4 Major Digital Marketing Trends Your Small Business Can Use
Adobe and eConsultancy teamed up to put together a report on Digital Trends 2015, and man, it is packed with great information gathered data from more than 6,000 marketing, digital and ecommerce professionals around the world.
No time to read the report? No worries – here are four major digital marketing trends that your small business can use:
- Customer experience
“CX coincides with rising consumer expectations, which has led brands to focus on customer satisfaction or even delight at every touch point in an attempt to foster loyalty.”
Customer experience is by far the biggest digital marketing trend – and it influences everything your small business needs to do to remain relevant and grow.
How to improve customer experience: A majority of respondents said their goal is to make it easy, fun, valuable and/or pleasurable to do business with them. For your small business, that could mean using CX as a differentiator.
For example, you might put new processes and/or more structure in place so that each project is more streamlined and communication with clients is more structured. You might hire only employees who are positive, upbeat, and service-focused. You might begin stressing the tremendous value people get from working with you – value they cannot get elsewhere.
- Personalization
“Businesses personalizing the customer experience report a 14% uplift in sales.”
Personalization doesn’t mean inserting “Hi First_Name!” at the beginning of your monthly newsletter. We’re WAY beyond that! In 2015, it means using the power of big data for targeting.
How to use targeting: It’s time to look into predictive analytics, which is pretty complex stuff (think big data). However, if you can give people what they need when they need it, you’ll be golden.
3. Content optimization
“The technology has long been available for marketers to target optimized content at website prospects and customers across the right mix of channels in a way which is timely and highly relevant to their implicit and explicit needs.”
This ties back to personalization. It’s about delivering content – blog posts, ebooks, guides, special promotions – when people need it.
How to use content optimization: Potential clients need different information as they go through the sales funnel. For example, a prospect – someone who is already in the sales funnel – can be converted with case studies and customer success stories. Prospects will see themselves in those stories and better understand why working with you is such a smart choice.
4. Cross-channel marketing
“With consistency of experience across channels and devices an increasing expectation among consumers, understanding their journey to purchase has become essential for optimizing the experience throughout.”
Cross-channel marketing (also referred to as multichannel or omnichannel) essentially means your marketing ducks are lined up. It can get complicated, but it doesn’t have to.
How to use cross-channel marketing: Your messages and promotions need to be the same everywhere, which means you need to have a strategy in place (and that strategy includes tracking responses to your marketing so you know what works and what doesn’t).
If you are launching a new service, for example, you should promote that on your website, in a blog post, in both a special email announcement and your monthly newsletter (pre-launch and post-launch), and on social media multiple times.
What digital trend are you most excited about? How will your small business use it?
