If you want your business to remain competitive in today’s online landscape, you need to adapt to the rapid changes taking place in the digital marketing world.
Join Ignite Visibility CEO, John Lincoln, as he runs through the biggest digital marketing trends that are emerging in 2021 so you can stay ahead of the curve.
Let’s jump right in!
What We’ll Cover :
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TikTok Reels and Stories
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Short-Form Video Ads for Paid Media
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Virtual Everything
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Creative Online Experiences
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Media Buying on Niche Sites
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Clear Strategy, KPIs, and Forecasting
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Tracking that Shows Conversions
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User Privacy Protection
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Marketing Automation
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Personalization
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Determining ROI for All Digital Marketing
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Business Intelligence and Digital Marketing Intelligence
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Clubhouse
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SEO
TikTok Reels and Stories
TikTok Reels and Instagram Stories are a couple of places where customers are spending a ton of their time online.
They allow users to create and edit short-form videos and distribute that content in a way that lets you actively reach a much larger audience. Plus, you’ll face less competition on these platforms than you would on others.
Pro Tip: Storyboard your content. Storyboards are detailed maps or blueprints that represent the content you plan to publish. For Reels and Stories, the more content you have to share, the better.
Example of Reel on Instagram
Short-Form Video Ads for Paid Media
Video is the fastest-growing medium on the web today. With short-form videos growing in popularity, you can maximize your brand impact on social media by using these ads to tell your company’s story.
This can take many forms. For example, you can customize your longer story into shorter, 15-second ads that are most relevant to your audience.
If you are in a niche industry that doesn’t have a lot of short-form video, this is a huge opportunity for you to get ahead of competitors.
Virtual Everything
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, most things have gone virtual. That’s why you need to be able to deliver a virtual membership experience to your customers.
As one of the fastest-growing digital marketing trends this year, virtual events and memberships allow you to appeal and accommodate the needs of individuals you may otherwise not have addressed.
These groups span existing members who don’t have the time to take advantage of your organization’s in-person benefits, those with inconsistent work schedules, and people with limited means.
Digital Marketing Trends: Creative Online Experiences
While there’s no shortage of interesting or informative content on the web, passively scrolling to access this information gets old.
That’s why it may be time to consider shaking up your editorial calendar and your marketing strategy.
Design Creative Online Experiences
Not only can including contests in your strategy grow your following up to 70% faster on platforms like Instagram, but it turns your social media platform into a more engaged arena while also gaining customer insights and generating leads.
Media Buying on Niche Sites
In order to build an effective media buying strategy, it’s a good idea to narrow down the top websites in your niche to advertise on.
This is also a great way to test-drive your products or services before launching them in the general market.
Benefits include the ability to engage relevant users, optimize certain product features, and review server loads.
Clear Strategy, KPIs, and Forecasting
The goal of measuring your performance in digital marketing is to get better results.
Forecasting can give marketers an estimate on how past or current decisions can impact those results.
KPIs also play a role in informing your future strategy.
When selecting the best KPIs to prioritize, be sure to select the ones that are strong indicators of your business health and not just things like website traffic, per se.
Tracking that Shows Conversions
There’s an endless number of metrics you could track. But, how do you know which ones are most important?
While it varies from business to business, you’ll want to look at types of tracking that actually tells you exactly where you’re getting conversions from.
Not to mention, a CRM and database integration that shows you everything from the first touch of the customer journey all the way down to the final sale.
User Privacy Protection
As data breaches continue to climb, people’s trust in marketing and advertising is plummeting.
As a result, mastering data privacy is one of the key digital marketing trends you should be focusing on in 2021.
This issue is even making an impact across Apple and Facebook’s networks, as well as the Google Chrome browser.
So, be sure to go above and beyond in allowing customers the ability to control both the personal and private data they choose to share with organizations.
User Privacy Protection
Digital Marketing Trends: Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is projected to become a $25 billion industry by 2023.
In addition to increased customer retention rates, automating certain activities can help companies and marketers reduce workloads and improve the overall effectiveness of their campaigns.
Plus, it also helps sync sales and marketing teams, an alignment that can generate nearly 210% more marketing revenue growth.
Personalization
A little bit of personalization goes a long way. In fact, buyers in 2021 now expect a personalized buying experience.
When used right, personalization can have a major impact on your engagement. In fact, data shows that personalized ads and email campaigns receive 29% higher email open rates and 41% higher click-through rates than non-personalized emails.
Example of Personalization Through Customer-Specific Needs
Determining ROI for All Digital Marketing
Determining the ROI for every different marketing strategy you deploy is non-negotiable.
Particularly as businesses get more closely integrated with online marketing, they are going to need to be able to clearly prove the business model around all the areas they’re spending on.
Business Intelligence and Digital Marketing Intelligence
The merger of business intelligence with digital marketing intelligence is going to be closer than ever before.
What is the product market fit? How much are competitors spending? Where are they going and in what markets? Are they national or international?
Using the overall business intelligence to further dictate and align with the digital marketing strategy is going to be critical as we see bigger businesses start participating in the online community.
Business Intelligence Merges with Digital Marketing Intelligence
Clubhouse
Clubhouse, an audio-only chat app popular among the celebrity circuit, is definitely one of the digital marketing trends you should be keeping an eye on this year.
A lot of the heavy hitters in digital marketing are talking about it right now. It’s a niche network where you can interact with a variety of people.
However, the jury is out on whether or not it will actually grow and turn into a platform where people will be spending their time.
Clubhouse Chat Room
SEO
SEO is everywhere. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Instagram, Google, or YouTube, no one can doubt the importance of SEO in digital marketing.
But as we see more of these sites develop hashtag-based searches and more people coming on and trying to look for content that they enjoy, mastering SEO on every platform is going to be critical.
Remember—SEO is a moving target, which means best practices are constantly changing and developing.
Wrapping Up
What did you think about my predictions for the digital marketing trends of 2021?
How do they line up with your forecasts?
Which of these trends will you try out first?
