7 Powerful Digital Marketing Trends to Boost Your Business

Smart brands look to operate on the bleeding edge of marketing to keep up with the trends. Here are the top 7 trends that your business needs to know.

Live Chat

Live Chat is becoming a valuable channel of communication. The ability to engage customers directly is showing a huge impact on sales and brand loyalty with conversions on the rise. Look for more companies to hire extra agents and make them available to customers 24/7.

Increase in Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing continues to be a strong force in advertising. Brands no longer have to rely on expensive celebrity endorsement to reach customers. A targeted campaign with a niche Influencer can have a big impact on sales for a small investment. Look for more big brands to move marketing budgets towards niche social media influencers.

Real-Life Marketing

Consumers are growing tired of overly produced photoshoots and stock photography. Users crave a more authentic engagement with products as they are used in the real world. Content will be raw, unedited, and feel like it was shot on an iPhone.

Live Videos Will Take Over

Live videos are nothing new. Who didn’t grow up watching America’s Funniest Home Videos?

Live Video is only growing in popularity, especially amongst marketers. In 2016, Buffer ran a survey finding that 80% of marketers wanted to create more video content, with 42% specifically looking to create more live video.

And this is all for good reason, Facebook video gets an average of 135% more organic reach than images. Live video sees a massive engagement as well. The engagement goes through the roof for live video as well.

One word of caution, you can’t edit live video so be professional or you may have a social media mishap.

Customer Experience Marketing

It’s not enough anymore to market to potential customers. Excellent marketers make sure the customer has a good experience when you market to them. This trend is on the rise with 68% of marketers say their business is focusing on customer experience in marketing.

Customer Experience Marketing is pretty straightforward. It involves being aware of how the customer engages with each aspect of your business. From how your posts look on social media to analyzing your in-store customer service. The idea is that customers see your business as the sum of all interactions, not one transaction alone.

The Rise of Generation Z

Brands will start thinking about marketing to Generation Z, or the generation born after the Millennials. For the last few years Millennials have been the coveted marketing prize as brands have made a push to appear more authentic and cause driven.

As Millennials age, Gen Z will begin to take the lion’s share of marketing budgets. The main shift is still a few years away but smart brands are getting ready now. Look for marketing messages to shift towards the Gen Z direction.

Conclusion

The time is now for companies to start incorporating these trends in their future marketing plans if they want to stay ahead of the curve. While no one can predict the future, one thing is for sure. It will be interesting to see what happens next.