The wild world of digital marketing industry plays in trillion-digits, yet not everyone you see has had the taste of the glory. Give a look at the stats, you will find thousands of startups toiling to reach the milestone of mere $1000, but one thing that I have commonly observed is that the best class continue to get better, year-over-year.
What draws the line between the top-notch, and the mediocre? Is it the effective marketing strategies, nonpareil products, or the effective SEO tactics? I bet all these aid the online marketers in establishing their position online, but what helps the best to cement its leadership, is the ability to adapt the changes faster than their rivals.
What are the top digital marketing trends to expect in 2016?
As the year 2016 has just started, let’s just have a look at digital marketing trends that will shook up the game throughout 2016, and where the industry stands as the marketers are about to welcome the new year with open arms.
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1.“Social” Getting The Hype
Instead of sticking to the single page in this volatile web business, marketers are becoming multiple-channel savvy & are going out of their way to make their presence felt at the sites that are potent to fetch the maximum customers. Once used to connect and chat with the near & dear ones, the social media has witnessed to be the current hotspot to channel communication with the overwhelming majority of the active audience and create the clientele out of the thin air.
Social Media Marketing Trends: What’s in the Store?
Social Media is getting stronger with each passing year in every aspect, from the effective advertisement to the content distribution. More than 92% of the marketers believe that social media has increased the exposure for their business, and have incorporated the social media marketing in their marketing strategies effectively.
Who’s Leading?
“Facebook For the Consumers”
When asked which of the social media channel you would choose to drive revenue, 56% of the B2C respondents picked Facebook as their favorite, while 72% agreed that they have acquired traffic through Facebook.
“LinkedIn For the Customers”
According to a study (B2B content marketing 2014- benchmark, budget, and trends), more than 87% of the B2B marketers believe that social media has increased the exposure of their business, and find LinkedIn as the most effective platform to drive revenue.
Sales Through Social Are Soaring
The boom in the social selling could be traced by another reputable study conducted by Statista. According to the Statista’s survey, the total sales from the social selling will cross the milestone of $30 billion worldwide by the end of the year 2015, from the $20 billion of the year 2014.
Escalating Ad Spending
If we take a glance on the prediction made for the social advertising, the overall expenditure on the social media advertisement from the companies will reach $8.3 million by the end of the year 2015.
Bigger Tool For The Small Business
According to social media marketing stats by small-bizsense.com, 8 out of every ten small and medium business take the aid of social media to invite leads for their business. Social networking is proving to be the excellent resort for the SMUs seeking to create brand awareness, and encourage traffic without spending loads of money.
Disparities In the Trend
The social media marketing may have taken leaps and bounds, yet one may see the differences clearly. Though the 85% of the B2B marketers apparently believe that companies should distribute information through the social channel, still just 20% CMOs have leverage social media to build the relationship with the customers.
2. Content Marketing Still Reigning
Surely, ‘Content’ is the connecting link between the brand & the audience, and it is the reason why audience converts into the customers. But, it’s high time for online marketers to distinguish amid the ‘content’ and the ‘valuable content’ else they’ll be mercilessly dragged out of this online ring.
What Makes The Content Successful?
No doubt, content is still the one of most important digital marketing trends in 2016. Give a look at the stats and you will barely find someone who does not agree. The concept remains to target the potential leads using meaningful content and nurture the customer-base over a protracted period using the same tactic. Content marketing drives three times more leads to a page while costing around 62% less than the traditional outbound marketing practices.
How To Know Your Content Is Effective In 2016
If you think, your content is of relevance to the audience, and capable of engaging & luring the customers to make an action, and then there is a great probability that you already have half of the things in place. Audience relevance makes content babout 58℅ more efficient in generating leads, followed by user engagement (57℅), and response generation (54℅).
Goals of Content Marketing
According to a vast majority of the online marketing respondents, the primary objective of the content marketing remains to be “lead generation”. However, along with the lead generation, marketers also seek to create a market presence and brand awareness, by taking the aid of compelling and meaningful content.
What Are The Challenges?
For most of the marketers the main challenge is to evaluate the effectiveness of their content marketing practices, followed by the inability to manage, and deliver compelling, and engaging content time-to-time.
Where Does The Market Stand?
The CMS Market is taking leaps and bounds at the speed of 12.4℅ CAGR every year. Soon the market will be listed as the fastest growing business, and will cross the barrier of $32.3 billion by the year 2018.
3. Search Engine Optimization: Dare To Ignore!
Optimize, socialize and integrate’ is the key that the web marketers are holding on tight to make their marketing campaign do wonders. And the dominant trait of the successful SEO is constant adaptation with the changing ranking algorithms. Few significant changes noticed in the year 2015 are:
High Value On Content Developed For People
One thing that marketers have clearly understood is, if your content does not have the ability to cling the customers to the screens, then it can’t survive for long on the SERPs of the client. About 82% of the marketers believe in developing content for the customers, and not entirely for the search engines. The focus has no longer remained to generate traffic through vague keywords; instead, professionals are incorporating keywords that are rich in information to lure the attention of the readers.
Organic First
Organic rules the SEO, as more and more customers turn to the “Internet of Things” to complete every missing puzzle. If we take a glance at last year’s stats, more than 68.6% of the customers used the search engines to carry out the organic search. Also, the organic listing bagged 60.4% of the total SERPs clicks, juxtaposed to the 39.6% by the paid ads.
Higher Average Closing Rate
Far embraced by the marketers situated worldwide, the outbound marketing practices like cold calls, advertisements, etc. are on the verge of leaving the favorite spot, and for the “obvious reasons”. Where the SEO offers an average closing rate of 14.6%, the outbound activities provide the closing rate of mere 1.7% to the marketers.
Shift To Long-Tail Keywords
One practice that came into the limelight in the year 2015 was the shift to the long-tail keywords, from the traditionally used broad keywords terms. When asked a group of digital marketing respondents, most of them replied, the need to lower the competition and drive qualified traffic to the page compelled the marketers to incorporate the long-tail keywords in their SEO strategy.
4. Big Data is Getting Bigger
The prodigious web world is brimming with the data clutter; for those in the online marketing business, the Business Analytics have become ‘the air companies breathes and the oceans in which they swim,’ according to Deloitte Analytics. 2015 watched the enterprises of all sizes relying upon analytics data ever more for managing & justifying their escalating digital marketing budget. Plus, the new and intelligent search filters removed the clutter of content on the web and changed the way people look for information.
Data: A Necessity To Stay Competitive
As we mentioned, “the online word is brimming with the data clutter,” with the projected data growth of 350% higher in the year 2019, compared to that of 2015. 65% of the global marketers have understood that to stay organized, proper measures to manage the clutter are must, and admit to embracing the analytics to stay competitive in the market.
Data vs. The Unstructured Information
Out of all the “data clutter,” one may find online, just 0.5% is analyzed by the CMOs, the reason being the lack of available stats to the companies. If we talk in figures, what is available to the companies is just 10% of the data, while the 90% the digital insights are unstructured, and still of no use to the firms.
Still Long Way To Go
While just the 27% of the professional found the study to be of any use to the companies, over 61% of the CMOs still believe, there is a long way to go for the organizations, to make the most out of the data study in the coming years.
Digital Marketing Trends: At A Glance
The year 2015 clearly showcases that the intersection of creativity, data, media and technology is the only line of attack of the online marketers to fit in the big picture. And, once again the content proves to be a hero.
Return on investment is paramount, with the digital marketing plan right in place. However, here is a single piece of advice to the marketers: Don’t just blatantly follow the digital marketing trends in this erratic web world, keep your eye on the marketing goal and with cautious experimentation, go ahead every day.
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