With new updates coming each year, keeping up with the latest digital marketing trends is essential. It helps you understand recent changes, features, or algorithms to plan your company’s most effective marketing strategies.
Moreover, 2020’s events, including elections, racial issues, and Covid-19, have shaped people differently. They got a lot more exposure to digital environments and became more aware of social value matters.
Below, you’ll learn the ten digital marketing trends in 2021 to help outline your campaigns.
1. Video Marketing
Videos can make your content more exciting because they appeal to multiple senses. They can also help improve your search engine optimization (SEO), as videos are commonly displayed on the search engine result page (SERP).
Here are several video marketing trends to try:
A popular example is Apple’s WFH video on YouTube. It’s relatable to many people as it shows the struggle of working from home during the pandemic.
If you want to host videos on your own website, consider opting for a bigger hosting plan from a reliable to avoid a low-loading website.
2. Purpose-Based Brand Missions
Purpose helps represent the reasons why a brand sells its products or services. It can influence people to buy as prefer to purchase from a company that reflects their values and solves social problems.
An excellent example of a purpose-driven company is Ella’s Kitchen, a food brand for babies and toddlers. to improve children’s lives, like food education for schools and food donations for underserved children.
3. Influencer Content
trust influencers’ opinions more than the brands themselves. No wonder many companies start using niche-based influencer marketing to promote their products.
For instance, a British supermarket chain, Iceland, changed their commercial actors from celebrities to real-life mothers from the YouTube community Channel Mum.
Another creative method in influencer marketing is social media takeover when a brand temporarily gives full access to influencers to control its accounts. It helps provide fresh content and reach influencers’ followers.
Finnair, a Finland’s airline, can be an excellent example of social media takeover. It lets its famous flight attendants share Instagram stories and posts on its account.
4. Conversational Marketing
Conversational marketing refers to one-to-one interactions using dialog format. It helps to humanize the digital experience as it feels like a real-time conversation.
This strategy is often found in messaging apps and chatbots.
Some UX writers also apply conversational marketing to various elements, including quizzes and call-to-action buttons, for a more casual approach. For example, Doordash, a food delivery platform, uses this method to push notifications and even includes the user’s first name.
5. Personalized Marketing
Personalized marketing works as it delivers a more relevant customer experience. For example, new users will get welcome emails with their names. Many companies also pay attention to their consumer behavior to send personalized product recommendations and promotions.
Sephora’s personalization strategy is one of the best. It creates quizzes and analyzes the customers’ purchase history to suggest beauty products that match their needs, like skin conditions and colors.
However, personalized marketing may need extra funds for development, as it relies on advanced technology, like Big Data and artificial intelligence.
6. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been an essential part of digital marketing for some time now.
Some of the popular AI applications in marketing are:
A great example of a brand that utilizes AI is Mastercard. It uses chatbots, a program that simulates a conversation via text, to reply to messages on Facebook.
7. Social Messaging Apps
Like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, social messaging apps can be helpful to send messages directly to customers. They can also provide support and assistance if customers need assistance.
A US-based mayonnaise company, Hellmann’s, used WhatsApp for their campaign, WhatsCook. People gave their numbers on its website, and real chefs would contact them to help them cook.
8. User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) can be in simple forms, like screenshots of testimonials or blog comments. Or, it can be images or videos made by your customers.
This type of content can act as social proof that many people use your products. In addition, as people share about your brand on their platforms, UGC also helps spread brand awareness.
GoPro is an excellent example of this digital marketing trend. Most of its Instagram posts are generated by users, who are tagged to feel noticed and valued.
9. Product Sustainability
die due to environmental health risks each year. That fact has made 81% of global consumers encourage companies to help improve the environment.
As a result, many to connect and win their customers. They start using eco-friendly product materials, packaging, and manufacturing processes.
Nike is one of the companies with great environmental campaigns. It uses recycled polyester and nylon as its product materials. The brand also makes sure that the material suppliers use renewable energy, like installing solar panels on factory rooftops.
10. Inclusivity
With many events currently concentrating on equality, like Black Lives Matter and Pride Month, brands have started applying inclusive marketing.
This digital marketing trend refers to campaigns that include people from different backgrounds to embrace diversity. It helps people relate better to the brands and builds deeper connections.
Some brands aim to reflect various people in the real world, like a beauty brand that shows models with different skin colors.
Meanwhile, others try to break stereotypes, like Samsung x Netflix. Their collaborated ad shows a stay-at-home husband that does household chores, such as organizing the closet and cooking, to help his wife impress her boss.
Reflecting on what happened last year, 2021 digital marketing trends seem to revolve around two areas: technical optimization and humanization.
In the first area, digital marketing applies more advanced technology, including AI and social messaging apps. These strategies help marketers speed up and automate their processes.
Meanwhile, the second area focuses on the people, like inclusivity and brands with solid missions on social or environmental issues. This area can build connections with audiences that have the same values.
Whichever method seems to resonate with your brand, we hope it brings positive results for your business.
Leave a Reply