Top 6 Digital Marketing Trends for 2021

With the ongoing pandemic, a majority of people are still at home in isolation or preferring to stay indoors to avoid possible infection. This means many of your potential customers are just sitting at home probably on the internet and scrolling through social media. While traditional media like commercials and billboards are still quite useful, no one can discount the fact that there is a huge potential that’s just waiting to be tapped online. But with the stiff competition online, what trends are there right now that you should be getting into so that you can maximize your digital marketing potential?

Today, we’re going to look at the top digital marketing trends for 2021 so that you have a better idea of how you can run your digital marketing strategy.

Let’s begin, shall we?

 

Social Media for Engagement and to Retain Customers

The pandemic has seen a dramatic rise of people spending so much time online. That being said, only a fool will forget to use social media to engage new customers and retain existing customers. Even traditional businesses should consider having some sort of online presence on social media especially with the top three: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Social media budgets of businesses and marketing companies have also risen by almost double from last year of 13% of their total marketing budget to 24%. With more people using their time to research their products and brands online, new opportunities are opening up. It’s the perfect time to increase the reach to new customers and re-engage existing long-time customers. With just a few hundred dollars a month, a good social media marketer or strategist can create a content plan, post content regularly, monitor and drive customer responses. If you’re not on social media yet, definitely now is the time to get on board.

 

Go All-in with Google Listings and Local SEO

If there was anything you should do as a local business owner is to make sure that your local listings are updated and verified. This is a very important digital marketing trend today. Businesses need to keep their details current on various search platforms. Of course, that includes Google and to a lesser extent Bing. Google’s My Business listings for example provides some valuable information to potential customers such as a complete menu of services, or their business hours. This allows customers to make an informed decision. No listing or missing information will only frustrate customers and make them decide to go with another business.

Make sure to have a geographically-defined service area with your local listings so that people can make searches for nearby establishments.  Google prioritizes relevance in their search algorithms so your business listing will more likely appear depending on your proximity to the customer doing the search. Updating your listings also allows customers to know any changes in your business hours, promotions, etc.

 

Improve How You Communicate Availability of Products and Services

One mistake that businesses are not doing is communicating the availability of their products and services to their customers online. As mentioned earlier, many customers are spending their time online researching whether a product or service is online and what time they can go to the local business. Customers will even check if delivery or home service is available from a business. Many customers get frustrated if they can’t get the information they need especially the availability of a product or service. Make sure that this is updated on your social media and website so that customers know what you have to offer. Consider using banners and large fonts for high-demand products letting customers know when something is in or out of stock. Clarity is the key.

 

Automated Bidding in Google Ads

Automation is the way of the future if you want to be on top of everything. Let’s face it, you cannot monitor everything online 24/7. You need a way to automate your tasks in digital marketing to make it smooth and simple. With the constant need to tweak and adjust campaigns, keywords and bids come the huge amount of time you need to put into it. Automating your bids allows Google to automate any prior moves so that your bids are adjusted in real-time. While automation is not new, it’s made a lot of improvements over the past years and is due to really make a hit in 2021. Once we put more stock into automated bidding, you will find more time to optimize other aspects of digital marketing such as PPC performance which can deliver better outcomes at a lower cost.

 

Optimize for Voice Search

Another important digital marketing trend for 2021 is voice searches. Many key experts agree that voice search is becoming more and more prevalent especially with services such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google all improving their AI and becoming more and more intuitive with their searches and voice commands. It’s also interesting to note that voice search queries often show different results compared to a user that had simply typed in their search. For SEO purposes, this means that there is a whole untapped market of voice searches that you can get into. So, your content needs to be specifically optimized for voice. This means your content needs to be more direct and conversational so that it will accurately sync with voice searches. This can help boost traffic by ensuring your content is relevant and visible to consumers.

 

Interactive Content

No one can discount the fact that customers want to be engaged and you get more responses if your content is interactive. It definitely is one of the top digital marketing trends for 2021. It’s not uncommon now to see videos, photos, and social media posts have interactive content that will make customers feel like their part of the process. Some famous interactive content includes choose-your-own-adventure videos, quizzes and self-assessments, polls, surveys, and contests, just to name a few. The great thing about interactive content is that it invites users to do something actively which in turn actually gets users to tag their friends as well to join in the interaction. This, in turn, increases engagement and social media interaction that creates a bunch of new followers. At the very least, it will catch people’s attention and draw them closer to your business.

 

Final Thoughts

The world of digital marketing is ever dynamic. This is why it’s important to know what the top digital marketing trends for 2021 are so you can keep up with ever-changing trends. But one thing you have to remember is that trends come and go. So be ready to adapt and change with a moment’s notice to the desires and behaviors of your potential customers.

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