Here’s a sneak peek at the 2016 digital marketing trends coming to small business owners everywhere, more or less.
Here’s a sneak peek at the 2016 digital marketing trends coming to small business owners everywhere, more or less.It’s that time of year when advertising agencies and businesses are producing their blockbuster marketing strategies for the upcoming year. The story lines follow a basic structure: business looks for and meets customer > business woos customer with services or products > customer (hopefully) begins a long relationship with business > business and customer live happily ever after.
Every great story has twists and turns along the way. That’s where trends play a supporting role. Digital marketing (and any audience) has a reputation for being fickle. What works in some scenarios may fall on deaf ears in others. Remember the movie “The 13th Warrior?” Us either. We googled Hollywood flops. LinkedIn ads? Who clicks on those?
Here are five digital marketing trends that the brand story creators at EAG Advertising & Marketing are not only following in 2016, but including in our clients’ marketing plots next year, more or less…
1. Focus More on Mobile
Does a website work for mobile devices? “Yes” isn’t enough today. A user’s experience on your mobile site should be fully optimized. Quickly finding information, easy reading, seamless page scrolling, filling out forms, shopping, clicking, buying – all should happen within a few clicks.
More users on mobile devices will affect even “old guard” industries like banking and legal during all stages of their web search and interaction.
2. Project More Purposeful “Socializing”
Social options are plenty. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Vine, etc. The list continues to grow. Instead of being everywhere, small business must select the one (or two) most appropriate channels and create content for that outlet specifically.
Posting the same content on four or five social outlets doesn’t give users a reason to engage with any of them. Manning multiple social outlets without seeing a return from any of them is a strategy to avoid. Even having social buttons on your website that link to unused portals is a very negative signal to prospects and customers.
3. Develop More Laser-Like Focused Display Ads
Increase the value of display PPC ads to you and users by hyper-localizing geographic target (zip codes for example), or running them alongside only the most well matched phrases. For example: “businesses for sale in Kansas City” versus just “businesses.”
Different creative messages germane to that content compared to generic ads are also trending. Anything that helps contextualize your business to the content it’s around helps drive conversions.
4. Rely Less on Google
Google isn’t going anywhere. At least not any time this decade. But relying solely on Google for paid ad campaigns ignores the gains that Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL have made with their conglomerate platform. More than 10% of all searches now happen on that network. For at least the most important keywords and campaigns being run on Google Ads, pulling them over to Microsoft’s advertising portal is a must.
5. Have More Confidence in Facebook’s Native Ads
The goal here isn’t to get people to engage with your Facebook page. It’s to connect with the deep data that Facebook has on its user base, connecting people to your products and services.
You can tell a lot by a person based on their Facebook activity. Facebook’s data on demographics, psychographics, interests, activities, online purchase behavior, financial status and household makeup allow companies to create a very unique marketing queue with equally unique messaging.
There is a fine line between producing a marketing blockbuster and one that bankrupts the studio, so to speak. Both start off with groundbreaking concepts. The trick is following a tried and true plot and weaving in some sound trends to keep you edgy, interesting and relevant.
Need inspiration? A muse? Our digital marketing team may not be what you call Hollywood glamour, but they don’t require white roses or green-only M&Ms in their dressing rooms either.