It’s a known fact that digital marketing trends are changing every day and smart marketers are already planning on how to keep up with these trends in the coming year. Digital marketing has become one of the most important marketing elements of any business to grow and flourish in today’s world.
Many companies are starting to recognize and realize the untapped potential of digital marketing, which can do wonders for their business.
People who are interested in making a career in this domain should go for digital marketing training as companies are eager to hire trained and skilled digital marketers.
Moreover, as all forms of marketing (such as multi-level marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, etc.) continue to capture the attention of consumers globally, digital marketing has proved to be quite the front runner so far.
In this article, we take a look at top digital marketing trends that will change businesses in 2018.
1. Customer experience
Customer experience is already driving digital marketing space and this trend is expected to continue in the coming year. Companies are now rethinking their customer experience to remain attractive. Marketers understand one fact very well, that is, consumers are always interested to get the answer to one question – “What’s in it for me”?
Therefore, the need for creating a customer centered and custom experience is on the rise globally among businesses. What this means is that website chat, and messaging channel engagement should be fully integrated into your into your marketing, sales, and customer service plans.
2. Content marketing
In the coming years, content marketing will be what matters the most for business to business (B2B) and business to consumers (B2C) marketers which is independent of the organization or budget.
The link among the frequency of publication (content), the chosen angle and the number of customer interactions proves the need to implement a communication, focused on learning material, disruptive and exploratory work for the customers.
According to a report on Digital Marketing Institute, brands will continue to invest in original content in 2018. What this means is that content marketing budget will continue to be on the increase. And transparency will be king.
3. Chatbots
Chatbots are going to be one of the key ingredients to grab digital marketing success in 2018. Some of the trends to expect in 2018 are conversational API, messaging as a platform (MaaP), bot sites, and conversation copy.
While Chatbots will continue to play their role in customer service, we can also expect to see those managing FAQs or providing 24/7 service in the near future.
4. Social messaging apps
These days, people share a lot of content on private social media platforms like Wechat, Facebook Messenger, and Whatsapp.
Private social messaging apps offer a sea of opportunity for the businesses. In 2018, organizations should consider investing time and money in it as it can surely help in expanding their market reach significantly.
5. Micro-moments
This is a new consumer behavior that all brands should take note of. Some of these behaviors are purchase moments, research moments, and discovery moments which happens on the average of 150 times per day. Around 96% of users use their smartphones to conduct on the spot research.
Micro-moments are classified into: I-want-to-know moments, I-want-to-go moments, I-want-to-do moments, and I-want-to-buy moments.
The most efficacious brands will be those who would have the skill to correctly anticipate and address such impetuous micro-moments. You can learn more about micro-moments, what it means for brands, and how to win micro-moments with Think With Google.
6. Machine learning
These days, as consumers become more demanding and tech-savvy, businesses need to ensure that they respond to them quickly. Because if they fail, consumers might shift to their competitors.
A shift from traditional marketing to real-time automation is highly needed, and this can be achieved through machine learning.
This trend has already created a lot of buzz in several industries and is set to transform others too. Marketers who would work in collaboration with machine learning-based automation are bound to succeed in the coming year.
7. Conversion optimization rate
Conversion optimization rate (CRO), which means increasing the percentage of users converting into customers through your business website, will grow further in the marketing strategies for 2018.
CRO is closely related to search engine optimization (SEO) and can double its gains with better organic search and better converting websites.
8. Corporate blogging
Corporate blogging guarantees many benefits: optimize organic search, build a community, set up a participating dialogue with suspects, prospects and customers.
Supporting an inbound marketing strategy, a corporate blog becomes an essential tool to drive traffic to your website and engage potential customers.
9. Data driven marketing
Data is the heart of marketing. To capitalize on it properly, marketers have to exploit it quickly to extract a sharp analysis on customer’s micro-segments.
Connected objects, more and more integrated in our daily lives, are collecting more and more data. In 2018, there will be six billion connected objects on the market and 30 in each home by 2025.
10. Mobile marketing
Mobile is gradually incorporating the complete digital marketing landscape hence it has been the medium of focus for the marketers.
The term mobile-first has been floating around for quite some time now, and guess what, the buzz will continue to grow. Google very recently announced their mobile-first algorithm which will launch in early 2018.
Once this change is instigated, Google will start indexing mobile content and also use it to determine ranks in its results. Make sure you initiate all the adjustments to get “mobile-friendly”.
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