The worldwide outbreak of 2020 will be felt significantly in the digital marketing scenario of 2021. Brands face diverse customer behavior, advancement in technologies, and the impact of social media on the marketing perspectives.
Digital marketing is changing rapidly compared to other corners of the marketing world. As new technology is dominant over the older one, it is tough to stay connected with the latest digital marketing trends.
Digital marketing has proved to be unmatched in its flexibility over the previous year. According to Digital Marketing Institute, 66% of brands have faced an economic crisis because of the Covid-19 pandemic; still, some marketers generate revenue of 90% or more of their budget by digital marketing.
Digital marketing trends and policies are persistently growing, and before you even know it, another new digital marketing technology will be on its way. As the future is unknown, you need to be prepared for the latest trending technology that 2021 will bring for you. Here are the top 15 digital marketing trends to watch out for in 2021.
1. Marketing Automation:
Marketing Automation will keep on flourishing admirably into 2021, as marketers look forward to expanding their marketing campaigns’ profitability and productivity. For example, email marketing, social media posts, and ad campaigns can now be automated. Marketing automation gives a horde of advantages, right from saving time to shortening the lead generation’s sales cycle.
Moving ahead into 2021, we can positively anticipate web app development companies to bring additional developments in marketing automation. The automation software will be progressively reasonable and typical, reaching out from large enterprises to more startup firms.
One such model is AI-controlled tools like Headlime, which encourages you to auto-create captions and copy for the blogs, landing pages, and ads with the GPT-3 auto generative language model’s influence.
2. Adjacent Search:
Every marketer knows the importance of SEO in digital marketing, but do the brands take this issue seriously? For most organizations, SEO implies getting a specific web page or two to show up as feasible as possible for certain specific search terms. While this may sound fine in principle, it overlooks a portion of the refinements of how customers search on the web.
As per the search experts at marketing agency Hennessey Digital, somewhere in the range of 70 and 80% of users research an organization online before doing any business. A major piece of that research begins with a search.
You can’t only rank your site for a limited segment of keywords; you need to consider every possible search parameter related to your primary business. Zoom in too far, and you will find the vulnerability of losing customers who are looking through terms comparable however not identical to your business. Organizations are progressively tapping specialists to balance their search profile, and that trend hopes to speed up in 2021.
3. Paid Search:
Many organizations claim that they are not using AI internally but outsource for organic and paid search and Google Ads.
Smart campaigns in Google Ads have been acquainted with simplifying the Google Ads for startup businesses. However, there are enormous drawbacks in reduced insight and authority over campaigns implying that small ventures may grow out of this solution.
4. Artificial Intelligence:
- Smart Speakers: The multiplication of smart speakers is crucial in digital marketing in recent years. As per the Social Report, around 56 million smart speakers were sold to customers in 2018, and smart speaker producers sold about 94 million gadgets in 2019.
- The development of smart speakers is a booming opportunity and is soon a prime mode of marketing for online marketers. Flash-briefing and Banded application are the two different ways your business can accept smart speaker marketing in 2021.
- Voice Search: Another visible progress affecting the digital marketing world today is the sudden rise of voice search technology. Voice search is a new searching option that today’s marketers are adapting to rank a website in SERP. In 2020, almost 50% of total searches were voice searches, opening new marketing paths for online marketers.
- Chatbots: Chatbots are the new trend in the digital marketing field. Businesses are using chatbots for a long time and getting profit in a significant way.
- Chatbots are discovering different digital marketing applications such as supporting brands by collaborating with customers and offering them an excellent experience. Many online services provide their customers to use their services by using their Facebook messenger app or some other form of social media. By coordinating marketing channels with the purpose of the purchase, chatbots make the user experience more consistent and shorten the buying cycle.
- AI-driven Chatbots: An AI-enabled chatbot is equipped for conveying a customized insight to customers and clients. These chatbots can even assist clients with paying installments, check balances, or saving money in banks. These are the new experiences that are helping brands in making themselves as ‘client first.’
5. Browser Push Notification:
Push notifications are on the trend now, with 85% of online shops are using them in 2020. Apart from this, consider these other details:
- Research says that twice as many users sign up for web pop-up messages contrasted with a newsletter.
- Just 10% of the best email marketers can accomplish a newsletter sign-up rate that coordinates the performance of web push notifications.
- An average of 6.4 hours passes before the recipient opens a newsletter. But, in the case of a push notification, the recipient can see the message immediately.
The updates to the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) and stricter channels have imprinted email marketing’s strength. Also, the youth favour different techniques for correspondence and likes to manage fewer touchpoints when connecting with brands.
As a part of the proposal to connect with users on different channels, browser push notifications are the primary technology that many brands adopt in 2021. These messages are getting more refined and customized, which increases the conversion rate.
- 7% open rate for fragmented push messaging contrasted with a 3% available rate for conventional, broadcast messages (a 2x improvement).
- 54% of clients convert from a fragmented message pop-up, as opposed to just 15% for the broadcast messages (a 3x improvement)
Notifications set off by behaviour are being used to reconnect individuals who have shown interest however neglected to change over and in recovering income from empty shopping carts:
Notifications can even incorporate pictures and CTAs to expand transformation rates from such endeavors:
6. Content Marketing:
In November 2019, Google uncovered some significant updates to its search algorithm. The updates incorporated the new BERT framework, which is intended to help Google in its endeavors to comprehend the characteristic language that individuals use in their search queries.
Indeed, content marketing is imperative to such an extent that 88% of B2B content marketers concur that developing content makes their customer see their association as a valid and confided in asset:
- Content marketing produces 3x as many leads by costing 62% less than outbound marketing.
- Content marketing has lower in advance expenses and more profound long-term benefits than paid search.
- Independent ventures with blogs produce 126% more leads than those without blogs.
- 615 million devices presently use an advertisement blocker, which implies many audiences are not seeing your promotions.
- Content marketing rounds up change rates 6x higher than different techniques.
With Google proceeding to esteem well-informed, consistently refreshed articles, many leading organizations will keep on putting vigorously in content marketing all through 2021.
7. Blockchain Technology:
The use of blockchain is not restricted to the financial world only, though; this innovation is likewise causing a ripple effect in the digital marketing world. Blockchain takes out the online marketing halfway, constructs trust by transparency, drives public responsibility, and offers marking benefits.
In the future, you will see the following trends in blockchain:
- Tracking Media Buys
- Dealing with Social Impressions
- Checking Online Identities
- Lift Transparency
- Ensure Personal Data
- Pinpoint Targeting
- Validation and Provenance
8. Big Data and Deep Learning:
In 2021, the world’s big data industry will develop dramatically, which is great information for online marketers if you know how to implement it.
Forbes reports that 78% of businesses either have or are building up a customer data platform to help oversee, leverage and analyse their data. Now 41% of employers claim that data expert is the role that every company should hire by seeing the demand.
With the advantages of big data comes the requirement for organizations to better use it to improve activities that a data expert can only do fundamentally. More significantly, This preceded democratization will prompt new use cases that are nearer to business users’ necessities and empower an ideal opportunity to-showcase for AI applications.
One caution is that as big data develops remarkably, the demands on how organizations should oversee customer data turn out to be progressively unstable. The GDPR changes lit the touchpaper for a worldwide insurgency on information security, with California set to reveal the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on January 1, 2020.
Big data is a two-sided edged blade, however one that numerous advanced advertisers will discover hard to oppose soon.
9. Neuromarkeitng:
Neuromarketing is progressing rapidly and may turn into a feasible apparatus for advertisers soon. For the unenlightened, neuromarketing is a procedure that breaks down estimations of an individual’s brain action and sensory system to figure out which sorts of content they find engaging.
It is planning advertising materials (counting your website, advertisements, content, and email campaigns) to bring out direct neurological responses that trigger feelings or reactions connected to buying. You can utilize this data to streamline your content and change your techniques, improving your showcasing’s adequacy.
Sparkle Neuro, a neuro analytics organization that estimates feeling and thoughtfulness regarding advance publicizing and amusement, is an innovator in the space. The organization joins biometrics, neurometrics, and complex calculations to examine consideration and feeling levels, adequately assisting advertisers with sorting out what content to zero in and maintaining a strategic distance.
10. Video Marketing:
With social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, creating more up-to-date highlights to help video content, video advertising will consistently be relevant, but how users interact with this is changing.
For instance:
There is no overall length that works for all organizations. Many live streams on Facebook keep going for quite a long time, with many people watching and associating with them. Other unique recordings on TikTok should be short and to the point to drive results. You should use video and implement it in your content marketing strategy.
There are many videos online every day. Make sure to amaze your viewers with your content and keep them engaged by offering important insights.
11. Influencer Marketing:
The competition with SEO and paid Ad campaigns are today fiercer than ever. Compared to previous years, many companies are doing digital marketing now, and they are all behind one common objective: Growth and profits.
- Influencer marketing is still one of the secret treasures of online marketing. Not many organizations have attempted it, welcoming you to go after this new trend in 2021.
- If you locate the correct profile via online media, you could draw many new customers to your business every month.
You don’t need to contact the most popular influencers or get your message out to many individuals. Start small by reaching novice online media influencers in your vicinity. A large portion of them will be prepared to work with your brand and improve your development.
12. Featured Snippets:
SEO is the base of online marketing, as search engines are an integral part of digital marketing. The SEO will show its features as Google keeps on developing the user experience. Featured snippets are just an example of that.
Featured snippets come at the highest point of the SERP in “position zero” over the #1 outcome. They give the most precise response to the inquiry question and save the client’s time by being useful.
Yet, how could they change SEO? SERP rivalry for the most noteworthy spot has consistently been furious. Destinations with the best substance and the most grounded back-linking profiles had the chance to rank first. Then featured snippets came into the picture.
Small organizations are presently ready to draw in more customers without positioning at the top. It is a simple method to help your brand’s visibility and raise conversions.
13. SMS Marketing:
It may amaze many; however, SMS marketing will probably keep on being a colossal advertising pattern in 2021. Regardless of being perhaps the most established medium, a text message was viewed continuously as an intuitive line of correspondence with your target audience.
SMS marketing is a fundamental piece of omnichannel advertising, where organizations keep in touch with their clients across devices, from their workstations to their cell phones. For instance, Chipotle had driven the path in cross advancing their SMS marketing club with online media to guide clients through their marketing channel.
As it gets harder to target clients across the web through cookies implanted in browsers, organizations may go progressively to SMS marketing to stay in contact with their customers through their integrated CRMs.
The measurements are agreeable to this conventional medium, with over 81% of adults in the U.S effectively interfacing with text messages sent directly to their cell phones and SMS marketing developing by 10% in 2020.
14. User-generated Content:
User-generated content (UGC) is suggested to any content that users make, shows up naturally delivered, and improves the validity and reach of your brand.
UGC is frequently used as spoken video acknowledgments, where influencers or pseudo-customers talk directly to the camera and clarify the product benefits or show using those products. It is frequently implemented in B2C organizations, particularly D2C brands.
UGC can drive the buying choices of customers. What’s more? The best example of this would be TikTok, the most downloaded application of 2020.
This online media application became a web sensation because of the addictive UGC content transferred on it by many users worlwide. TikTok has figured out how to cut out its unique specialty while competing with other online media platforms in significantly less time.
15. Social E-Commerce:
Social E-business indicates a pattern of buying directly from web-based media channels. E-Commerce was one of the essential platforms which prospered under the effect of the novel Covid-19. With that, the fashion of Social E-Commerce was only unavoidable.
Significant social media platforms, for example, Instagram and Facebook, have just revealed some noteworthy updates to take advantage of this. Instagram has launched the profoundly predicted Instagram Guides. This new feature permits the user to share and learn useful suggestions and tips in a speedy scrollable format.
According to reports, Facebook has arranged some significant updates for Marketplace to make it considerably more effective. These developments recommend a reasonable pathway that the pattern of “Social E-Commerce” will be remarkable in 2021.
Conclusion: 2021- A Year Begins with “People First”
Digital Marketing trends are scoring on shared encounters to improve products, advertise and market them relevantly, and upgrade the user experience. As you move into the New Year, it’s crucial to think about the current digital marketing trends and prepare for advanced digital marketing to challenge your competitors.
About the Author
Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & Blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz Technologies. His 8+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT and ChatBot.
