Lockdown across the globe is causing huge impact, of course mostly negative ones. There have been some major economic setbacks for several industries, and that has been bothering economists and industrialists worldwide.
But guess what the silver lining to look up to? That we are living in a modern society, and we are blessed with one of the most valuable gift to the mankind – the internet. The increased connectivity, among several other benefits, has enabled many businesses to continue operation despite not being able to continue the business procedure in the normal way pre lockdown period.
Ironically and sadly, nothing yet could be done for the human impact of the crisis. But to minimize the economic impact through the available means, aka digital marketing strategies, can easily pave the way to staying afloat, as well as surviving and thriving throughout a massive financial burden as a result.
On the same note, there have been some of the key digital marketing trends that got much focussed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have been so far successful in maximizing response, and have contributed in subsequent sales performance.
Here are listed 5 of the most helpful ones:
1. Interactive Content
Interactive content is the future of digital marketing. Keeping in mind the current situation, there is no denying the fact that avalanche of interactive content that consumers experience. With a shrunk attention span of audience getting its shortest ever at 8 seconds on an average, one needs adequate attention seeking material to get their eyeballs grab something worth noticing.
On top of that, there are consumers craving for engagement and personalized experiences, and the marketers are competing among themselves to come up with the most innovative and entertaining methods to pull their target audience’s attention.
Facts about Interactive Content:
- 93% of marketers agreed that interactive content is effective in educating its buyers when compared to static content that has an impact of 70%.
- Interestingly, each and every interactive content is a call-to-action in itself. Since they are noticeable and shareable, it eventually helps in brand awareness.
- 2020 was speculated to be ruled by interactive content, and now with the current situation, it witnesses a steep rise in effectiveness like never before.
2. AR and VR
The rise in the trend of Virtual and Augmented Reality has been at its peak in the recent times. It is quite evident that the consumers have apparently seen it all before, and constantly inundated with content through ads, emails, social media, etc. These and more have made the consumers numb and unaffected to most of the advertising strategies.
Here crawls in the magic of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) added with the right dose in digital marketing strategies to engage consumers and raise brand awareness too. Using the right technology and using it the right way is the main aim to achieve this new trend.
Facts about AR and VR, and their impact on digital marketing strategies:
- The technology is curious and promising, as well as steadily on the rise.
- 2020 witnesses a steep growth in the implementation and success of AR and VR by a whopping $150 billion in revenue.
- By 2020, 70% of the enterprises would be full-on experimenting with immersive technologies like AR and VR for consumer and enterprise use, where 25% of the total would be deployed to production.
With this suffocating scenario of lockdown gripping the world badly, the right use of AR and VR is the best way a digital marketing strategy aims at to see individual as well as community growth of a business.
3. New SEO hacks
Nothing changes and upgrades more than SEO algorithms in digital marketing. Search algorithms keep on changing and affecting the user’s search results. The SEO hacks that might have helped a page land on the first page of Google Search last year may be outdated enough. The few months old hacks can also jeopardize your website rankings or even worse, can end up in a Google penalty.
Solution is to keep a keen eye and close watch on the changing algorithms since right now to improve the quality of search results. The trends that would keep 2020 well in action since and post COVID-19 pandemic include:
- Voice search – People search how they speak
- Featured snippets will continue to dominate search results
- More marketers will leverage influencers for SEO
- BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) is here to stay
- People will want digital experiences
- Video will be the new king of content
- Content length will determine search rankings
- Mobile search will continue to take over
4. Social Commerce
Social commerce or social ecommerce or social media commerce is the on-the-go strategy that is doing much of the promotion for the brands and services these days. And statistics prove that it is going to stay in the long run.
Social ecommerce is all about social media platforms being used to make a more personalized and targeted in-app experience shopping experience for customers. In other words, it brings ecommerce functionality directly into social media platforms.
Social media platforms make it easy for the brands – either already established or just starting off – to make it easy for them to share and recommend your brand. Because of its unique nature and worldwide acceptance with popularity, social media is a place where content goes viral. No wonder why these channels clearly play a very important role in your word-of-mouth marketing.
Benefits of social commerce include:
- Consistent Audience Growth
- Higher Search Engine Ranking
- More Authentic Engagement and Traffic
- Customer Loyalty and Retention
- Business Metrics from Social
5. Smart Bidding in Google Ads
Smart bidding is the use of machine learning by Google Ads to optimize bids for conversion. In other words, it is a set of automated bid strategies in Google Ads that use machine learning to maximise conversions. Google closely watches all the historical search behaviour and contextual data to predict the likelihood of a conversion and then start working by increasing the bids when a conversion appears more likely.
Bet on that in the year that is running, and the years that wait in turns.
The improvement to smart bidding is going to be a game-changer in digital marketing as one of the most effective strategies. PPC account managers can rejoice with their new-found ability to choose conversion actions at campaign level and spread over certain time periods.
Welcome 2020-days-ahead and the years to follow, automation and smart bidding are going to be one of the prime digital marketing norms.
Steps involved in Smart Bidding in Google Ads:
- Assess the suitability of your account
- Select and finalize the most effective Smart Bidding strategy
- Work on and establish a testing strategy
- Optimize performance
Top strategies of Smart Bidding by AdWords:
- Enhanced CPC
- Target CPA
- Target ROAS
- Maximize Conversions
Conclusion:
Along with thousands of setbacks that are being noticed, felt, and suffered through, digital marketing strategies seem to be promising and motivating. The year 2020 has been topsy-turvy for many a reason, but strategies sailed through and made way for a smooth digital marketing.
With the abovementioned strategies, businesses do see rays of hope for their individual industries and services. All it needs is the right knowledge and skill of application for these few trends to keep in track with your steady or running business.
If you are not too confident about whether you are solely capable to take care of the digital marketing trends, better is to take suggestions or aids from a qualified, experienced and professional digital marketer. Or, to get yourself trained with the same.
Wondering where to get professional trainings for digital marketing? Get in touch with Carney Consultancy Services. While this lockdown will not allow you to take up regular classes with us, you may anytime enrol for our online courses that are running full-fledged. You can anytime switch over to regular classes once the lockdown is withdrawn. For enrolment and other details, get in touch with us on http://carneyacademy.in/ or call up at +91-033-400-46569 or at +91-983-052-0826 to talk to our representatives. You may also write to us on info@carneytechnologies.com for any queries, information, or suggestions. Our representatives would get back at the earliest.