The
Internet has drastically altered the way in which information is shared, and
has had a profound impact on marketing. Over the past few years, there has been
more of a shift toward inbound techniques, while many outbound tactics have
become antiquated. More businesses are finding success publishing original
content rather than embedding advertisements within external content, because
of the additional benefits these tactics offer, such as branding and audience
growth.
With these
trends in mind, let’s discuss my predictions for the top online marketing
trends of 2014.
1.
Content Marketing Will be Bigger Than Ever
One of the
main ways that companies are establishing authority and gaining trust with
consumers is by consistently creating valuable content through a variety of
channels. This typically involves relevant industry information that provides
insight or entertainment to an audience. Doing so allows a company to steadily
build rapport with its demographic and develop a loyal following. According to
the Content Marketing Institute, the top
B2B content marketing strategies are social media, articles on a business’s
website, eNewsletters, case studies, videos and articles on other websites.
By using one
or more of these channels, businesses are able to build a positive reputation
within their industry. This trend suggests that marketing to the masses through
techniques like television ads and radio ads are becoming less effective.
Instead, it’s better to concentrate on inbound marketing, by producing
valuable, engaging content designed for a specific audience. For help designing
your content marketing strategy, see my articles “11 Places to Find Awesome Content Marketing Ideas,”
and “How to Build a Kickass Content Strategy.”
2.
Social Media Marketing Will Require More Diversity
Just a few
years ago, businesses were limited with regard to the social media networks
they could implement into their marketing campaigns, with the biggies including
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Now, it seems like new social media sites are
appearing all the time. While some never really get off the ground, others like
Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram have surged in popularity and have
provided businesses with a plethora of new options that allow them to produce
engaging content in a variety of media forms and build their audiences across
more channels than ever before.
Consequently,
it has become common for businesses to branch out and experiment with multiple
networks with the aim of reaching the maximum amount of consumers. This
diversification seems to prove fruitful for many companies because it often
builds brand equity by making it easier for consumers to recognize a particular
brand. For help figuring out which social media networks are right for your
business, see my article “How to Determine Which Social Media Network Fits Your
Business.”
3.
Image-Centric Content Will Rule
As consumers
are hit with an increasing number of advertisements, it’s becoming more
important to make content easily and quickly digestible. If you look at the
social media sites I mentioned previously that are on the rise, three of the
four have a common characteristic…they place an emphasis on images. The rapid
rise to success of Buzzfeed
and Pinterest
are testaments to the power and viral potential of image-based content.
Successful
blog posts that receive the most social shares also usually have a common
characteristic: they pepper in some well-placed pictures to break content up
and emphasize certain points. Another example is infographics, which combine
images with a minimal amount of text to explain a topic and provide statistical
information or data from research studies.
While I
doubt that traditional text-based content will ever completely go out of style,
it’s pretty clear that incorporating images is beneficial to a marketing
campaign.
4.
Less Will be More
One notable
trend is the apparent shift in consumer preference regarding simplistic
marketing messages instead of in-depth messages. When you think about some of
the top brands in the world like Apple and Google, they clearly value simplicity.
A large part of Pinterest’s appeal is its clean, uncluttered, and minimalist
aesthetic.
With many
consumers feeling burned out by a constant barrage of information and
advertisements that scream “look at me”, some of the most innovative marketers
are going the opposite direction. The’re now making efforts to tone-down their
campaign messages and not overwhelm consumers with hype.
Perhaps an
article by Forbes said it best: “there is a sense that from
the hyper-connectivity of our highly-digitized lives to the bright, flashy,
complicated sensory input we’re fed everyday, there is no way to continue at
this pace. As a result, 2013 is likely to be a year where the most successful
marketing strategies will be ones that are not only simple in nature, but
promote goods and services that serve to simplify the consumer’s life, or even
just their customer experience.”
5.
Mobile-Friendly Content Will Be Necessary
Due to the
widespread (and quickly growing) use of smartphones and tablets, it’s necessary
for companies to create content that’s accessible to mobile users. According to
Forbes, “87% of connected devices sales by 2017
will be tablets and smartphones.” Whether it’s creating an alternate mobile
version of a website or utilizing responsive web design, it’s important
to provide a positive experience to users that are browsing via a mobile
device.
Otherwise,
it’s easy to lose customers to competitors who have adapted to this trend. As
the shift from traditional PCs and laptops to mobile devices continues,
businesses that aren’t onboard are likely to suffer.
6.
Ad Retargeting Will Grow in Effectiveness
This is a
marketing strategy that has really caught on recently. In a nutshell, it works
by utilizing browser cookies to track the websites that users visit. Once they
leave a certain site, the products or services they viewed will be shown to
them again in advertisements across different websites.
It’s fairly
obvious as to why this technique can be so effective. With only two percent of web traffic converting on the
first visit, ad retargeting works to increase the overall conversion rate by
reminding consumers of the product or service they viewed. This keeps the brand
and the product at the top of the consumer’s mind. There are even psychological studies that have shown that simple
exposure to brand names and logos creates familiarity, which builds trust and
makes consumers more likely to make a purchase.
Even if
there’s no immediate purchase, this can really pay off in the long run. Due to
the success that many marketers have had with ad retargeting, there’s a good
chance that it will become more mainstream in 2014.
7.
SEO and Social Signals Will Become Even More Intertwined
Although
social signals still don’t typically carry the same weight as traditional
inbound links, it’s pretty undeniable that they play a role in organic search rankings these days.
After all, they’re one of the three pillars of SEO. Since the goal of Google
and other search engines is to provide users with the most relevant and highest
quality content possible, it makes sense why they would factor in the number of
social shares that a blog post, article or product page receives.
The more
people that are sharing a piece of content, the higher quality it’s likely to
be, and therefore its position should increase within the search engine results
pages. It’s no coincidence that the top-ranking search results tends to have
lots of social shares, while those ranked lower have fewer.
Besides this,
social shares can serve as a stamp of approval (ie, a trust signal) for
visitors landing on a page. If they see that it has hundreds or thousands of
shares, it’s likely that there’s something of value. That’s a big reason why so
many businesses are installing social share plugins and encouraging consumers
to share as much as possible.
While it’s
difficult to predict algorithms will evolve in the future, there’s a reasonable
chance that social shares will match or even outweigh traditional inbound links
by the end of 2014. For more information on how SEO and social media are
becoming intertwined, see my article “How to Integrate Social MediaWith Your SEO Campaign.”
Conclusion
There you
have it, my predictions for the top seven online marketing trends of 2014. Did
I miss anything? What do you think about my predictions? Leave a comment and
let me know!
