The end of the year is a moment to draw the line and to reflect on past achievements – what your company’s profit was this year, how much you’ve grown, and if you have managed to attain your objectives. But since every end is a new beginning, December is also a time of renewal, a time to think about your plans for the next year.
Aside from formulating your strategic plans, you need to think ahead and prepare for your digital marketing for 2017. One of your main concerns at the end of the year should be digital marketing trends for the New Year. Being aware of the new digital trends is paramount if you want to stay competitive in your industry in 2017.
So here are the Digital Marketing Trends of 2017 that you need to know:
Live video streaming
Live video streaming means streaming video content and broadcasting it over the Internet in real time. This tool is already used by some businesses across multiple industries to increase the impact of meetings and important events but will be on the rise in 2017. Other ways of using live video streaming is providing webinars or training classes to customers, making live announcements, and simply promoting products and services.
Advantages of this technology include reaching a wider audience, saving money on event management, providing rich content to audiences, and ensuring increased comfort to organisers and participants.
Mobile will dominate desktop
Google has recently announced that the well-known search engine will become mobile-first. This means that Google will be primarily looking at mobile content rather than desktop when it comes to ranking web pages. The consequences for your business are that you’ll need to provide a mobile-friendly website that will provide an excellent mobile experience and be sure your site is accessible from any device.
Video ads
Another novelty from Google is that they will start in-SERP video advertising that will change the whole online spectrum of online advertising. This means that you’ll be seeing video advertisements in Google’s search results. It’s not a surprise, giving the uprising trend of video in the last year.
For your business, video ads will mean more opportunities to attract website traffic and leads, as search results will include more multimedia than just links.
Conversion coming to social media
In the near future, marketers will create more opportunities to convert prospects directly into buyers on social media. Tools provided by social networks, such as “Shop now” buttons, enable the improvement of conversion rates on social media channels. Other lead generation paths for social media include blog posts with links to landing pages, gated content such as white papers and eBooks, and blog posts with signup forms for mailing lists, all included on social networks.
Personalised content
The first step of any effective marketing strategy is identifying the ideal customer(s) and describing buyer personas. Once you know who your typical customers are, you can create personalised content which is targeting more precisely each category. When your targeted audience reads your content, they will get the feeling that you know what they need and they will eagerly consume the content you continue to put out.
Some personalised content ideas are customer landing pages, personalised home pages, blog pages and recommending relevant products. These are made possible by collecting information about customers (demographics, preferences, needs, etc.) and using it to create a personalised experience.
Increased reliance on data
The role of data in digital marketing is becoming increasingly important. More and more online marketers are beginning to understand the value of big data and due to more accurate insights on what customers want they can make better marketing decisions. Data can be extracted from various sources such as websites and social media, and have made possible the shift from mass advertising to nowadays’ more targeted campaigns.
Savvy marketers can select relevant information and use it to create customer profiles which you should refer to when writing content, determining which social network to market on and figuring out how to promote your products/services in general. You can use this information to create more effective marketing campaigns.
These are the main digital marketing trends for 2017 you need to be aware of. It may be tempting to say that 2017 will be the year of video or that 2017 will be the year of big data in marketing. The truth is that all these trends we have seen emerging in the last year will play a vital role in your company’s marketing in 2017.
With over 39 years’ experience in Print Media, Sales and Marketing, Online Services & Marketing plus Financial Service industries. John brings a wealth of knowledge to Visual Marketing Australia. As a Certified Google Partner, his Digital Marketing knowledge includes: Web Design & Development, SEO, Mobile App. Development, Online Marketing, Online Video Marketing and Email Marketing Solutions. With 12 years experience in using Zoho CRM it is a natural progression to become and Authorised Consulting Partner so we can now add Sales and Marketing Automation to the list.
The end of the year is a moment to draw the line and to reflect on past achievements – what your company’s profit was this year, how much you’ve grown, and if you have managed to attain your objectives. But since every end is a new beginning, December is also a time of renewal, a time to think about your plans for the next year.
