In 2021, there’s no question remaining as to whether digital marketing deserves a place in your business. This isn’t news to anyone, as is evidenced by the fact that online ad spending alone is set to reach $375 billion by next year. Undeniably, the last few years across industries have been awash with online marketing efforts, including social media, search engines and content marketing, among others.
But we’re not here to bore you by talking about something that’s already central to your business goals. Instead, we’re going to look at the very pressing reality that even fundamental digital efforts are no longer enough to keep you above the tide where target audience is concerned. That’s because digital marketing changes are happening at meteoric rates right now, and jumping on the advanced bandwagon is the only possible chance you have at success.
The trouble is that getting your head around advanced techniques isn’t always easy in a landscape that’s continually shifting. As well as solutions varying across industries, troubleshooting and new tech can leave you awash without any real idea how to get started. Luckily, there are ways that you can develop decent and advanced digital marketing strategies regardless, and we’re going to talk you through some of them here.
#1 - Contextual SEO
We all know that SEO matters in an age where only 7% of search engine users make it to the third page. But, with every company now using these techniques, basic SEO still isn’t enough to secure the top spots.
This is especially the case with Google analytics forever shifting towards contextual focuses with the help of updates like BERT. This latest offering from our favourite search giant is using natural language processing to impact the standing of one in ten search queries. That’s the most significant Google shift since the RankBrain update, and it’s particularly relevant from an SEO standpoint as BERT has the power to understand contextuality on much deeper levels.
This, along with Google’s increasing focus on ART (authority, relevance, trust), means that irrelevant content for the sake of it is quickly leaving companies behind. The blog that you started to boost SEO in the first place, for instance, must now provide posts using relevant information, and outbound links with thought behind them. Equally, your web page structures themselves may need changing with this in mind. Many companies are finding, for example, that high-quality location-dependent landing pages and similar are the best way to impress Google and reach larger customer numbers with every relevant search conducted.
#2 - Unique promotions
Increasing brand awareness through promotional email marketing efforts and more is one of the placeholders for efforts across digital channels. As you might be able to guess though, standard ‘money-off promotions’ are no longer enough to increase conversion rates. In fact, countless companies are finding that promo code misuse as a result of blanket offers is escalating costs rather than boosting profits.
Still, 75% of consumers expect promotional offerings of some kind, meaning that you can’t simply abandon your efforts here, an obstacle that many companies are overcoming with the implementation of unique promotions instead.
This effort allows for personalised or even influencer-led promotions that offer the increased trackability and interest that’s so fundamental to advanced processes. Tailoring promotions in these ways can also help businesses to focus discounts solely around existing issues, including:
— Shopping cart abandonment— Remarketing
— Abandonment
— Code misuse
Even better, the advanced technology inherent in unique promo generators makes these goals easier to achieve than ever. By syncing with broader systems for personalised focuses and even integrating with top coupon code sites like Groupon, businesses should find that they’re able to improve promotional processes moving forward, without once adding to their workloads.
#3 - Programmatic marketing automation
Forecasts suggest that programmatic marketing automation will be responsible for 69% of all digital marketing spending come the end of 2020. As such, this should be another area of prime focus right now. Of course, digital ads in themselves are nothing new but, as many companies are finding, efforts here can still go to waste in an age where the average consumer sees around 5,000 such advertisements a day.
This is an issue that companies have long been attempting to tackle with programmatic focuses that allow for the purchase of segmented advertising for more relevant audiences every time. The trouble is that even standard approaches here can be redundant and not exactly cost-efficient.
That’s where automation and AI focuses come into play. By drawing on sometimes invisible correlations, such platforms learn about unique aspects of your products and services so that they can help you to achieve bespoke ad solutions rather than generic, long-winded options. This is ideal in correlation with the promotional focuses mentioned above, as it ensures that your unique codes are always reaching the right audiences. Automation in this area can also ensure that advertorial efforts are measured against KPIs, budgets and more. This, along with the ability to automatically pause or stop unsuccessful campaigns, can pretty much guarantee returns from digital advertising efforts moving forward.
#4 - Influencer marketing
We already touched briefly on the benefits of influencers when discussing unique codes, but this is becoming such a rife area for current social media marketing that it's worth considering in its own right. More so than even targeted ads, focusing efforts here can see your online promotion strategy become ever-more effective in an age when 49% of consumers are liable to trust recommendations like these.
As countless companies are finding, increased efforts here can put you at the forefront of the fastest acquisition method online right now. This is a benefit many businesses are putting to good use with a range of influencer-led methods, including free products in exchange for honest reviews and, more usefully, unique influencer codes for traceable campaigns.
Irrelevant of how you approach your influencer efforts, it’s fair to say that your focus here can reap fantastic digital marketing rewards. After all, recommendations like these bring the personal trust of word-of-mouth, without the sometimes unreliable nature such a marketing method brings as standard.
#5 - Responsive web design
It’s impossible to discuss digital marketing in 2020 without considering mobile usage. The simple fact is that 40% of online sales now come from mobile users, with an average of 80% of consumers using such devices to browse the net regularly.
Mobile marketing focuses are, therefore, fundamental to modern success, and responsive web designs are perhaps the most crucial of all. After all, your online efforts are guaranteed to struggle if 80% of your customer base can’t actually interact with your presence!
From the outside, however, many companies are still reluctant to embrace responsive designs through fear that such integrations will involve extensive coding and redesign. This simply isn’t the case, and it’s a hurdle you must cross this year.
In reality, ensuring mobile responsivity is as simple as investing in responsive programming. This ensures hassle-free and seamless switches. Other focuses, such as AMP (accelerated mobile pages) coding, can also make mobile-browsing smoother for consumers, and improve your digital marketing bottom line more than you ever thought possible as little as five years ago.
Advanced doesn’t mean difficult
Advanced digital marketing is non-negotiable, but, as you can see, success here needn’t be challenging to achieve. For the most part, advances are led by automation, artificial intelligence, and programs that could reduce your workload rather than add to it.
With that in mind, it simply doesn’t pay to put off such vital developments. Instead, you should tailor your efforts with these methods in mind, such as investing in promo code software to make automation and tracking easier. You need to make sure you’re always leaving room for the new integrations that will almost inevitably arise as the year progresses.
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