Online marketing trends change quickly and constantly, making it too hard for the casual observer to keep up. Meanwhile, if you are waiting or you are gun shy about leveraging new strategies, then there is a big chance you are going to be left behind from your competitors.
There are incredible opportunities on the table for those who lean into trends and find out the new standard. Here, we are describing innovative online marketing trends that will shape the digital scene in 2016. So, be prepared for this year’s changes…
In 2016, we have also noted a sustained growth in mobile usage. So, obviously, the use of mobile marketing can be one of the key trends to follow this year. And for that, it will be important to adopt this trend of mobile optimization. Mobile optimization embraces website design, website structure, load time, responsive web design, mobile advertising, and mobile-specific content. As Emarketer1 predictions, quarter of the world's population will own mobile phones in 2016 and half the world's population by 2014. Actually, it presents abundant opportunities for businesses to target their audience through these handy devices.
When we take a glance in the year of 2014, about 64 % of American adults was using a smartphone and as per marketers' predications the expansion would be recognized in mobile advertising activity; but that time about 42% of businesses responders stated they rarely or never used mobile responsive design according to Forbes report.
But, in 2015 businesses have put their interest in investing about half of their digital advertising budgets to mobile. And for 2016, the sale of mobiles will reach $415 billion based on Goldman Sachs predictions, which will be 39.1% more than 2015.
In the years ahead, the number of mobile users who make purchases on their mobile devices will unintentionally grow and that will help brands to optimize ROI on mobile marketing to an exclusively new level.
As a responsible marketer, you should have a website not only for desktop-based users, but also for those on the go. That means, your site should have optimized for mobile and share remarkable content and information on the social media that can be observed via user-friendly mobile interfaces.
The trend of the content marketing is not new. But changing face of the content forces you to rethink for it. Before few years, the content marketing was a key priority in the industry, it was just about to have effective content calendar, post videos and reports and update daily blogs. But in 2016 it comes with a little bit different.
Debuted in 2015, the Facebook Instant Article has made it way easier for users to read articles through their mobile app. Even Google and Twitter have also promised to come with similar features very soon. This enhancement moves you towards owning more engaging forms of content that keep audience clicking, swiping and sharing a piece of information with you that can be helpful in your sales procedure. After mobile optimization, the platform-specific content is another hot trend in online marketing.
According to CMI report, 42% of B2B marketers reported effectively at content marketing and 87% of marketers used most common content marketing tactic that was social media. While the content marketing trend moves extremely fast, nowadays about 80% of decision makers choose a range of articles more than advertising to get more about any company. It is anticipated that 76% of B2B marketers will create more engaging content in 2016 compared to 2015. Pinterest boards, LinkedIn pages, Facebook’s Instant Article are great sources for content marketing and in future Twitter’s Lightning project will be a good source to grab the attention of the audience with constantly updated stream of published content.
The popularity of content marketing will keep going this year, so it becomes essential for businesses to create and post more relevant and inspiring content. You don’t have to rely on tested solutions, you just need to pay more attention to your customer experience and curate content. In reality, good content marketing will not only make you trustworthy and reliable source, but also keep you at ever desirable first page of Google with SEO and search ranking.
You can create content in many different formats like eBooks, whitepapers, etc. Whatever format of your content, just keep in mind that your content talk about customers issues and they can solve those issues. In all honesty, you can unlock the door of your future marketing success by adopting this online marketing trend.
Believe it or not, Facebook is still the leading social media platform with 1.038 billion daily active users (as of 1/27/16) and it will not decline any time soon. That's a reason it becomes the hub for all social media marketing efforts. However, in marketing noise you have to think beyond Facebook. It doesn't mean you should abandon Facebook, but you should think about diversifying your marketing channels because that’s what customers expect.
This way, you can get more opportunities to engage with different audiences and eventually discover a solid foundation for your business. Other channels like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and others are working similarly. It is predicted that marketers will spend $8.3 billion on social media advertising in 2015. The marketing noise force marketers to find a platform that will deliver their targeted messages to stand out from the crowd and be visual storytelling.
Whichever social media channel you align; planning to integrate live-streaming into your online marketing strategy for 2016 is a must. There are many live social websites, including Periscope, Blab, Snapchat, etc which dominate social media marketing trends.
Do yourself a favor and begin to create and share video on your social platforms. Because, it is a classic format to engage people with stories. Your video should be contextual and personalized, which can be used to drive awareness, sales, engagement, preview product and audience updates, etc.
These are not just trends we will observe in 2016, but they are the marketing bandwagons to be more customer focused and stay ahead of the competition. By Leveraging those three trends into your online marketing strategy, you will find inspiring deep changes in the ways wherein your audience interacts with online surroundings. Have a successful 2016!