Introduction
The world of marketing moves at lightning speed.
With this kind of pace, many brands feel like they’re always trying to keep up with market changes: a task that’s not only exhausting but difficult. However, brands know understanding and anticipating these changes will help them stay relevant and strengthen their market position.
To make sure your brand doesn’t fall behind, we’ve put together a short article covering five emerging marketing trends this year, helping you stay competitive and building stronger customer connections.
Let’s jump right in.
Keep your video marketing content short.
Heard of Tik-Tok?
Yeah, we thought so. The social media platform has taken the world by storm, with users sharing videos on anything from cooking to fashion. Most of this content clocks in at around 42 seconds, which reflects the wider shift in video marketing to create short-form content.
Users want brands to cut-to-the-chase. That’s why a massive 90% of marketers will use short-form video and increase their investment in this type of content next year. And although long-form helps deliver large in-depth information about your brand or services, customers want to know the details fast.
From the smallest to the biggest brands, short-form content is in this year. Just take a look at Coca-Cola’s TikTok page, who are using the platform to its full effect and trying to reach the 30 million daily users.
Your brand needs to invest in SEO, SEO and more SEO
That’s right, SEO is a marketers best friend and continues to be an ever-reliable strategy. Whatever your product or services, your website and content need to be as discoverable as possible. With high-ranking SEO results, you’ll have a constant flow of both long-term and short-term traffic, ultimately driving your sales and growing your audience.
This SEO trend is going to continue to grow long after the summer too. Hubspot has already reported there’s been a 4% growth in SEO investment compared to last year, and apparently 88% of marketers are looking to increase their investment. This speaks volumes as to the strength of a solid, well-founded SEO strategy and the positive returns it can generate for your brand all year-round.
Many brands are also hiring SEO experts, who optimize website content and provide in-depth data insights, helping create organic webpage traffic. This is a trend that’s unlikely to slow down, continuing to appear on marketing trend lists long into the future.
It’s time you reached out to an influencer
It only takes one influencer for your brand to ‘break the internet.’ Whether we like it or not, influencers hold a great deal of marketing power, and it’s a great way for your brand to build a following, quickly and efficiently.
With influencers, the third wall is broken down between brand and customer. Products are reviewed and spoken about in a conversational way, far removed from bold or brash advertisements, helping to make your brand more relatable and human-like.
And you don’t need an influencer with millions of followers too.
Many marketers are investing in micro-influencers, who are people with a smaller following, normally in the tens of thousands. And although they have a smaller reach, their impact is somewhat more powerful, as customers trust their opinion and act upon it.
The influencer trend is here to stay, and with 89% of marketers likely to increase investment next year, your brand should truly consider this strategy as a way to connect with customers.
Introduce customer service into your social media strategy.
Brands are sliding into DMs to offer customer service support – a summer trend that’s steadily growing.
This isn’t surprising considering social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, have been expanding their e-commerce offerings. It’s now not uncommon for users to shop on social media, so for customer convenience, brands have turned these platforms into customer service tools. And Millenials and Gen Z are reacting positively to Brand DM communication:
- 20% of Gen Z have contacted brands on social media for customer service;
- 1 in 4 Millennials have contacted brands on social media for customer service.
With these figures, brands are looking to use social media as a way to strengthen customer relationships, rather than relying on age-old techniques like email or phone.
Make sure your mobile website hits the mark
Half of annual online website traffic comes from mobile devices. These days, customers want to be able to buy on-the-go and shop with ease right from their phone. So if your brand isn’t maximizing its mobile website, you’re probably losing customers and damaging your brand’s reputation.
That’s why many brands are investing heavily in creating a user-friendly mobile experience.
Just take a look at these numbers:
- 64% of SEO marketers say mobile marketing is effective;
- 33% of global marketers are investing into mobile web design.
If you haven’t already, your brand needs to have an effective, adaptable mobile website to help supplement wider sales and website traffic. This is the summer of shopping on phones and your brand needs to be ready.
Wrapping things up
These five marketing trends are growing and will be here long after the summer sun has set. So its best to prepare now. By introducing these marketing tactics into your brand, you’ll stay competitive and keep your customers happy. And if you need any help with your marketing moving forward, don’t forget, we’re marketing experts and we’d love to help you.
