Now that the new year has come and gone, new trends in marketing have set in.
Some are continuations of trends that were big in 2017. Others are new developments.
If you aren’t staying up to date on what’s new and exciting in marketing, and what’s on a downward slide, you need to get started. Otherwise, you risk letting your marketing strategies slide.
If you want to start learning about the latest digital marketing trends for 2018, keep reading. We’re breaking down what you need to increase traffic, leads, and sales in the new year.
Influencer Marketing Will Remain a Hot Topic
Influencer marketing has been one of the hottest digital marketing trends in recent years. It will continue, though changes are coming.
One big change is the size of the influencer marketer pool. When this trend was new, only a handful of people had the social media following it takes to land an influencer position. For businesses, landing one of these influencers was a big deal.
Now, it isn’t tough to find marketers who would enjoy your products or services and who also have a large following.
However, it is becoming more difficult to get customers through these influencers.
Social media users are now more aware than ever that their favorite accounts are being paid to showcase products. They’ll easily pick out the influencers who are willing to promote any type or quality of product to earn a buck.
That means that if you want to take advantage of influencer marketing, you need to choose the right influencers.
Make an effort to find potential influencers who you could imagine buying your product or service on their own. Scroll through their accounts to see whether they promote a lot of products or only a select few.
Pay close attention to the language they use to describe the products that they promote. Do they let their followers know that they are being paid? Do they assure them that they’re only promoting products they believe in?
Finding influencers who do both of those things will help you make the most of your investment in influencer marketing.
LinkedIn Moves Up on the List
Twitter was once the leader in the social media marketing game. But digital marketing trends suggest that this is changing.
In 2017, despite efforts like increasing their character allotment per post, Twitter failed to grow its following.
LinkedIn, which has previously been one of the slowest growing social media channels, also made changes. These changes include new advertising opportunities and a fresh interface. This makes it a good time to start investing in LinkedIn, to get in while the growth is happening.
The industry your company is in affects how you use LinkedIn. If you’re a B2B company, you can connect with other businesses, buy ads to target them and share content that they could find useful.
If you’re a B2C company, using LinkedIn is a bit more difficult.
You’ll have to work to find your potential customer base. Consider traits that you could search for on LinkedIn. For instance, do you target college students or those who work in a particular industry, like tech?
While it would be easier to find these customers on other social media channels, putting in the effort to find them now will give you a solid base as this platform continues to grow.
Content Marketing Continues to Grow
It’s no secret that content marketing is one of the best digital marketing trends in terms of return on investment.
Studies have shown that content marketing costs over 60 percent less than outbound marketing but drives three times as many leads.
The popularity of content marketing over outbound strategies is only expected to grow.
This is another one of the digital marketing trends on the rise because of an increase in web surfer awareness. Just as social media users are on the lookout for influencers who aren’t authentic in their recommendations, web surfers are increasingly avoiding paid ads and search results.
Organic marketing strategies like SEO will help you boost traffic to your website while costing you relatively little. You can even produce your own content. But if you don’t know how to implement SEO strategies or craft stellar content, this may be a job best left to the professionals.
Web Surfers Will Be Warier of Who They’re Giving Info To
In keeping with the pattern of digital marketing trends prompted by web surfers and social media users thinking twice about what they click, they’ll also be thinking twice about who they provide their information to.
This particular trend is likely due to an increase in cybersecurity attacks in recent years.
Cyber attacks aren’t just a threat to large corporations. In fact, more than 40 percent of all attacks target small business.
Protecting your customer and client information is essential. If you’re going to ask for their information, even if it’s just their name and email address, you need to have measures in place to make sure that it’s protected from cyber attacks.
This is one of the most important digital marketing trends you can invest in. Getting on this trend now will put you at the forefront of your industry as these attacks continue to increase.
Digital Marketing Trends to Jump On
Focusing on any of the digital marketing trends on this list could help prepare your business for success in 2018.
Staying up to date on these and other trends helps you to stay ahead. That way you aren’t trying to jump on a trend long after it has already happened.
Luckily, the trends on this list are easy to take advantage of. If you’ve already been producing content, utilizing social media, and investing in influencer marketing, you’ll only need to make tweaks to your strategies.
Other digital marketing trends are more difficult to learn. Big data is one of those trends.
If you want to learn a new trend that could help take your business to the next level, click here. This article will teach you what you need to know to learn and implement Big Data.