Over the past year, we have seen the digital world grow to quite possibly the largest scale ever due to the pandemic. Covid-19 was a major influence, converting digital adopters from companies that had to adapt during the crisis, incorporating digital processes into businesses. And it doesn’t stop there! We have collated our top ten digital trends to look out for…
Conversational marketing
With the in-person business communication limitations, the use of conversational marketing digital technologies is becoming increasingly prevalent. These enable companies to interact with customers quickly and at scale by mimicking human dialogue through chatbots.
Marketing automation
Marketing automation is on the rise and it’s all about using software to automate marketing activities. Many marketing departments automate repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns — not just for the sake of efficiency, but to provide a more personalised and targeted experience for the receiver! customers. The technology of marketing automation is growing so it is a prospect to consider converting okay content into highly personalised, useful content!
Real-life emotion
Businesses are increasingly reaping the rewards for being organic, emotive, and personal with their consumers. Showing consideration for issues that customers care about will help businesses to demonstrate their consideration for, and commitment to, their brand image.
No-click searches
Also known as Google’s featured snippets, this new digital tool allows you to type a question into Google, hit enter, and a suggested paragraph answering your question is displayed in an easy-to-digest box at the top of the page, right beneath the search bar. You have the answer you need, so you don’t need to click on an article! Google and other search engines provide these to help people find answers quickly and keep people on their website – which means it’s a good idea to sharpen up your SEO!
Optimised customer experience
With so many options available to consumers now, companies can no longer rely solely on the strength of products and services and must also consider what they can do to make their customers’ journey as smooth as possible. This trend becomes increasingly common, so now businesses must focus on offering quick, easy, and knowledgeable responses when communicating with consumers that will lead to business coming back!
Privacy
Tech giants like Apple and Google have all recently taken steps to increase privacy controls for users in browser software. These changes are expected to change advertising models for social media and ad networks this year. In addition to this, Google has been driving this trend with the decision to stop Chrome from supporting all third-party cookies by early 2022.
Social media spending
Social media spending has increased dramatically over the years, as businesses spend more money to reach users than ever before, with digital technologies now able to target ads to be hugely defined, the use of social media spending has and will continue to rocket!
E-commerce channel advertising
Digital advertising on e-commerce sites increased significantly this year alone and will continue to grow throughout the remainder of 2021, due to the huge shift from shopping on the high street to online shopping.
Voice search
Voice-activated digital assistants continue to be huge digital players. Many households have either an Alexa, Siri, or Cortana to speak to, as the popularity of voice search both at home and on mobile phones has led to one of the most significant shifts in using keywords! Weaving voice subtitles and searches into your own content is a great way to keep up with the noise!
Online reviews
Online reviews can make or break your business’s ability to attract new customers… While any company can tell you how amazing their products or services are, other consumers can provide real, unbiased reviews, and that’s what really pulls in buyers. Having many reviews from verified sources can make your business stand out from the competition and start building trust before they even click on your website.