Digital Marketing Trends In 2021

Digital marketing trends keep guiding brands and businesses to the best possible options for getting leads and increasing conversions. It significantly multiplies the platforms for promotions, engagements, and sales targets. It simply cannot be ignored.

Establishing a strong online presence is a must in digital marketing, and marketers are adapting to keep their brand’s competitive edge.

So, for your brand not to be left behind, check the latest digital market trends for 2021.

Top Digital Marketing Trends of 2021

#1. Digital Transformation and Marketing Transformation

Today, there are many challenges in digital marketing strategies as a lack of focus on an integrated strategy, testing, and optimization. Structural issues and communication breakdown are additional issues that beset current digital marketing teams.

Several businesses are now putting in digital transformation initiatives to address these types of issues and leverage opportunities to expand a business through digital marketing.

Digital capabilities and skills need to increase, especially since modern tools keep emerging to improve digital strategies. For instance, Artificial Intelligence in digital marketing impacts UX (User Experience).

Machine Learning, on the other hand, is also enabling better automation, “always-on” marketing activities, and other cloud-based technologies.

#2. Conversational Marketing

Modern marketing is more about conversational marketing. Consumers now prefer it, so brands are reacting. 82% of consumers want an “immediate” response when they have a question.

Conversational marketing facilitates real-time, one-on-one connections between marketers and customers. Here are some samples below:

Image Source: WPForms

Image Source: Mobile Monkey

This marketing method is now available through multiple channels and enables brands to reach consumers on various devices, platforms, and schedules. It helps brands provide more meaningful user experiences that strengthen a brand’s online presence.

Ultimately, conversational marketing’s primary goal is to enhance the user experience through a feedback-driven model that fosters higher engagement and greater loyalty.

Conversational marketing was highlighted as a critical innovation in the latest Gartner hype cycle alongside Artificial Intelligence, and both will become mainstream in the coming years.

Image Source: Gartner.com

#3. Interactive Content Will Become Mainstream

Anything that users can click on, swipe, or interact with online is interactive content. 93% of marketers rate interactive content as highly efficient at communicating information.

Interactive content includes quizzes and polls, augmented reality ads, and 360-degree videos, and embedded calculators.

These formats use state-of-the-art marketing technology, which offers people an immersive and interactive experience. Here is a sampler of an effective 360 VR video:

91% of consumers actively prefer interactive content. It is new, unique, people like it, making consumers relate more with brands and be more involved in the sales process.

Interactive content is more compelling, so it delivers leads and conversions to businesses more effectively too.

Here is another sample of an interactive website from Nurture Digital, an interactive portfolio website for a digital product agency.

#4. Social Commerce & Shoppable Posts

Social media is very popular not just for entertainment and communication, but also for eCommerce, or “Social Commerce.”

Recently, shoppable posts on various social media platforms are now available. Brands are now doing SMO (Social Media Optimization) to maximize opportunities for sales.

In March 2019, Instagram launched Instagram Checkout, which enables users to complete their Instagram purchases within the app:

eCommerce brands aim to reduce cart abandonment, switching apps, or availing from competitors.

Social media is vital to digital marketing, and as more people can purchase goods through advertising they see in their feeds, visual ads will take off further.

Instagram estimates that 1 billion users have the app, and 90% follow successful shopping brands. Here is an example of a shoppable post below:

#5. Good Content and Context Still Matters

Content marketing is a brand’s best move forward. It remains an integral component of digital marketing, although the content focus is growing.

Quality will still matter, but now there’s more focus on context and targeting. Google is establishing a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of online content.

Since Google keeps updating its search algorithm, brands need to keep up. The Google search engine is updated continuously, so it better understands user search queries’ natural language.

Instead of pursuing the latest SEO trends, ensuring site speed, establishing useful backlinks, well-written content is vital.

Content marketing will continue to play a critical role in digital marketing. Google prefers high-quality content preferring in-depth, reliable, current content closely aligned with user intent.

Content marketing is essential because 88% of B2B content marketers believe that content creation helps their audience see their company as a reliable and trusted resource. In this regard, hiring a professional team of digital marketing company is the best way to improve a business online.

#6. AI-Based Automation

More and more brands are using AI-powered technology for automation to support their marketing efforts.

AI is the technology behind voice search and smart assistants. It powers chatbots that are revolutionizing consumer experience.

AI technology and automation help take some of the hard work out of marketing, so brands can focus on marketing strategies and create a great customer experience.

Human marketers are still crucial and are even more critical than ever. The goal is not to human marketers out of their jobs but to focus on high-quality marketing tasks.

However, the emergence of modern technologies like big data, predictive analytics, consumer targeting challenges digital marketers to step up and gain new expertise on these new tools.

Through automation, customer experience is improved with hyper-personalization and on-scale marketing communications.

Conclusion

Since there are more of your target market online, brands need to find effective ways to reach this more extensive group of consumers, especially those within your locality.

Using digital marketing helps brands optimize marketing strategies in the most cost-effective and measurable methods.

Digital marketing provides an opportunity to reach the global marketplace without the usual costs of global marketing.

Employing these digital strategies helps build brand loyalty, especially since you can monitor marketing efforts immediately when it is done through digital marketing.

Author Bio.: Mayleen Meñez used to work in media before finding her true passion in NGO work, traveling the Philippines and Asia doing so. She homeschools three kids and loves reinventing Filipino dishes. She is a resident SEO writer for Softvire Australia and Softvire New Zealand.