02 Jan Digital Marketing Trends for 2018
As much as we don’t want to admit it, it’s 2018 already and it’s probably time to think about you’re marketing efforts for this year!
Digital marketing is constantly changing and evolving, and 2018 is looking to be no different. We’ve narrowed down the key trends to look out for this year.
Augmented Reality
With the ever-increasing power of our mobile devices and social media, could augmented reality become the next platform to be integrated into our marketing? It isn’t too far to think that the next time you’re walking down the high street, brands could use your location to trigger sponsored AR content.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing involves using well known and well positioned people to help promote a brand, and with 95% of marketers who have used an influencer believing that it has been effective, we anticipate investment in this avenue will continue!
Where once, companies would invest in high cost TV advertisements, they are beginning to rely more and more upon influencers to spread the name of their brand.
As technology continues to drop in price, equipment and resources once available only to professionals, now become available to influencers meaning the results are much better!
Artificial Intelligence
With tons of data left behind, both knowingly and unknowingly, during internet surfing…2018 looks to be the year that we harness this data and use it towards effective AI marketing.
AI will enable user experience to be personalised to a far greater level than ever before. Customer experience is king, and is presenting itself to be the area where Artificial intelligence can make the biggest impact. By harnessing data collected such as customer search, buying behaviour and interests, fully customised campaigns can be conducted – for every customer!
Create a business app
Having your own app for your business provides you with a lot of benefits, including that it lets you gain crucial insights into your customer and their buying process based on their activity on the app.
These insights can aid you in your future planning, and where best to spend your money to reach your audience.
Not only this, but your customer base have another avenue to find you, other than just your website!
Focus on Generation Z
The oldest ‘Generation Z’ is a maximum of 22! That means that in the coming years, the people of Generation Z will be entering the workplace and will have more and more buying power. This means the need to market to this group has never been more important, as is the need to market to them on the correct platforms.
Marketing efforts will need to change from the traditional to the digital if we really want to fully immerse into this tech generation.
Mobile shopping
Mobile devices will become even more prominent in 2018, estimated to take up 50% of ecommerce revenue! Pretty high stats!
According to Goldman Sachs, mobile eCommerce revenue in 2018 will equal the TOTAL eCommerce revenue for 2013…$626 billion!
Live video
Video has long been dominating the marketing world, and 2017 showed the rise of live video streaming including Instagram and Facebook stories – no less than 13% of web traffic from video comes directly from live videos.
For brands, live streaming shows clear advantages:
– They are more economical, you don’t need to invest in production or editing
– Users are attracted to this medium as it shows spontaneity and authenticity
– Viewing quality is increased, users have been shown to spend three times longer watching live videos compared to pre-recorded
And with mobile video consumption set to grow by 25% in 2018…you don’t want to miss out!
Voice Optimised Content
In 2017, 20% of online searches were made through voice search, and by 2020 that number is expected to rise to 50%. Just as we spent all of our time optimising content for the web, and mobile…we will start to optimise content for voice search as well.
Long tail key words will become the norm as we tailor for the spoken word…rather than the written.
Jump on the GDPR train
We anticipate privacy protection to become a major selling point in 2018. After the data breaches of 2017, and the new GDPR coming into full force in 2018, being fully up to speed with data protection and being able to reassure your clients and potential clients that they will be safe with you, is going to hold big sway.
Instagram to overtake Facebook
Instagram’s popularity is growing rapidly. Last year Instagram announced that around 800 million people use their platform each month.
Instagram stories became more popular than Snapchat after only one year of being live.
Brands have noticed that they tend to see better engagement on Instagram than any other social media platform, and because it is so tightly regulated when it comes to advertising, Instagram is set to become the ‘go-to’ for social media marketing.
Continued expectations
Consumers expectations of what a brand should deliver will continue to grow in 2018. Voice assistants, same-day delivery and on-demand content will mean that both B2B and B2C marketers must find new and interesting ways to delight potential and existing customers with nearly instant service.
Research, research, research
Just as with previous years, more and more users will research an item before committing to buy either online, or in store! This reinforces the importance of having top notch online content…and it also tells us that your prices online need to be competitive as this is definitely one of the factors shoppers are looking at!
Hopefully these tips will come in useful to you in the coming year! Let’s make 2018 a great one!