Wondering how your digital marketing strategy will look like in 2021? Today, it is absolutely vital to know how digital and mobile channels work in order to attract, acquire and engage an audience. Every new click, view, or comment could generate more leads, which could be a new potential customer.
The onset of the global pandemic has made the shift to digital more urgent than ever before. As international network BDO.com states succinctly: “In a contactless world, the vast majority of interactions with customers and employees must take place virtually.” IMD similarly reported that “the future of the world will depend on digitisation.”
It may be no surprise that Singapore comes in 2nd, just after the United States, in the 202 IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking. You can bet companies are doing all they can to tap into innovative strategies, tools and software in the race for this digitisation.
Businesses with an integrated plan to grow and retain audiences will likely outperform those who are still pursuing mainstream channels of marketing. If you want to know how to adapt to the rapid changes in digital marketing, don’t miss out on these trends to create the best plan for your business in 2021.
Trying to sell a product or service online using only text-based marketing is now too dated to be effective. The way to go is using video- especially live video, or live streaming. Knowing your audience and being able to present your brand image is step 1 to any digital marketing strategy. However, video format has an element of engagement that elevates. With the visual and audio aspects to employ, audiences will want to stay on for longer.
Live streaming in particular is a powerful method of communicating to your target audience. With it, you’re able to interact directly with viewers in terms of comments, instant reactions or platform-specific engagement. See the increasingly popular gaming platform Twitch for reference. This gives you more opportunity to sell your brand, too.
Social media has been around for a while now. Yet, it is a fluid landscape that has seen the rise and fall of many platforms. For businesses that have a younger reach, knowing the trends in social media can make the difference between a successful or failed campaign in your digital marketing strategy.
Facebook, for example, is no longer in its peak. According to a study by Forbes, over 41% of its users are over 65 years old. That’s almost half of its users reaching their silver years. This doesn’t mean that you should forget about it as a platform to engage. However, it may not be the prime place you should go to reach out to the younger crowd.
Instead, Instagram is today’s rising star, with an excess of one billion global users. Tiktok since its inception has also taken the world by storm for the younger demographic. This has led to brands creating their own Tik Tok accounts to make it more relevant and relatable.
Another way to spearhead social media campaigns? Front it with an influencer. This extenuates from research that shows 70% of teenagers trust influencers more than celebrities. Influencers have unique and established reach into audiences that already trust them. Finding one that resonates with your brand values and has a reliable reputation for promoting responsibly could set apart your product or service in a saturated market.
So as you reach out to audiences, you also want audiences to reach out back to you. Implementing interactive content allows for a higher engagement rate, and may even build a (virtual) connection between customer and brand.
Chatbots, for instance, are able to communicate with users. They assist them in completing the user-specific goal. As a type of artificial intelligence software, it learns more about the users over time. These data insights are used to further improve the service.
In a world of digitisation, people may prefer to skip the niceties and simply converse with a robot to get what they want. In fact, almost half of consumers surveyed would rather message a chatbot than talk to customer service centres over the phone.
Virtual or augmented reality (VR) also leverage cutting-edge technology to offer audiences truly immersive content. They’ll walk away remembering how your brand made them feel in a time where physical contact is limited or even restricted in some parts of the world.
Social media is also an inexpensive way to integrate interactive elements. Instagram stories allow for polls, Q&As and livestreams to be held- why not consider these in your future moves for 2021?
There was a time where voice search engine optimization was almost absurd, only mere ambitious concepts. Now, it is a digital marketing trend that is on the upward rise- made popular by Siri, Google, and Alexa to name a few.
Adding a voice search function to your platform will open up paths of communication for the pool of users that like to talk with technology. More than that, it is also a chance to create a special customer experience which could build up brand loyalty over time.
If you can reach out to your friends and family over a simple text, why can’t you do that to a..business? This is what message app marketing takes advantage of. Businesses in a wide range of industries have taken a closer look at messaging platforms on social media apps; from Facebook Messenger to Whatsapp.
Facebook messenger has a 50-80% open rate, click-through rate of 20% and a conversion rate 3-5% higher than Facebook desktop ads. Its ROI beats any other marketing tactic.
Telegram is also a popular messaging app in Singapore, and businesses are no stranger to this. Stay ahead of the curve and learn how to utilise it to increase your brand engagement.
As our modern technology continues to advance, and the hostile environment pushes us into the digital world, we need to also remember that the human component remains the most important factor. Utilise tools to get to the people- and your digital marketing strategy in 2021 is well on its way.
Have any notable digital marketing campaigns you liked this year? Let us know in the comments.
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