With the beginning of the New Year, the flood gates for resolutions and new beginnings have officially been opened. New Year, New You, am I right?
Hand in hand with these high hopes and reflections of the past year is the excitement of new trends to come. We all have our fixes – be it fashion, food or travel – but here at Spark we are all looking forward to the online marketing trends that are coming this year.
Here are 5 quick trends to keep an eye out for in 2015:
Elevated Customer Experience
As my fellow Spark-er (is that a thing?) was apt to note, online marketers would do well to cater their content to their own specific customer. Cultivating and sharing your business story, and using available data to understand your brand audience are just a few of the ways that you need to be able to engage and address your prospective audience.
Social Media Advertising
If we have said it once, we have said it 50 times: social ad spend is vital to your social media marketing. While Google ad opportunities still hold strong (as they likely always will), Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are currently the largest social network advertising platforms – with Pinterest and Instagram hot on their trail. With ever-changing targeting and remarketing methods, ads on these social platforms are only set to vastly increase over the year.
Mobile Marketing
Responsive web design marketing has been on the radar for quite some time now. With more & more people relying on mobile devices & tablets, it’s absolutely essential to reach them with the same experience as a desktop user receives. Something that has notably lagged a bit behind is video content for mobile; with small screen real estate – especially for advertising – we can definitely understand the challenge. It will definitely be wise for marketers to keep up with their mobile audience moving through 2015.
Targeting, Targeting, Targeting
A PPC campaign is only as good as the PPC management behind it. Targeting keywords is all well and good, but the best campaigns this year will reflect much more strategic targeting than keyword focus alone. With dynamic and audience targeting, the information gathered on user behaviour and personas will assist with relevant searches – only working to strengthen your campaign. With the multitude of channels to run PPC on – Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – refining this targeting will be essential to any successful campaign.
Let Content Reign
As online marketing strategies and platforms grow, so does the audience consuming them. Original, engaging, high-quality content will henceforth and always be the most important thing you can do for your business and your brand. You can drive all the people in the world to your website: make sure your audience will be excited to land there. This will turn your audience into the long-term relationships that will keep your company afloat.
Visual Appeal
Looking great online is more important than ever, especially when it comes to your content. Posts with relevant images get viewed 94% more than content without – that’s a pretty huge difference if you’re trying to increase the visibility of your brand online. Users are engaging with video and image-based content more and more, making visual-driven platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest crucial channels for advertisers to use as lead generation tools and communicate their brand’s image and messaging more effectively. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words – which is way more than 140 characters.
You’ve Got Mail
Want an affordable way to reach a huge portion of your audience? Of course you do. Email Marketing lets you nurture leads and keep your customers coming back by delivering them informative content and exclusive offers on a regular basis. Another bonus: email marketing helps you reach the ever-growing mobile audience. More than half of smartphone users check their emails on their phones, making email marketing an easy way to engage with mobile consumers in 2015.
Big Data Means Big Customization
Data and analytics are going to be an even bigger component of every successful online marketing campaign in 2015. Marketers have access to more consumer data than ever now and can put that data to work by creating more personalized marketing campaigns that communicate effectively with your audience. Use data and research to build buyer personas for your brand; fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers that can help you better understand your audience and effectively tailor your campaigns.
These are just a few online marketing trends we will be on the look-out for in 2015. Need help delivering on your 2015 goals? Let us know and we will get your year started off right.
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