Six Key Tactics You Should Be Implementing in Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Every day more consumers are getting more involved online. An easy way to reach your consumers is by having a strong digital marketing strategy. However, digital marketing is constantly evolving, so it’s easy for businesses to fall behind on the latest trends. Still, marketers must stay updated on the trends and be ready to adapt to the constant changes.

Why is that?

It wasn’t too long ago when posting content to social media was all you needed to grow a following. In just a few years, that method has been entirely disrupted and customer interactions come at a higher price.

While some businesses are up to date on the latest digital trends, there are still some others that are falling behind. If you feel you’re one of those businesses that are falling behind, then this article is the first step to a better digital marketing strategy. Here are six of the most important digital marketing trends you should follow today.

 

1. The Importance of a Mobile Experience

With digital marketing, your brand is visible at all times. Users’ expectations for faster and better digital experiences make improving experiences on the mobile web an important challenge that brands must overcome.

The number of smartphone users is expected to reach 2.87 billion by 2020, with total page views on mobile increasing year-over-year at almost 50% worldwide, mobile is more critical than ever to your digital strategy.

According to research, over 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product while searching on their smartphones. In 2018, Google drove 96% of mobile search traffic and about 55% of consumers made purchases on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

The brands that are investing in their mobile platforms are the brands that will stay ahead in the race and win.

2. The Next-Generation of SEO

Google launched its “PageSpeed” update in 2018, along with many other search algorithm updates to keep marketers on their toes. Google understands user intent and its algorithm can input the user context, such as location search history, and other information into the search equation, so when you search for “Italian restaurants” in Overland Park, you don’t get random Italian restaurants across the U.S.

With this update also comes the priority of fast-loading websites over slow-loading websites for ranking them in the search results. This change can affect small businesses because they don’t have the same web development resources that the larger corporations do.

Besides all the Google algorithm updates, the way users are searching has also changed. Going back to the mobile user experience, more and more people are using their mobile phones to search for information. 30% of all mobile searches are related to location and 46% of all Google searches are local. If your business serves a local customer base, then you should focus on a local SEO strategy.

To optimize your website, you should be doing the following:

• Prioritize user experience
• Create pages with the user in mind, not the search engine
• Optimize every page for load speed
• Create more long-form written content
• Optimize for local search
• Integrate different types of media into each page
• Implement a white hat backlinking strategy
• Use schema markup
• Use a sitemap
• Add Video

3. Investing in Pay-per-click advertising 

As specialists in PPC, we can tell you that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the best marketing investments you can make. Not only are both Bing and Google PPC ads cost-effective per click, but they can also help you target users where and when they most likely need your product.

One of the most common questions we hear is “Why does my business need PPC ads?”. Simple answer: You’re reaching the people you want to reach where and when you want to reach them. Your display ads can pop up on specific websites that relate to your business, and search ads appear at the top of the search engine results.

75% of people that click on ads have said search ads make it easier to find the information they’re looking for. Businesses make an average of $2 in income for every $1 they spend in Google Ads.

Google and Bing PPC ads can be simple, but they can also be very complex. If done correctly, they can really help your marketing efforts but if they aren’t done correctly, then you can spend a lot of money and not see any return on investment.

If you still have questions about Google or Bing PPC campaigns, feel free to contact us. We would love to help you out.

4. Stories on Social Media

Stories were first introduced on Snapchat, then Instagram and Facebook stories, and then YouTube revealed their story format called Reels. For businesses looking to share their story on Instagram, it’s important to know who your target audience is and what they’d be interested in seeing on Instagram.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Promote a company event.
2. Footage of an office event.
3. Breaking news about your industry.
4. Showcase a product or service.
5. Preview one of your company’s blog posts.
6. Tease a new post.
7. Mention other companies who follow or work with you.

So, what’s all the buzz about with stories? – FOMO (fear of missing out) 

 

Since stories are only available for 24 hours, they can provide an instant opportunity for connection.

Other benefits include:

• Constant engagement with followers
• Increased brand awareness
• Increased traffic to your website
• Cost-effective
• Opportunity to reach a younger audience

5. More Time on Online Videos, Less Time on TV Screens

For the first time, users will spend more time online than in front of a TV screen by the end of 2019, which most of this includes watching videos online.

By 2020, video will make up over 85% of all consumer internet traffic in the U.S. Most of these videos will be uploaded by individuals, not brands, but it’s important for brands to budget for video.

Now, we know what you might be thinking… with video comes with a huge production that will take up a lot of time and cost a lot of money. That might have been true a few years ago, but it’s not true with today’s technology.

Have you seen the new music video from Selena Gomez? Lose You To Love Me was shot on the iPhone 11 Pro and the quality looks like it was filmed with a production camera.

The truth is, you don’t need a Hollywood grade video with all the glamorous effects on social media or your website. Most people are just looking for content that’s entertaining, informative, and story-driven.

So now the question is… Where to start?

There are several strategies any business can use to create a compelling content-driven video.

• Behind the scenes videos (employee and/or brand stories)
• Product walkthroughs
• Customer testimonials
• How-to videos
• Company culture videos
• Webinars
• Influencer interviews
• Event videos

6. The Value of Custom Content

We live in a world that anyone can post anything on the Internet. That’s why it’s so important to create valuable content that users can trust. Research shows that reliable information serves as the most imperative criterion for 86% of the online audience.

It’s also important to avoid duplicating content on your website as it can hurt your SEO efforts. For example, if your site has two pages with the same content, Google won’t know which one to serve to searchers. Also, from Google’s perspective, if your site has a lot of duplicate content then Google won’t see it as a valuable site which can hurt your rankings in search results and decrease website traffic.

So, what is trustworthy content? This can include anything from customer reviews, photos, and videos that can all integrated on your website and social media presence. This will also allow you to reach a wide target audience, provide brand credibility, and increase customer loyalty. There are many useful tools to create custom content. If you need tips or inspiration for creating email marketing content visit https://www.bestdesigns.co/email-design-inspiration. 

So, are you now prepared to dive into the ever-changing digital marketing landscape?

The answer should be yes, no matter if you feel you are behind in the race or if you’re about to implement the next big digital marketing innovation. One thing we can tell you for sure is: To make it in this digital world, businesses can’t afford to stop developing new capabilities for their marketing strategies. Luckily for those businesses, there are companies like Jubilant Digital Marketing that specialize in multiple areas of digital marketing and are here to help businesses out in this evolving digital world.