As we reach the end of 2021’s first quarter, it’s essential to step back and analyze the various ways digital marketing can help us gain momentum for our businesses. It’s also important to look at the emerging trends and align these with your company to take advantage of the things happening around us. Because 2020 drastically changed our economy, this year will continue to challenge marketers looking to help businesses get started or continue what they have built. Here are a few ways how digital marketing can help you gain momentum.
The Ever-Growing Demand for Online Services and Shopping
According to a survey from PYMNTS, almost 36% of U.S. consumers bought their retail goods online in July, compared to 29% from April last year. The increase was due to the closure of many stores in the middle of the pandemic. The same can be said for customers who order from restaurants online, where 21% of consumers ordered during July, compared to 13% from April 2020.
As a result, companies rushed to meet these digital demands, with Target taking up the lead in expanding its curbside grocery business. Target was able to further its digital transformation, and sales increased by 141% in the first quarter alone in 2020. Because of this, more of their stores will have designated curbside pickup spots along with fresh and frozen space for online grocery orders. Target aims to provide a high-quality digital experience while delivering orders quicker and cutting costs simultaneously.
Share Your Stories
“Stories” began with Snapchat back in 2013, and while it took a while for other social platforms to implement it, almost every one of them uses it today. From Twitter Fleets, Instagram Stories, and YouTube Reels, each of these stories have their twist to it, but they all serve the same purpose. To get success from using stories, we’ll need to use every feature it has to offer.
This means we need to engage our followers through clickable media and polls, utilize the whole screen, and experiment with effects, motion overlays, stickers, and other kinds of creative things. For marketers and brands, this medium allows us to be candid and post as much as we want. It also offers an easy-to-use tool and an excellent opportunity to increase brand awareness, so it gives you the whole package.
Repurposing your Existing Videos for Social Media
Because of the pandemic, the number of clicks on videos has skyrocketed. As such, viewers will be expecting to get more video content on social media — whether it’s customers, stakeholders, or employees. It’s precisely because of this demand that you need to empower your team to create video content, all of which can be done with simple video makers online. If you’re stuck for ideas on what kind of videos you need to create, don’t worry about making anything new.
Instead, take existing webinars and blog posts and make teaser videos out of them. You can then repost them as new content for your other social media platforms such as LinkedIn. Product tutorials and customer case studies can also be transformed into beautiful Instagram stories. You never have to worry about the content because it’s always there, and the possibilities are endless; you just need to present them in a new perspective every time.
Showing the Public that Your Business Exists
In recent years, we’ve seen more and more businesses shift to a multi-channel marketing strategy rather than sticking to just one form of traffic and revenue generator. One key reason behind this is that companies want to reduce the risk of revenue by being too dependent on Youtube, Google, or Pinterest algorithms.
Another reason is that businesses look for target audience-specific marketing channels to optimize their marketing campaigns for their particular platform to out-spend the competition. The final reason is based just on common sense; because companies want to grow their revenues, it’s best to use all major marketing platforms to get as many customers as possible.
Digital Customer Strategy
The year 2020 launched a brand new way of conducting business through an offline-to-online transformation of many stores and shops, which have mostly flourished in the year that has passed. However, some companies couldn’t keep up with this trend and have stopped all their activities. We believe that marketing activities shouldn’t just focus on getting new customers, but also on assisting our existing and future customers.
Some experts have focused on more tactical aspects of digital marketing, but others focus on digital customer strategies. These hold critical importance from the limitations and lockdowns still in place in many places around the world. Such strategies range from customer education, customer retention, and concepts of “predefined personalization” to reach out to your digital customers.
Getting a new client shouldn’t be the end goal for any company, especially during these trying times. Simply acquiring a client for our services won’t help the business flourish if he/she will drop out after a few months. This is where support and education will help our clients endure difficult times and grow alongside us. Aside from creating lead magnets and well-functioning marketing funnels and developing sales processes and webinars, having a thorough digital customer strategy in place will ensure your business’s growth and the customers you serve.
By evaluating the current situation around us and the hurdles we’ve already jumped over in the past year, we can get a sense of the digital marketing trends and hiccups we need to look out for. By learning from what works and the mistakes made by others, we can adapt digital marketing strategies that we can use for the year ahead of us. While it can be so easy to lose our way or to chase after a brand new trend, it’s best to stick to practices that have been tested, so you can use them to build your momentum to keep your business running even after the pandemic is long gone.
For more information on digital marketing strategies and more, contact our digital marketing agency in Philadelphia today!
