The past two pandemic years have changed our perception of what marketing is and what it can be. Today, we live in a digital reality where we are more and more controlled by algorithms and AI, which require both well-thought-out and creative solutions to succeed.
Digitization has taken a big leap and we have experienced enormous shifts. Keeping an eye on emerging marketing trends is therefore crucial if businesses want to stay on the right path.
In essence, marketing trends are sales strategies and methods used to catch the attention of prospective customers at a certain time. Ignoring new marketing trends could be detrimental to your business while knowing and staying on top of them gives you a competitive edge, improves your business forecasts and setting goals, drives conversions, and improves spending efficiency.
Below, we’ve rounded up some tips on how to stay on top of marketing trends.
Social Media
Social media channels have become platforms that are used for much more than just entertainment. They’re a vital component of running a successful business regardless of the industry, you can find all types of businesses that use different social media platforms to market their brands, products, and services, aiming to create brand awareness and build a strong customer base.
For this reason, if you want to stay on top of marketing trends, always work on strengthening your online presence and connect with customers and professionals in your industry on various social media channels. Follow the pages of the brands you admire, join groups that are relevant to your field, and monitor trending topics and hashtags.
You can also put effort into growing your accounts by using online tools like Social Meep but many businesses have been on the fence about its efficacy and if you don’t want to endanger your Instagram account, look for Social Meep alternatives to organically increase followers and engagement. When you gain enough followers, you can run interactive campaigns and create the right message for your brand.
Loyal Users
2021 was a year when user-generated content became increasingly important for companies, and this will continue in the future. This means that digital content about the company is created by consumers, through videos, articles, reviews, and Instagram posts. It’s proven to be more effective than the content that companies themselves create. Consumers trust more what other consumers say about a company, product, or service. In addition, we humans are interested in what the masses are talking about.
Reviews are something you can start with. About 95% of consumers make a purchase only after reading a positive review, this is because they trust other consumers more than your company. You can also ask someone to write a guest article on your website. This often leads to increased engagement and can further lead to a better position in the search engines. You can also try to engage the followers, for example, get them to share photos with your products on social media.
Make sure to also provide multiple customer support options, and focus more on live chat. Having a live chat implemented on your website allows your team to answer questions, solve problems and above all – respond to complaints, which has become very important when looking to provide excellent customer service. Customers appreciate fast responses and this will significantly reduce the burden on your customer team too.
Personalized Marketing and AI
Personalization means that you adapt the marketing and communication to the users’ interests and preferences. Customers want you to see them and offer products or services that suit them. They don’t have time to come up with irrelevant offers.
The basis for good personalized marketing is therefore to collect data. For example, you can collect information about the geographical location, or the type of content that the visitor usually clicks on and in this way understand the visitor and what they’re looking for. Based on that, you can create content that fits.
Be careful, many customers find it a little uncomfortable that data is collected. They want a positive and personal digital experience, without feeling persecuted. Personalization doesn’t mean that you have to personalize everything. For example, it may be enough to personalize the product displayed on your website.
Something that can be connected well with personalized marketing is artificial intelligence. This technology analyzes search patterns, consumer behavior and uses data from social media and blogs. This makes it easier for companies to understand how their products and services are found. AI allows the right customers to be reached more easily, with the right content and at the right moment. Companies that use AI manage to reduce their costs and increase sales.
Final Thoughts
Staying on top of marketing trends is becoming increasingly important to everyone who is an entrepreneur. If you don’t spend time working on this, it can be more difficult to be seen, stand out, get customers and increase sales. By focusing on social media, personalized marketing, AI, user-generated content, you’ll be able to keep up with marketing trends and grow your business.
