Getting your digital marketing strategy just right is often challenging but it’s something that every business needs. Once you see what it involves and what it can do for your brand, it will certainly be worth the effort. Considering the effect of globalisation, the increased number of competitors and the internet providing customers with more products, easier and faster; brands without a sound digital marketing strategy will likely fall behind.

As we’ve discussed before, successfully managing a digital marketing strategy requires frequent revisions to keep ahead of the curve. Technology keeps evolving and brands must keep up with all the latest trends to ensure they develop successful marketing tactics. Regardless of the product or service offering, your business needs a digital marketing strategy keeping in mind these four trends.

Data-Driven Digital Marketing Strategy

Quality and relevant data trumps everything else as many successful brands rely on customer information to justify their tactics. Companies need to know their customers, identify and understand their needs while also considering their competitors.

In most cases, the more channels and platforms you use, the more accurate and relevant the data will be. This brings about the challenge of combining all the information and for that, you need the right tools. MarTech can be the solution to improve the measurement of your marketing campaigns and highlighting your brand’s best-performing touch points.

Using a data-driven marketing strategy can help you learn more about your target audience focusing on improving your tactics for future campaigns. In addition, it can also help you improve the overall customer experience implementing personalisation. All the data you collected can also help you create more effective ads aimed at the right audience.

Artificial Intelligence And Augmented Reality

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) are among the top transformative technologies that could revolutionise your marketing tactics. Just a few short years ago people still regarded these as science fiction but today we’re seeing various applications all over.

Designers are integrating and augmenting our everyday lives with technologies such as facial recognition, semantic and sentiment analysis, conversational interfaces and affective computing (emotions). Some examples within this field include Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Google Home/mini.

Thanks to AI, analytics is also more accurate. Augmented analytics is helping data scientists and end users gain better insights and extends far beyond just one industry. Technology like this can be used across numerous sectors including digital and social media marketing.

Personalisation will also become even more important as customers expect a great shopping experience from brands. As many as 74% of consumers are willing to give up data for a more personalised experience making AI the link between the brand and the customer. Fact is, the AI industry is expected to grow to $7.3 billion per year by 2022. Perhaps these technologies could be the secret weapon in your marketing strategy arsenal beyond 2019.

How To Implement Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is getting far more attention in terms of practical applications in the wake of Pokemon Go. More brands have realised that AR can really help create a customer experience that can boost their message. Already companies are using it across many different industries and consumers are raring to use it.

Brands can implement Augmented Reality into their marketing strategies to do the following:

  • Raise brand awareness
  • Tell a brand story
  • Vastly improve customer experience
  • Promote products through gamification
  • Enhance engagement through a new way of consumer reach

According to Gartner, 100 million people will use Augmented Reality to shop online by 2020 so perhaps this is the year to explore how AR can benefit your own brand.

Stories And Social Media

Storytelling is not a new concept but social media stories certainly seem to be the next big trend in social media marketing. One such example is Instagram as vertical content is more appealing for mobile devices increasing its popularity even beyond 2019. We can expect Stories to take over most social networks as there are already more than 400 million active Stories users every month. Early indicators show that more people engage with Stories compared to traditional social feeds.

Brands are already implementing Stories to prove their authenticity using behind the scenes content, polls, count downs or engaging videos. While Stories don’t necessarily require a creative professional, brands still need a strategy on how to make fully utilise them. This year we’ve already seen more marketers integrating Stories into their digital marketing strategies as it is a very effective method of reaching followers.

Video Marketing

We’ve spoken in detail about the importance of video content as the majority of consumers prefer watching a video than reading an article. Consumption is also not likely to slow down as more social apps have invested heavily in video content. So many brands have already implemented video with huge success in an attempt to better engage with their audience.

While video content is incredibly powerful, it’s almost pointless without setting clear objectives. Random video content won’t make any real impact as it’s all about analysing what types of video will work for your specific audience. The general consensus is that social media videos should be short but what if your particular target audience prefer watching longer videos?

A great example is Instagram who is investing more on IGTV to establish itself as a platform for longer videos. It may still be in the early stages of development but it’s an incredible opportunity to be the industry leader before the competition catches on. We can’t stress enough the importance of video ads to either increase brand awareness or to drive conversions.

Related: ‘An Essential Guide To Video Marketing’

Digital Advertising

Looking back, the first banner appeared in 1994 and who would have thought the considerable impact it would have today. An even more surprising stat nobody would have believed then is that it would beat television ad spend. To give you a bit more insight – digital ad spending in 2017 reached $209 billion worldwide (41%) compared to TV with $178 billion (35%).

A glance into the future sees the gap only growing as many big TV advertisers have not yet invested in digital and mobile ads. In not so distant future, if you’re not advertising online, you’re not going anywhere.

Speaking of digital advertising, video ads are one of the most powerful ways to promote brand awareness. It helps consumers find out more about a brand or a product before making a purchasing decision. As technology progresses and more people have smart phones and tablets, brands cannot ignore optimising videos for mobile.

Creating A Digital Marketing Strategy

The problem for most small businesses is finding the time, money and expertise to setup and implement a digital marketing strategy. In order to create an effective strategy you must consider several factors that affect your business and your competitors. There are essentially four key methods of analysis you can use which often overlap:

  • SWOT Analysis
  • PESTLE Analysis
  • Competitor Analysis
  • Internet Business Analysis

We wrote an article explaining these methods in more detail along with the first steps toward creating a successful digital marketing strategy. You can access it here.

Please give us a call on 01453 542761 or get in touch through our website if you need help setting up your digital marketing strategy. We specialise in social media marketing, Marketing Automation, SEO, PPC, web design and mobile marketing among others.

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