Can you imagine life now without social media? For a trend that people thought would likely never take off or at least stick for only a short while… businesses and organisations have marvelled in its influence and have grown further than they ever thought possible by utilising the power of social media.
People spend so much time on their mobile devices now, whether that be a smart phone, tablet, iPad or laptop – digital marketing is here to stay and to stay on top of the marketing game, social media must be incorporated within a marketing strategy for a business to succeed.
So as we approach the end of the year and look forward to 2018, what should we look out for within online marketing to achieve success?
Video marketing
Video marketing is expanding rapidly and so many people are jumping on board with this trend that it is definitely something not to be missed.
With Facebook Live, Instagram Stories and Snapchat – to name the most popular – incorporate these into your marketing plans and you will see an noticeable increase in your social media engagement. People love watching live video. In fact, 80% of users said they’d rather watch a live video than read a blog post – and according to Facebook, a live video will get 3x more views.
Why live video?
- Can show behind the scenes footage
- Can introduce team members
- Promotion of events
- Portrays a real-life brand
Everyone loves to know the truth behind what they are buying into, and using video in your marketing will provide trust and uniqueness as well as a better customer experience.
Content Marketing
With so much competition and everything being so widely available via digital channels, it is more important than ever to be authentic and original. Content marketing is vital to build brand awareness and demonstrate industry knowledge.
Customers would much rather read about an organisation and learn about them from an article, than be confronted with an advert. Adverts have their place, of course, but content marketing is in a league of it’s own.
Content marketing can be shown in different forms; blog posts, articles, videos and infographics but all contain meaningful information that increases awareness of a brand or product.
Anyone that runs a business will also know that content marketing can become time consuming which is why it often gets left behind but don’t stress – a Virtual Assistant can provide a great service to write content for your business so you don’t need to let this part of your marketing plan fall down.
Marketing Strategies
Planning your marketing is just as important as implementing your marketing. It can be easy to jump on every trend and social media platform that you come across, but it is essential to evaluate and work out what is best for your business to provide the best success rates.
Writing a marketing strategy will all enable you to look at your brand competition, see what you already have in place and what works / and doesn’t work which then leads to creating a plan to implement and move your business forward – being focused on your business goals and objectives. If this is something that you’re not sure on, look to a professional marketing agency that can provide this service for you (KJP Creative can help!). If you are serious about growing your business, the initial cost of having a strategy created for you will easily be recouped in the results of successful marketing.
Images
Just like live video, imagery is extremely effective in your online marketing. People love to see images which is why networks like Instagram and Pinterest are a huge success. Images allow a brand to be creative and show uniqueness. Images can be portrayed in many ways to show different aspects of a business and can also be accompanied be other mediums to tell stories and create brand awareness.
And you don’t have to be a graphic designer to produce great images. Using free graphic platforms like Canva, you can produce industry standard creatives.
There are many trends that will be become essential in online marketing success in 2018 but above all else, customer experience is the most important thing to remember in order to satisfy the customer as well as the growing competition.
Ensuring that your customers have a great experience from start to finish will be the ingredient that keeps a client coming back for more. Being involved and interested in what a customer is looking for and how their journey progresses throughout their time with you is important in business growth and product development.
Make the most of your digital marketing throughout 2018 and look to implement strategies that best fit your business objectives.
If you’d like help in moving forward with your online marketing, get in touch, we’d love to help!
