

It’s tempting to use automated tools like AI-based content generators to speed up your marketing efforts. But for most businesses, this is a mistake. People can tell the difference between content written by computers and content created by real people. 

People crave and strongly prefer authentic interactions. If your brand fills this need earnestly and honestly, you will grow your business faster.

Create Interactive Content

Interactive content will continue to grow in popularity.

For example, polls and quizzes remain successful hooks in marketing campaigns and essential tools you should consider in your marketing strategy. We’ve been using this strategy at crowdspring for years, and it’s been effective.

For example, our five-question logo quiz asks prospective customers to pick the better company logo from several choices. Only 24% of people answer all five questions correctly. 

Our five-question business name quiz asks prospective customers to pick the better business name from several choices. Only 20% of people answer all five questions correctly. 

Quizzes and polls can be light, fun, shareable, and quick. You’ll entertain customers but also learn valuable information about them.

There are many other valuable ways to create interaction, including reports, guides, infographics, interactive eBooks, and short-form videos (more about those below).

2. Privacy Marketing Builds Trust

Brands like Apple have made privacy marketing a considerable part of their overall marketing strategy and have successfully and compellingly differentiated their products from competitors.

As a result, people have become increasingly aware of privacy. 

Hacks, viruses, and unauthorized, secret data collection on the web and mobile apps have led many people to distrust technology and brands. 

Collectively, consumers and regulators have demanded better privacy policies and practices. They’ve held brands accountable for how they collect and use data. Huge brands like Facebook have been put under the microscope because they have demonstrated a repeated disregard for people’s privacy.

There’s been a strong call for transparency for the past few years, and this call will continue to grow stronger.

Marketing Automation is Becoming More Popular

Successful brands are investing in marketing automation. AI technology and advancements in data science have allowed marketers to analyze purchase behaviors, browsing history, and other information to personalize marketing and advertising campaigns.

So, rather than showing generic and intrusive ads that fatigue people and create disinterest and distrust, you can create more personal, unique marketing and advertising tactics tailored more closely to your customers’ interests.

AI can already analyze and predict your customer’s next move. And while AI isn’t trivial to use in your campaigns, many small-business-focused products can help you build intelligent campaigns that target ads, products, or services right when a prospective customer wants or needs those products or services.

Such a personalized experience can create strong customer loyalty and a genuine benefit for your target audience.

3. Short-form Videos

TikTok has evolved from a Gen Z-skewed platform into a mammoth marketing machine. 

While you shouldn’t ignore TikTok and its many lessons, TikTok is not the only platform for short-form videos.

For the past few years, the world had to get creative from the confines of our homes. We haven’t had access to many advanced tools to generate flashy advertising and marketing campaigns. As a result, a DIY (do-it-yourself) aesthetic has become popular. While production-quality content looks great, it lacks the personable and relatable feeling of DIY content.

And because our brains are conditioned to be more responsive to instant rewards, short-form videos have grown in popularity. The reason for this is simple: the shorter it takes to get a jolt of dopamine, the better.

That’s the secret sauce to TikTok, and it’s the same strategy used by other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram Stories/Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

4. Content is Still King

Content has dominated marketing for years because well-produced content is lasting, engaging, and builds brand awareness.

But, like everything else, content constantly evolves.

People have become meticulous and selective about the content they read and share and the platforms they use.

This shift in consumer behavior requires businesses to evolve and adapt to how they create, share, and promote content.

Video content has dominated over the past few years and will continue to dominate in 2022. You can expect video to become even more essential in your business’ marketing toolkit.

The biggest challenge for business owners and marketers is how to optimize video content to stand out. Fortunately, video production is not as intimidating as it was years ago. What would’ve taken weeks and a multi-person team to produce can now be done by one person in several clicks with tools like Adobe Spark Video and InVideo.

5. Micro-influencer Power

Unlike celebrities, who often have millions of followers, micro-influencers typically have 1,000 to 100,000 followers. However, what the micro-influencer lacks in followers is balanced by strong audience engagement.

In the past few years, engagement rates of micro-influencers have increased by an average of 130%. This success can be attributed to several factors:

• Celebrities are often out of touch with reality. They broadcast from million-dollar mansions and often complain about first-world problems. People are increasingly finding it difficult to relate to these problems.
• Micro-influencers typically are more like their followers. They are more relatable, less intimidating, and easier to understand.
• Micro-influencers are instinctively aware of what to say, when to say it, and how to convey their message.
• Because their followers are smaller, micro-influencers are more involved and engaged with their audience. That provides the genuine connection people crave.
• Micro-influencers are also less expensive. Their pricing is affordable, they are easier to work with, and most can quickly produce content. This helps marketers and small businesses to deliver content to the right target audience on time.

Do your due diligence. Your company’s identity is closely tied to influencers, so pick micro-influencers who will lift your marketing campaigns and not expose you to controversy.

Marketing is rapidly evolving. New trends require new strategies. Business owners and marketers who adapt to these changes will thrive in 2022.

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Retailers and entrepreneurs everywhere are doing what they can to keep up with these rapidly changing trends and use them to their advantage. If you’re determined to help eCommerce businesses succeed next year, keep an eye out for these emerging trends that are vital to your marketing strategy.

1. The Increasing Role of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has always played a major part in the eCommerce industry. However, this advanced form of intelligence is developing an even more significant role in eCommerce.

AI can be used in a multitude of ways to enhance the online shopping experience. For example, shoppers can receive personal recommendations that are based on their unique interests and browsing history. By analyzing the online behavior of customers, AI narrows down their options and identifies the products that each person is most likely to purchase. In this way, artificial intelligence technologies act as a personal shopper for each individual consumer.

eCommerce business leaders are becoming more attuned to these product marketing strategies, which means AI is projected to become more essential to online shopping in the future. Always be on the lookout for new ways to incorporate AI into your content marketing strategy.

2. Mobile-Friendly Shopping

More and more consumers are viewing mobile shopping as a simple and convenient way to make purchases. Whether they’re using a phone or a tablet, shopping on a mobile device has become increasingly more common among eCommerce customers.

Mobile-friendly shopping experiences are only becoming more integral to eCommerce. To keep up with this expanding trend, eCommerce businesses need to be proactive in making their websites as mobile-friendly as possible. If customers find that a page takes too long to load or is too difficult to navigate, they’ll be off to another website that’s been properly optimized for mobile devices.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity while forming your marketing budget. Make your website tailored to the mobile experience to boost customer retention and keep buyers interested in your products.

3. Voice Assistants

Whether they’re searching for the next best product or making a quick purchase, consumers are relying on voice assistants to simplify nearly every step of the shopping process. With voice assistants expected to become even more prevalent in the coming months, it’s crucial for eCommerce businesses to use this emerging trend to their benefit.

As you work on improving your eCommerce marketing strategy, think about how you can incorporate voice assistance into your website. Adding voice-based navigation and voice command functions will make it easier for customers to search for the products they want without lifting a finger.

4. Digital Wallets

As mobile-friendly shopping becomes more prevalent, digital wallets are occupying a larger role in the eCommerce industry. It’s vital for businesses to accept digital wallets as a valid payment option when customers make purchases through their site. Not only will this help simplify the shopping process for your customers, but it’ll also make them more likely to rely on your website in the future.

5. Multichannel Selling

A rising trend among eCommerce customers is using multiple channels to shop for products and make purchases. These channels can include anything from Amazon to Facebook, and they all play a major role in each user’s shopping experience. eCommerce businesses are therefore expected to rise to the challenge and embrace multichannel selling as an essential part of their marketing strategy.

Multichannel selling can be difficult, but it often leads to tremendous success when done correctly. By offering your products across a variety of channels, you have the potential to reach a much larger group of customers and boost your revenue.

6. Environmentally Conscious Shopping

Efforts to become more environmentally friendly are being embraced by eCommerce businesses everywhere. Customers are taking notice, too, because sustainability-marketed products are growing faster than those that aren’t.

To show consumers that you’re serious about your pro-environment stance, it’s vital to make room for environmentally-friendly practices in your eCommerce marketing strategy. 

Do your research on environmental sustainability and green consumerism to determine how your own business can fit into a rapidly growing movement. For example, by offering products that are clearly marked as eco-friendly, customers are likely to gain a greater sense of trust in your company.

7. The Expanding Influence of Social Media

Social media has had a prominent role in online shopping for years. However, it’s only expected to become more relevant to your eCommerce strategy.

One of the biggest ways social media has evolved is that it’s now considered a major marketing tool. While social media sites were initially used as a means of communicating with others, companies have now utilized social media to boost market exposure and gain more loyal customers.

There are various ways to use social media to your benefit. For example, many eCommerce businesses have opted to sell their products through social media channels in an effort to reach more customers. You can also choose to promote your products via Facebook, Twitter or a similar website to make your products more visible and increase customer conversion.

8. Personalized Content

Anticipating the needs of your customers is crucial to their overall experience while shopping online. Because every consumer’s preferences are unique, the best way to ensure that their needs are being met is to create content that’s tailored to their habits.

To effectively implement personalized content, you need to learn as much about your customers as you can. From observing the activity of your social media followers to having your customers fill out surveys, there are a multitude of ways to form a more intimate relationship with each of your customers.

Once you’ve gathered enough data, you can use that information to create Google ads, Bing ads, and other types of content that are specifically tailored to your customers. These relevant offers and messages will convert customers like never before.

9. SMS Marketing

SMS marketing is set to make a big comeback in the upcoming years. This trend of sending relevant marketing messages to your customers via text message has seen significant success in past years, which is why eCommerce businesses should be prepared to make the most of it now.

According to recent data, SMS marketing campaigns have a much higher open rate than email marketing campaigns. While the average open rate for email marketing campaigns is estimated to be about 20 percent, the average SMS marketing campaign open rate is approximately 98 percent. This data illustrates that eCommerce marketers have a much higher chance of success if they send consumers information via text rather than email.

To ensure that your own business’s open rate is close to the overall average, be sure to carefully plan out the information you send to buyers. The messages you compose should contain offers that are relevant to your consumers’ needs, wants, and goals. Sending out irrelevant or unnecessary information puts you at risk of losing loyal customers and missing out on the opportunity to gain an entirely new following.

10. Subscription-Based Services

Netflix and Amazon Prime have already shown the world how vital subscription-based services are to eCommerce success. In the approaching months, these services are expected to have an even larger impact on eCommerce businesses.

When offering subscription services to your customers, be sure to include a range of options that vary in price and available features. This will give each consumer the freedom to select the offer that most closely matches their needs and lifestyle. In addition, each option should offer a sense of convenience that customers can rely on to receive the services they want.

Subscription-based services are also highly valuable to businesses. By implementing these offers into your eCommerce marketing strategy, you can save time and money while boosting customer retention in the long term.

The post 10 Digital Marketing Trends for eCommerce Businesses appeared first on SiteProNews.

Small businesses always face tremendous challenges when competing against more established and much larger companies. Small businesses sometimes simply cannot compete with the vast resources that larger companies have access to. However, they do have the ability to leverage their capability to quickly react to competitive challenges and use this agility to respond with five key marketing strategies that can definitely help their bottom line.

1. Digitization and eCommerce

Small businesses that are ‘bricks and mortar’ operations will need to embrace the technological world and maximize their product awareness by establishing an online presence. eCommerce is the ideal channel where small businesses can advertise and sell their products to prospects and consumers.

Establishing a professional eCommerce platform can be easily achieved, with countless software firms providing ‘click-n-go’ online portfolios that can be swiftly established and operational within days. A small business can also integrate its social media digital channels with their eCommerce portal.

If it is professional services that you specialize in, then using tools such as Zoom, or Microsoft Teams will move meetings from the office to your living room – minimizing the disruption caused by working from home or enforced lockdowns.

2. Artificial Intelligence and Website Integration

Website chatbots are instantly popular with online businesses, and small businesses can leverage them by integrating artificial intelligence with their eCommerce digital platforms.

Once the doyen of science fiction folklore, artificial intelligence is transforming how businesses interact with their customers, and they have the capability to promptly respond to most consumer inquiries – 24 x 7.

Webchat chatbots are a proven AI service that are more convenient than other communication channels such as phone and email. Business phone calls that are placed on hold can sometimes be neglected and simply not even answered, while emails can be disregarded or end up unintentionally placed into the Junk Folder.

Webchat/ chatbots offer the best of both worlds and provide customer query convenience – and with a high probability, their inquiries will be met with a positive response.

3. Customer Experience and Customer Service

A happy and satisfied customer will become a repeat customer and will likely recommend your small business to friends, family, and co-workers. But how can a company gauge and understand their business’s overall effectiveness towards its customers?

This is where customer experience can help. Customer experience is the overall contact, from a customer identifying or discovering your product, to shopping, purchasing, delivery, and then using the purchased product.

Any follow-up communication the customer has with your employees afterward is part of the overall customer experience journey.

 Small businesses can online survey their new customers to assess feedback and determine business processes that require improvement,

 Net promoter score surveys are used to canvass your customer base to determine how likely they are to provide a positive recommendation – typically reported on a scale from zero to ten.

 Evaluate your competitors’ product reviews, and pay attention to their customer feedback regarding their products. The knowledge garnered here can maintain your competitor differentiation or provide business ideas on how to diversify market segmentation successfully.

4. Sustainability and Eco-Friendliness

The millennial generation and their younger associates are the most vocal regarding these subjects, and they are demanding climate change action from governments. They also firmly believe that businesses should invest and engage in social and environmental practices.

Small businesses can respond in several ways to authentically show both consumers and potential leads that they do care about sustainability, environmental protection, and eco-friendly business disciplines:

 Donate to climate awareness charities, and actively communicate this support on your small business social media channels,

 Develop and incorporate sustainability within your own workplace by actively reducing waste packaging generated from business production and workforce by-products,

 Add these practices to your business mission statement, and communicate your practical sustainability achievements to all of your customers,

 In the U.S., leverage the tax credits and monetary incentives available for companies that utilize solar and renewable energy abilities. Your green business practices will be warmly welcomed by local communities. They will also generate positive marketing messages to the broader business audience and consumers.

5. Internet of Things – Blending the Digital and the Physical

There are significant discussions regarding the Internet of Things, but what does that mean for your small business marketing campaign? The key is it depends on the industry that your business is in, and whether these methods of digital tracking and marketing will suit your business style.

An example of this marketing trend that might positively affect small businesses is using a beacon. A beacon is a localized and confined wireless sensor that can recognize when a customer is located within a distinct location of your business, and it can automatically respond accordingly.

For example, suppose you have a small business store that offers tools and hardware products for both tradesmen and DIY-ers. In this case, a beacon can be set up and configured to offer special discounts on specific items when they are walking nearby. This marketing inclination is just one example, and there are so many diverse ways to leverage this technology to suit your small business.

Conclusion

Small business owners can effortlessly embrace these five marketing trends quickly and efficiently. Creating and establishing an online eCommerce presence can be completed in days and offer your customers a new business channel to access your goods and service.

The post 5 Marketing Trends Small Businesses Should Know About appeared first on SiteProNews.

Instead, marketing to the right audience is more about having an experimental mindset. One cannot rely on a single strategy to secure a place in the highly competitive marketing world.

That’s why some famous growth hacking agencies, with their data-driven approach, are so good and fast at taking any brand’s ROI to millions. They run multiple campaigns and try new ideas. After carrying out A/B tests to validate the techniques that bring results for the brand, they stick to them and improvise.

What are those experiment-worthy marketing strategies that make a brand turn into a standard household name?

In this post, we have rounded up the top 6 marketing trends that work great for brands in 2020.

Let’s see what these are.

1. Infographics Are Here to Stay

Marketers love Infographics for their “soft-selling” potential.

They make it easy for prospects to get an insight into your product’s growth by displaying ‘original content’ in the most concise manner. 

This transparency compels them to ‘buy’ without making marketers appear pushy at the same time.

In fact, high-quality Infographics receive three times more social media shares than any other visual content. There is a clear reason for it. Nobody has the time and patience to go through a 2000 word long post when the same points can be summarized in a pictorial representation.

But it is essential to mention here that infographics are a saturated space. To cut the crowd and make an infographic go viral, you need to do more than just feed data and images into it.

Take inspiration from DimeHub, a Kenya based Digital Marketing firm for creating Car Insurance infographics that got 5000 shares.

2. Social Media Live Streaming is in Demand

Live streaming is a more refined entry in video marketing.  

Consumers get to see the behind-the-screen of their favorite brands through live videos. The instant interaction between brand and customer fosters a high engagement rate. 

Customers find it easier to make up their minds to buy a service after receiving a real-time video response to their confusion or queries. This is precisely why 82% of viewers, when given a choice between a social media post and a live video, go for the latter option.    

Keeping this figure in mind, Molbak’s Garden + Home leveraged the opportunity in lockdown to collectively reach out to 17,000 audiences through live streaming their planting tutorials. 

3. Advocacy Marketing Builds Lasting Brand Authority

As online audiences and brands become savvy, Influencer marketing is losing momentum. 

There are now tools to detect influencers with fake followers and engagement. The number of influencers who buy followers to appear ‘big’ is increasing.

Consumers also find it difficult to trust ‘All The Good Praises Only’ about any product from these influencers. Thus, people become skeptical about an influencer using the product on himself.

When customers are pleased, they love to share their experiences. Advocacy marketing uses them as ‘advocates’ to vocalize their true feelings about a product. 

But you have to be creatively intelligent to make a campaign look real. For example, Apple asked its customers to take photos with their iPhones, share them with the company, and then

 selected the best ones. 

In short, although the participants did not realize it, their content was serving as a ‘referral’ to new customers.

4. Giveaways Always Bring New Business

Giveaways create a lot of buzzes.

If nothing else, they bolster brand awareness.

Although it is an old way of marketing, ‘Free Stuff’ still triggers people the same way.

There are heaps of contests already running on Instagram and Facebook. To make their giveaway posts discoverable, brands use hashtags and paid advertising on these platforms.

TikTok is one channel at the moment which is not saturated with giveaways. Hence, the scope to find potential audiences genuinely interested in trying your product is enormous. 

Where successful marketing with giveaways is concerned, simplicity goes a long way. Your giveaway post should clearly tell what the winner gets, its value, and the rules to enter the contest.

GroMo was wise enough to leverage all the online mediums to promote its giveaway which yielded a return of $8000 in sales.

5. Podcasts Create Positive Interaction

Podcasts can educate your audience about your brand while they also multitask.

If the speaker is creative enough, he can easily stretch hour storytelling most engagingly. Once the audience gets hooked, he can promote his brand in the most subtle way.

The on-demand availability of podcasts is what makes it stand out from other promotional media.

Even a retail giant like Sephora tapped into this minefield of marketing opportunities to carry out some savvy branding before launching its new lipstick series. 

6. Google Featured Snippet Has Upped the Marketing Game

A featured snippet is the shortest and most concise piece of information Google thinks answers a query right away. Thus, it displays this information along with the website on top of all search results. 

Even if your site is ranking on #10, it can get the top position in search results for its snippet. 

This eventually leads to more ‘Clicks.’

A youtube video that is SEO optimized to answer a query in 00:17 seconds also makes it featured. 

No method beats featured snippets in getting a brand the visibility and credibility it deserves.

Wrap Up

For a quick review, here are the best working marketing strategies of 2020:

1. Make engaging and concise infographics
2. Make live streaming an essential part of your marketing plan
3. Engage more and more customers through advocacy marketing tricks
4. Market using free giveaways
5. Incorporate podcasts in your promotional activities.
6. Make featured snippet worthy content, whether text or video.

We hope you liked this post.

The post Top 6 Marketing Strategies for 2020 appeared first on SiteProNews.

Read on to find out exactly how to do that and how to make 2020 your best year yet in digital marketing. 

Micro-influencers on the rise

The influencer marketing niche has been experiencing somewhat of a downturn, for a number of reasons. 

For one, a growing number of businesses started reporting less-than-stellar ROI on their investments in this type of marketing. This also coincided with the growing costs of influencer marketing, with bigger influencers charging more and more for the exposure. We must also not forget the whole controversy with fake and/or exaggerated influencers whose reach was nowhere near as dramatic as advertised.

In 2020, we will definitely see more and more of micro and even nano-influencers whose follower numbers (usually under 30,000) may not be as spectacular as those flaunted by the more “traditional” influencers, but who boast some other characteristics attractive to marketers.

A 2017 study by HelloSociety reported in AdWeek, for example, found out that micro-influencers engagement rates are 60% higher than those of traditional influencers and that they are almost 7 times more effective per engagement. In short, you may not reach as many people, but you will get more engagement for your buck.  

These micro-influencers are also more “specialized”, meaning that you can find people that will hold the most sway in exactly the industry/niche you are looking for. For instance, as a small business that sells patio furniture, instead of a home decor influencer, you can go for a patio design influencer who will know more about the industry and whose followers are more likely to buy from you. 

Finally, it should be pointed out that micro-influencers still have some of that ‘they’re the same as us’ feel about them which traditional influencers simply do not anymore, becoming celebrities in their own right.

Mistakes to avoid

When we are talking about mistakes to avoid with micro-influencer campaigns, they are pretty much the same as with traditional influencers. You need to make sure the influencers and their followers are real, that they have the numbers to back their engagement claims and that their followers are actually your target market. 

AI in email marketing

Email marketing has been a staple of every half-concrete digital marketing campaign and department since the earliest days. Even today, it is seen as an integral channel which is often the very last piece of the puzzle which leads to the buyers’ action. 

In 2020, we will continue to experience the evolution of email marketing which was brought about by the introduction of machine learning and AI algorithms that make email campaigns smarter and more effective. 

Most marketers have been aware of the fact that smarter, personalized emails are at least three times more likely to be opened and acted upon for a while now. That is exactly what AI enables you to do – it enables you to sift through copious amounts of data and come up with more personalized email marketing. 

Among other things, AI can help you tailor your email campaigns according to where in the sales funnel the recipient is, when they are most likely to open emails, what exactly they are interested in on your website and their interests in general. 

Another way for AI to boost your email marketing campaigns is by helping you craft product recommendation email campaigns (perfect for B2C, eCommerce businesses). If Amazon gets 75% of its revenue from AI-power recommendations, why wouldn’t you tap this source of sales?

There is no shortage of AI email tools on the market, with new ones coming out all the time. Analyze your email marketing pain points and find a tool that can help you with that. 

Mistakes to avoid

It is easy to get caught up in the numbers, algorithms and A/B testing for the sake of it, forgetting the most important part of email marketing and marketing, in general – creativity. The most spectacularly optimized email campaigns will be in vain if your copy and visuals are lame and if they are missing the point. Email marketing can be fantastically imaginative and you should never forget this. 

So much new SEO to do

Every year, at least a handful of “experts” will tell you that SEO is all but dead and that it is a waste of time and money. What those experts fail to understand is that SEO changes with the times and that it is often all about trying out new things that will help companies place their product/service in front of the people who are looking for them.

Video SEO

Go to Google and type in a search that starts with ‘how to…’. What’s the first result? Is it a video? If it’s not the first result, you will get a video carousel in the second or third place. And it’s not just how-to stuff. 

Google is serving video results more and more commonly and for a good reason – people like video content, especially if they are on mobile devices where it can get cumbersome reading 2,000-word blog posts. Also, it’s a natural move for a company who is the owner of YouTube, the biggest video search engine.

This is why it is a good idea to do some video SEO and make sure your videos are easy to find, that they respond to searchers’ intent and that it is a part of an overarching SEO strategy.

Voice SEO and featured snippets

The numbers speak for themselves on the subject of voice search. With voice assistants becoming more and more ubiquitous with each month that passes, ignoring voice search as part of your SEO strategy is tantamount to inviting trouble. This is especially true for local businesses and B2C companies, but it’s not like B2B companies can ignore voice search either.

There are a few things to understand about voice search. For one, when people use it, they are served only one result – the one that Google deems the best answer to their question. As a result, this will reduce the traffic of everyone but that first result. In other words – you need to become that one result, the featured snippet. 

There is a whole science to making this happen, but at the core of it is predicting the search intent and serving what people want to learn. In other news:

• Keep the content conversational (no keyword stuffing or elaborate, ornate sentences (avoid words like ornate))
• Keep the content short (around 30 words)
• Consider the importance of the location (mention where your business is, make sure to register with local directories, etc.)

Even if you are not looking to attract voice search traffic (e.g. if you run a B2B business with complex products/services), you should still do your best to get the featured snippets. In most cases, they will take up the entire above-the-fold real estate, meaning that for all intents and purposes, they are the ONLY result that Google will serve. 

Like with voice-oriented featured snippets, analyze what is behind people’s search for a specific subject and try to serve the best answer to this.

Mistakes to avoid

While video and voice SEO is rapidly gaining in popularity, you must not forget the tried and true SEO basics which will still play the most essential role in getting organic traffic to your website such as optimizing for loading speed, producing high-quality content and doing a bit of quality link building. 

Social commerce

Social media marketing has been around as long as social media. However, in most cases, it depended on sending customers to other channels and serving almost exclusively as primary steps in the sales funnel. 

All of this changes with social commerce. 

In essence, social commerce entails purchasing straight from social media posts (Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest posts). 

This ensures a few things:

• You are selling to your customers where they’re at
• You are selling to customers at the very peak of their purchasing intent
• You are not sending them to other channels and complicating the sale

Mistakes to avoid

The most common mistake to avoid with social commerce is trying to sell premium, expensive products this way. People still prefer to do research and comparison before spending large amounts of money. Social commerce is more suitable for cheaper, impulse purchases. Use social commerce to make small purchases that will get you customer emails and then use email marketing to nurture the relationship for that major sale. 

Closing word

Before you leave, please keep in mind that these new digital marketing trends should not be seen as silver bullets for your marketing efforts. They will work best in combination with good old-fashioned marketing strategy and tested tactics.

The post Digital Marketing in 2020 and the Mistakes that can Ruin Campaigns appeared first on SiteProNews.

Social media marketing is definitely here to stay, and here’s why:

• 73% of marketers say that social media marketing was “quite effective” or “very effective” for their business;
• Social media is the most influential advertising channel, according to 50% of Gen Z and 42% of millennials;
• Over 88% of companies use social media platforms for marketing purposes.

Marketing on social media is also a quick way for your message to get viral. And, with many effective tools for business, marketing on social media has become more effortless. 

Right now, social media marketing is on the rise. But what does the future hold? What skills will be crucial for a social media marketer to have? What trends will define the scope of social media marketing in the future?

Let’s take a look. 

Trends that Shape the Future

The landscape of social media marketing is changing every day, and it’s not an exaggeration. With every update, businesses are introduced to new possibilities, new tools are being created to boost creativity and make social media marketing even more powerful. 

On-the-Spot Content Replacing Pre-Produced Content

The perception of the perfect content for social media is changing as well. Right now, users prefer seeing a storytelling format. 92% of consumers want brands to make more ads that feel like a story. This prompted Instagram and Facebook to come up with the format of Stories. 

Current data shows that stories will remain a preferred type of content both by social media users and businesses:

The reason why users love the format of Stories is that it depicts on-the-spot events rather than preliminary planned and edited content. More reasons why users like this type of content include:

• Stories don’t require too much attention;
• Millennials and Gen Z thrive on an authentic and meaningful relationship with brands who let them see behind-the-scenes activities;
• Editing stories is effortless with many filters at hand. 

Users love in-the-moment, raw content. It makes the product and the brand seem more authentic. Thus, it is expected that this format will shape the content that will dominate social media in the future.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing was introduced to us by social media. And, over the past several years, it has exploded. Reportedly, Google searches for influencer marketing grew 1500% over the last 3 years. 

Social media users adore influencers, even naming them more trustworthy than celebrities. It is reported that 30% of consumers are more likely to buy a product recommended by a non-celebrity blogger, and here’s why:

• Influencers a relatable. They often communicate with their followers and share honest reviews. 
• Even though brands pay influencers for promoting a product, most of them are highly unlikely to recommend something they don’t like. 
• Authenticity is one of the main reasons why social media users trust influencers. They also provide their followers with personalized content. Thus, they remain relevant, catering to the needs of their subscribers. 

Collaborating with a social media influencer brings a ton of benefits to brands. For instance, a collaboration between Scramble Brand Official and YouTube influencers Jenna Marbles and Julien Solomita helped the company sell their limited edition rashguards within several hours. And, due to the increased demand, the company did a restock and sold out within a few days.

Many famous brands, like Daniel Wellington, also often collaborate with influencers, getting immense profits and new customers. Thus, this trend is likely here to stay and impact the purchasing decisions of social media users. 

AI-Powered Personalized Experiences

AI is shaping the future of many industries in the business world, and social media marketing is no exception. With features, introduced by AI, creating personalized experiences and running a successful social media campaign has become easier. 

In the future, social media marketing is expected to see the further development of the following AI-powered features:

• Using slack bots for customer support. With this feature, it has become easier for customer support service to handle communications with customers. This AI-powered solution uses machine learning to anticipate possible solutions to a problem. 
• Facial recognition. This feature has already been on Facebook for a long time. It recognizes the faces of your friends on a photo and automatically tags them to make sharing content even faster. 
• Machine learning is also used for introducing a social media user with ads based on their activity on a certain platform. This is how Facebook ads work and what Instagram uses to build the Discover page. 

It is expected that the influence of AI on social media marketing will become even stronger in the future. Many other features, connected to personalization and anticipation tools, are also expected to be developed in order to improve the whole experience. 

Defining a Perfect SMM Employee: Key Skills 

Now, let’s talk about key skills that will shape the hiring decisions of social media marketers in the future. With social media developing and changing so fast, SMM professionals are expected to adapt to the changing environment. 

Here’s what different HR professionals say about the key SMM skills that will impact hiring decisions in the future. 

Jeff Bullas, a marketing specialist and a famous influencer, as listed by Forbes, calls a future social media marketer a “ninja geek”, saying that he/she will have to tackle many things at once and stay updated 24/7. Thus, the key skills that will help to handle this flow of data and information are strategy planning, community management, and content optimization. 

Professionals at Robert Half, a global human resource consulting firm, agree with Jeff Bullas, adding that essential skills will also include:

• Adapting the product to the fast-changing world of social media;
• Employing different analytics tools to receive regularly updated social data;
• Having excellent communication and leadership skills to delegate tasks and track the performance of the team. 

Thus, being highly adaptable and always updated are key skills that companies will be looking for in a social media marketer. However, basic skills like communication and planning will play no small part in other key skills needed for social media marketing in the future. 

Final Thoughts

Social media marketing is definitely here to stay as developers invest more and more effort in its development. In the future, it is expected to remain one of the key marketing strategies. The key stipulation is to always remain updated. So, keep up with these trends and key skills that will shape the future of social media marketing to make sure that your campaigns perform successfully.

The post Social Media Marketing – Key Skills and Trends of the Future appeared first on SiteProNews.

As the years go by, technology continues to advance and digital marketing trends continue to change. 2018 introduced some new trends in digital marketing that have changed the way businesses create content and engage their audience.

In this post, we will cover the biggest 2018 marketing trends and how you can utilize them in 2019 to grow your business. Let’s begin!

Why Is Digital Marketing So Important?

Digital marketing is a necessary way to attract more traffic to a website. As a business owner, you want to know how to better connect with your customers and figure out the best way to reach out to prospective clients. Digital marketing is especially important for small businesses who may not be able to afford flashy traditional ads. It gives them a way to be competitive without going bankrupt.

Whether you have an e-commerce store or a blog, several benefits come with marketing your business digitally. If you don’t stay up to date with trends, your company will be left behind and taken over by competitors. Utilizing these trends will benefit in so many ways, some of them including:

• Increased visibility
• Larger reach
• More traffic to website
• Increased revenue

As we’ve mentioned, digital marketing helps level the playing field for smaller businesses. Huge companies like Walmart, Starbucks, and Amazon have taken over huge swaths of the market. Hundreds of local mom-and-pop stores are being wiped out.

Digital marketing provides hope for these small businesses. It allows them to hold a top-ranking position on search engines among hundreds of other similar businesses. Of course, in order to do so, business owners need to inform themselves about how digital marketing works and stay up to date with trends and innovations.

So without further to do, here are the 2018 marketing trends that had the greatest impact.

1. The Integration of Augmented Reality in Social Media

Every year our smartphones and social apps better integrate with augmented reality (AR), giving us a great way to better engage with consumers. The perfect example of an AR experience is Pokémon Go, where users can see their favorite characters jumping around in their own hometown.

Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are all being taken over by AR. On Snapchat, users can add filters to their photos or play games with other users. The app also allows brands to promote themselves through the new Shoppable AR feature.

Launched in April of 2018, Shoppable AR lenses allow brands to do one of three things. They can prompt users to install an app, watch a video, or view a product or website. For example, an Adidas Snapchat lens let users’ snap pics of their faces covered with a cool, Tron-like grid while prompting them to visit the Adidas online store.

Without a doubt, AR is a digital marketing trend that will continue through 2019. It’s not a good fit for every business, but it works well for retailers trying to target young adult audiences.

2. Influencer Marketing 

There are 3 types of influencers that you want to be aware of. These are celebrities, bloggers, and micro-influencers. It will be difficult to get a celebrity to advertise your business. Bloggers are much more accessible. You will be surprised at how active some bloggers are on social media and the number of equally active followers that they have.

Say you have a friend who is a fitness blogger. This happens to be related to your business, which sells running shoes. Ask them for a shout out or to review your products on their site. Bloggers have loyal viewers who will try out a new product if they say that it’s worth it!

Influencer marketing is here to stay because consumers are becoming skeptical of brands. They might not trust you, but they will trust their favorite YouTuber, blogger, or Twitter account.

3. Live Video

When done right, this tactic can be great for your business. Videos are more engaging than text or static images, and 2018 saw a surge in the popularity of live video. Not only are live videos easier to make and less expensive to produce, but your audience can interact with your content in real time.

Facebook Live is one of the best live streaming tools for businesses. You can host an AMA (ask me anything), show live footage of an event, or give your audience a behind the scenes look at your business.

4. Personalization is Here to Stay

We are talking about personalization within all stages of sales. You want to customize landing pages according to your viewers. Email marketing is a great place to start. When you enable this digital marketing strategy, you’re making future messages sent to your customers more personal.

For example, if someone bought a dress from your online fashion store, you could add them to an email segment called “Customers who purchased dresses”. Now, you have an idea of what they like and can tailor future messaging to increase your chances of another sale.

Emails are also a great way to make subscribers aware of an upcoming promotion. People look forward to these emails since there are usually discounts that they’ll want to take advantage of. Giving your messages a personal touch is a great way to better connect with past clients and reach out to prospective ones.

5. Search Engine Optimization

SEO will never get old. You need it to attract new leads to your e-commerce site and rank higher up on search engine results pages. Learning the right strategies and guidelines within this industry will bring new visitors, leads, and conversions. Since the rules of SEO are always changing, you need to keep up with trends to stay on top of your business.

Aside from optimizing your site, there are some other ways you can market yourself. Here are some additional digital marketing techniques that were popular during 2018 that are here to stay:

• Google AdWords – This needs to be in your digital marketing strategy if it isn’t already. This is perfect for businesses that want to display ads on Google. It is largely focused on keywords. Training in digital marketing to learn Google AdWords is worth considering if you want to see significant growth in your business’s revenue.
• Chatbots – This feature has gotten a lot of hype in 2018, and for good reason! A chatbot is an easy way to answer customer questions and comments. They are used to engage as well as solve customer service issues. If you set up the bot correctly, it’s very difficult for customers to tell if they’re talking to a real person or a bot.
• Surveys – This is another trend that is here to stay. Surveys are one of the best ways to obtain feedback from customers. They can be given out in person or digitally, whichever you prefer. To ensure your clients complete the survey, offer some type of discount that they can use on their next visit.
• Online Reviews – Encourage customers to leave an online review. This will make your business more credible. Positive reviews will only keep traffic flowing to your store. If you get a negative review, reach out to the reviewer to find out how you can fix it.

Catch Up on Digital Marketing Trends for 2019

With everything moving so fast, it can be hard to tell what trends are meaningful and what ones don’t have long-term value. Imparture marketing training can help you stay caught up in this fast-paced industry. It can also make you better able to spot promising new tactics. If you’re not very tech savvy or familiar with digital marketing at all, there are courses you can take advantage of to learn.

During a typical digital marketing workshop, you will learn how to stay on top of the latest developments and use them to your advantage. Instructors are experienced and know what they’re doing, so make sure to ask plenty of questions.

Just starting off? Don’t worry about your skill level. Absolutely anyone can benefit from a digital marketing course. Most providers offer both traditional classroom settings or online webinars so that anyone can take advantage of training in digital marketing and grow their online presence.

Conclusion

As you can see, the opportunities that digital marketing presents are endless! We hope these digital marketing strategies have given you a better idea of how you can further grow your business this upcoming year. There are so many ways to give your business that boost it needs. Try starting with some of these strategies!

The post What Were the Biggest Digital Marketing Trends During 2018? appeared first on SiteProNews.

That’s why experience-based marketing — also known as experiential marketing — is so successful. Particular trends are especially effective for engaging customers. 

1. Exclusive Events

People love the prospect of being among the first to experience new things. That’s why they post things on social media to tell friends they got tables at in-demand and recently opened restaurants, or talk about how they waited in line for hours to see a movie premiere or ride a new theme park attraction. 

Sephora capitalized on that characteristic with its House of Beauty-themed “SEPHORiA” events. They celebrated the brand’s 20-year anniversary in the U.S. with ticket-only gatherings that let attendees try beauty products, mingle with influencers and experiment by creating new looks. 

Why They Work: Brand devotees appreciate chances to show their loyalty and satisfy their curiosity. Exclusive events let people do both. By showing up, they demonstrate to brands that they’re steadfast followers and get to check out things that aren’t publicly available.

2. Live Help Sessions

E-commerce experts are familiar with cart abandonment issues that occur when people get frustrated and leave online stores without buying anything. 

Footwear brand Schuh aimed to minimize that issue by providing real-time help sessions to shoppers in the United Kingdom and Ireland who wanted to buy products through the Internet. 

For example, consumers can use video, text or voice chats to immediately communicate with salespeople and engage in co-browsing experiences with them. The brand’s team members also monitor social media feeds and encourage customers to reach out via the live help platform to get assistance with identified issues. 

According to a brand representative, 47 percent of interactions with the Schuh call center take place through the live help platform, and the conversions associated with online shoppers were equivalent to those in physical stores. 

Why They Work: Online shopping naturally takes out some of the elements that help people make evaluations of products in physical stores. They cannot feel the material of wearable products or determine how sturdy they feel in their hands. 

Plus, in a survey of shoppers who buy things both online and in stores, 84 percent responded the ability to ask questions is important for improving their shopping experiences. 

Live help sessions remove some of the guesswork from product browsing and connect people with store representatives. Therefore, it becomes less likely shoppers won’t get the answers they need before making purchases. 

3. Augmented Reality Campaigns

Augmented reality (AR) uses technology to combine virtual aspects with real-world environments. The exact ways people engage with AR vary depending on the setup. For example, experiential graphics can often transform spaces and capture interest. They could also encourage a person to scan a wall or a sign containing a QR code to launch their AR experiences. 

Visit Orlando, the official tourism brand for the Floridian destination, implemented AR in an app that enhanced the camera function on smartphones by giving location-specific information about places when people aimed their smartphones at buildings. 

Why They Work: Compared to virtual reality, which requires specialized equipment, many AR campaigns need only the smartphones or tablets consumers already own to work their magic. 

Plus, people are already accustomed to using those gadgets to find out information as they move around their worlds. AR increases the level of engagement that’s possible, giving brands ample opportunities to make connections with customers. 

4. Awareness-Raising Efforts

Sometimes, brands resonate most with their consumers by spotlighting notable causes and encouraging people to get behind them. Case in point? The Adidas “Run for the Oceans” campaign, which occurred in major cities around the world, including London and Los Angeles.

The campaign aimed to get people to collectively pay attention to the growing problem of global marine pollution and do something about it. Adidas pledged to donate one dollar per kilometer completed to the Parley Ocean Plastic Program, an initiative to reduce plastics ending up in the sea. The brand’s events also featured live music to get people excited after running the routes. 

Why They Work: Customers want to know their favorite brands have more than just company profits in mind. Research indicates 84 percent of consumers look for sustainable products whenever possible. 

Events like the one sponsored by Adidas urge people to unite for causes that matter to them and share collective experiences in the process. In turn, participants often share their stories on social media or tell others they’re impressed brands chose to use their influence to spur positive change. 

5. Lifestyle Campaigns

When deciding whether to buy things, people often consider whether doing so will improve their quality of life. That’s why brands focus on lifestyle-driven campaigns to get results as customers experience their products. 

To change longstanding perceptions that it was a “diet brand,” Lean Cuisine increased interest in its frozen meals through a #WeighThis campaign that involved hiring an artist to create an installation in Grand Central Station featuring women’s proudest accomplishments painted on miniature scale-shaped pieces. 

Then, as a new year started, Lean Cuisine offered web and TV tools that allowed people to block the word “diet” from the content they browsed or watched. The timing was crucial, since January is a time when people hear feedback about shedding their holiday pounds and getting ready for swimsuit season that’ll be upon everyone all too soon. 

The brand ultimately saw a 33 percent uptick in positive brand perception and a 428 percent jump in their social media mentions. 

Why They Work: People often look at the big picture while shopping. They ask themselves, “What impact will this have on my life?” and “What’s in it for me if I purchase this item?” Lifestyle campaigns answer those questions by emphasizing how products are natural fits for the ways people live. 

Experiential Marketing Makes Engagements Memorable

When people merely hear a television ad or read promotional content in a magazine, they’re likely to forget about it soon afterward. However, interactive experiences solidify unforgettable moments in consumers’ minds, increasing their desire to engage with brands and recommend them to friends.

The post 5 Experience-Based Marketing Trends That Are Killing It in Customer Engagement appeared first on SiteProNews.

Every time someone uses any form of communication device, it leaves a gatherable information trail. You leave your digital footprint, just by having your cell or smart phone turned on in fact, it is the same with any digital action, including smart TVs and Car GPS systems. Data can now be captured from photos, videos, recorded sound, written data as well as various different sensor recorders.

The term “BIG Data” refers to the collection of all this data as well as our ability to capture and use it to our advantage in all areas especially business. Big data works using the principle of the more you know about anything, anyone or any situation, the more you can make reliable and more accurate predictions about future trends. This is because you can cross reference data and gain insights that were previously hidden through a lack of knowledge and the technology to use it.

This knowledge allows businesses to make more intelligent decisions and more accurate predictions. The new available technologies are able to capture, store as well as analyze many different types of data using artificial intelligence and cutting edge analytics that was until very recently far too complex and complicated to work with.

The hospitality industry as a whole has been slow to take advantage of these new technologies and recognise their tremendous potential.

Consider being able to gather and use the information people share about their experiences in restaurants or hotels on Facebook or other social media. Everywhere there are security cameras, in hotel lobbies, elevators, hallways, and other public areas as well as in shops and inside as well as around private residences. These devices are all able to capture audio as well as video footage 24/7.

It is vitally important for the hospitality industry to see both the positive and negative side of how their customers felt about them so they are better able to change and modify their operations. A happy guest (which all guests should be) who is generally satisfied with the time spent in your establishment is likely to return and may tell others about it. But a guest who is not happy and finds your establishment to be lacking is very likely to tell everyone except you about it to your businesses detriment.

By taking advantage of all the information available on databases it is possible to reailise the areas of your business that need to be reassessed, adjusted and improved as well as seeing where your competition is. You can see the areas where you are making mistakes as well as the things that win new customers and improves your business.

The whole world is now starting to use this technology to revolutionise the way they do business. It is now possible to accurately predict trends and even what specific types of customers want in your establishment, the types of food they are buying and the services they require. This will enable you to tailor make a whole program or package for them, a package that includes all the positive aspects they have enjoyed in the past and deliver it straight to them in a sensitive and tasteful way via social media.

The collection of all this data is changing the world by the day in areas such as healthcare, crime prevention, education, hospitality, weather and natural disaster predictions.

Looking beyond what is happening 2018 it is obvious that to keep ahead of the competition and run a successful business it will be increasingly important to keep ahead of technological developments and market trends.

When a guest arrives at your hotel or restaurant there is usually a certain amount of waiting time involved, and it is not unusual for them to use their smartphone for social media. This incredibly valuable source of instant feedback is added to all the other data you can access to help give you the big picture of where your business is going as well as giving you the opportunity of seeing your establishment through your guest’s eyes and gauging his/her feelings. You would then quickly get an idea of the things people expect when entering your establishment. What they want to purchase and how they expect to be treated.

This new technology is not far away from the development of smart shopping and smart hotel rooms. Big data can gather details on your customer’s tastes, their habits and dislikes. When they make a reservation or even while checking in to your hotel, you could view their past hotel history and have their room ready and waiting for them.

Think about how nice your hotel would seem to your guests when they enter their room to find that the temperature was set to their desired level, their favorite was music playing or their favorite show was on the TV. Their favorite wine and snacks were waiting for them in the mini bar and all their other preferences were taken care of.

The first impressions are often the most important so these types of things can make a huge difference to peoples overall enjoyment and the experience of staying in your establishment. This translates to customer satisfaction and repeat business as well as word of mouth recommendations. I know when I travel, I ask friends about hotels they have stayed at and search social media for positive recommendations before I make reservations.

Google Questions and Answers are now linked to Google maps so you can now have a setup where consumers can ask businesses questions directly from the search results page of their computer or smartphone. This allows people in the hospitality industry to interact directly with consumers and their potential guests, in a very similar way to Messenger on Facebook.

By taking advantage of SEO and Image Optimisation to raise your Google ratings higher and also link your advertising or web pages and Sitemaps together, you would be able to increase your coverage and also utilize social media marketing.

The next step that you need to become involved with that has already started as a development of big data and social media is virtual reality.

This new technology is going to take marketing to a whole new level with customers being able to use 360 degree immersive video or virtual reality headsets to experience exactly what it would be like to walk right into your hotel, restaurant or café and see and hear firsthand your whole operation, just as it is in real life.

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