Digital marketing has completely transformed the marketing world, and it will continue to do so. This blog covers all the evergreen digital marketing trends (that will not go anywhere ever) and predicts some future trends (that will dominate the marketing industry) in 2021 and beyond.
Let’s admit the fact that no industry has experienced the revolution in the past decade more than marketing. Digital marketing has undoubtedly transformed online businesses. The world has moved to digital platforms, and people are consuming digital content daily.
Earlier television, print media, radio, billboards, etc., used to dominate the industry, but now, digital marketing has turned the tables and started dominating the world. Soon, traditional marketing platforms will vanish, and online marketing will completely take over.
Marketers spend 75% of their total marketing budget on online marketing only. Hence, they like it because online marketing is driving them better results! Not only marketers but even businesses are also noticing the outcome digital marketing can produce. Consequently, companies are leveraging growth services to maximize their digital reach and generate more profit.
Digital marketing is dynamic and constantly evolving with the emergence of new technologies. Some trends hit the marketing world in the past and some new trends are set to rule in the future. To stay competitive, businesses should keep up with the evergreen marketing trends and also keep a keen eye on upcoming digital marketing trends to succeed.
So without any further ado, let’s get started with digital marketing evergreen and future trends, but before that, let’s understand the basics of digital marketing and its importance in today’s age. Ready? Let’s dive in!
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing (aka online marketing and internet marketing) refers to any marketing tactics that involve digital mediums and devices. In other words, digital marketing is the practice of promoting products/services through digital devices and technologies. In layman’s terms, online marketing is a form of marketing that takes place online with the help of the internet and digital devices.
A potent digital marketing agency leverages websites, search engines, social media platforms, content, video, email, and other similar channels to help businesses reach their potential customers.
Parts of Digital Marketing:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Social Media Optimization (SMO)
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Influencer Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Video Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Online Reputation Management (ORM)
What’s the Importance of Digital Marketing for Today’s Businesses?
Investing in digital media is like investing in your business to help it grow. Today, digital marketing is the primary preference for businesses almost everywhere globally.
Online marketing helps in business growth and boosts online presence. In fact, per HubSpot’s study, 64% of marketers say that SEO is the best way to drive organic traffic, and 70% of marketers recommend content marketing as one of the best marketing methods. Moreover, Google reports that search ads (PPC) can boost brand awareness by 80%.
Online marketing helps you reach people where they spend their time, allows you to compete with larger organizations, lets you target the ideal audience at the right time, in the right way. It enables you to monitor your campaigns and optimize them for better results. And most of all, you can get an impressive ROI.
Top 5 Evergreen Digital Marketing Trends (That Will Never Obsolete)
Marketing is everywhere if you try to see around. Digital marketing has definitely evolved over the first decade of the 21st century. Having said that, here are some evergreen digital marketing trends that will stay young forever.
Storytelling
Remember the bedtime stories we all used to love when we were kids? Everyone loves stories, even grown-up ones. Stories serve effective communication that customers resonate with. Humor and emotion move people to the core. Storytelling is an art, and it captures attention and reels people.
The storytelling remains powerful and paramount in the marketing world. Take any top brands as an example (Redbull, BMW, Airbnb, Nike, etc.). They all leverage the power of storytelling and kill it for a greater impact. That said, storytelling is an evergreen trend that will continue to be one of the most important aspects of digital marketing.
Influencer/Word of Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth has always been an impactful marketing strategy. You must have also bought something once because a friend suggested and said it worked fine for him/her. As people have started gravitating towards online platforms like social media, word-of-mouth marketing has taken the face of influencer marketing.
It has remained a strong driver for customer engagement. People follow big celebrities and famous personalities on social media, and when they endorse products, it creates an image of trust and reliability among people. That said, influencer/word-of-mouth marketing will never go out of trend and always stay in the game.
Personalization
Personalization is a crucial part of the customer journey and experience. Brands incorporate personalization with three relevant and significant factors in their digital marketing strategies — geographic, demographic, and language.
Segmenting your audience and showing them the personalized content based on their interests, tastes, and preferences can positively influence them to take your services. Personalized content and campaign play a vital role in delivering optimal results for businesses.
Personalization is one such marketing trend that will always make the customer journey much more enjoyable and benefit businesses.
Unique and Valuable Content
Content is king and will always remain king, no matter what. Content is the foundation of online marketing strategy. Therefore, you need to ensure that the content is unique and relevant. Your content must resonate well with your brand idea and should convey the right message.
Unique and relevant content not only helps you build trust and connect with your target audience but also acts as fuel for your marketing techniques. Content educates the audience, fuels SEO, drives social media strategies, builds backlinks. All in all, unique and relevant content elevates your digital marketing technique.
Visual Content
Whether you agree or not but visuals always attract people more than plain text. Visual content has always been in the game. You just can’t overlook the importance of visual content in digital marketing. It is psychologically proven that 90% of the information that comes to the brain is visual.
Considering the ever-increasing demand for visual content, 70% of companies invest in marketing, including visual marketing strategies. And the numbers will continue to rise. So visual content will always be in the game and continue to impress people.
The Evolution of Digital Marketing: Then, Now, and Later
It all started with the rise of the world wide web (www), which launched in 1991 but didn’t make much impact until Google came into play in 1998. The rise of the world wide web started SEO, website promotions, etc. Then the emergence of social media changed the shape of online marketing. Social media started collecting users’ demographic data, and businesses started promoting their products/services by understanding social media algorithms.
After that, the mobile arena hit the industry, and then, marketers began to see endless opportunities to reach people more directly. Today, smartphones have transformed the way marketers leverage online marketing.
Digital marketing has been growing since its inception. And its evolution hasn’t stopped. The 90s brought the popularity of the internet and the first use of digital marketing, then the 2000s brought us a significant increase in internet users and pushed online marketing a bit.
And 2010-2020s have radically revolutionized the ways digital marketing used to work back then. Smartphones have led to the biggest change in modern digital marketing. And we are all likely to still have a long way to go when it comes to digital marketing techniques.
Top 13 Online Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore (And Should Focus) in the Future
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Whether you realize it or not but the dominance of AI has reached everywhere. Now, it’s deemed the core of modern business. Artificial intelligence can quickly analyze user behavior, intent, and search patterns; thus, helping organizations understand how customers find their products and services. AI also aids marketers in finding out the aptest way to promote products/services to intended customers.
Chatbots
Chatbots will continue to be an essential part of online marketing in the future. It’s an AI-based technology that will chat with customers in real-time, 24/7. 80% of businesses acquire chatbots because they provide instant responses to inquiries and answer users’/visitors’ simple questions in no time. Chatbots can help in marketing by gauging buying history, etc.
Content Marketing
Content marketing can never get old, no matter what technology emerges. In fact, 96% of marketers say that content marketing has helped them build credibility and trust with their audience. Content marketing generates 3x as many leads. That said, amid all innovation, content marketing remains a reliable, powerful way to attract new customers to your website and build relationships with them in real.
Conversational Marketing
The future of online marketing is more conversational. People want it that way, and that’s why brands are reacting. 82% of customers expect an immediate response. And that’s where conversational marketing facilitates a one-to-one, real-time connection between marketers and customers. This form of marketing is trending and now becoming available across multiple channels, enhancing user experience.
Omnichannel Marketing
Brands must spread a consistent voice across all available mediums via omnichannel marketing. As the name suggests, it is the marketing across multiple platforms, such as social media, apps, email, blogs, etc. to connect with potential prospects on more touchpoints. If done right, omnichannel marketing can offer an enhanced user experience and relevant brand message that persuade people to take necessary action.
Video Marketing
As mentioned earlier, visuals attract people. That’s why YouTube has over a billion users (almost one-third of total internet users). In fact, 86% of marketers say video has helped them increase traffic to their website. That said, video marketing is one of those digital marketing trends that is not going anywhere for the next ten years. Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn are leveraging video marketing to the maximum.
Voice and Visual Search
Just like gadgets, people have also become smarter. People are searching via voice-activated tools like Alexa, Siri, and others. It’s because this type of technology is more readily available and makes the search effortless. But it’s not only voice search that will rule in the future. Visual search will also become a big thing via tools like Google Lens or Pinterest Lens. In the future, voice and visuals will become crucial in the SEO game.
Social Media
Social media works like magic for businesses and marketers. Social media has taken on greater significance for consumers and marketers. Today, businesses can promote their products/services globally on social media. Now and then, social media trends are emerging. As people move more rapidly to social media platforms, it is creating new opportunities for marketers to increase reach with a new audience and re-engage with long-time customers.
Push Notifications
Push notifications are on the rapid rise. Marketers leverage push notifications to entice customers, resulting in increased conversions. Push notifications enable brands to increase app engagement by 88%. Some of the ways brands can engage with subscribers include sending relevant information, reminders, and regular updates. Two types of push notifications are becoming famous that will rule in the future — mobile and browser notifications.
Social Commerce
Social media continues to offer opportunities for brands to connect with consumers in new and interesting ways, across a wide variety of platforms. That said, social commerce has given brands opportunities to create seamless e-commerce experiences directly within popular social media platforms. As social media continues to rise, social commerce is also becoming a demanding trend.
A/B Testing
Modern marketing has become all about testing and analysis. The more you analyze and test, the better you will understand your target audience and its intent. Using A/B testing in digital marketing, you can isolate the variables in your campaign and quickly identify which version is driving the better results. This testing provides marketers a systematic approach to making powerful changes to their content.
AR/VR
Now and then, businesses are experimenting with immersive technologies for increased ROI. AR and VR are such technologies that are making a lot of noise in the market. Brands are increasingly using AR/VR to enhance the customer experience and maximize sales and revenue. Considering this, we will see a huge uptake in the marketing world with these two immersive technologies.
IoT Advertising
IoT is spreading like a wildfire in our lives. From our mobile devices, laptops, smart cars, smart household appliances, everything is getting more and more connected via IoT. As more and more data are getting collected via IoT, marketers want to use this data for advertising purposes. Going forward, IoT devices will present more on-demand content for consumers and more marketing opportunities for marketers.
In Conclusion
There you have it! A detailed guide to digital marketing (evergreen and future) trends. The evergreen marketing trends will rule the marketing world forever, the emerging future trends will help businesses and marketers to reach the right audience. Both evergreen and future online marketing trends will go hand in hand to increase traffic, generate more leads, and grow sales. Thus, delivering success to businesses.
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