Marketing has changed a great deal in the last few decades and online marketing will continue to take over. As more and more consumers spend much of their time online between computers at home or work and a majority of North Americans using smartphones, effective marketing strategies must target these markets.
Ongoing Media Fragmentation
Consumers are using more devices across a common set of platforms and media multitasking is becoming the new normal. Marketers must shift away from their old strategies and distribute their content across as many types of media as their budget allows. Capturing the attention of prospective clients is going to be harder than ever so your content will need to be smarter, more visual, and more creative if you want to stand out.
A mobile-friendly strategy will soon become a necessity as the amount of time people spend on handheld devices is growing at 14 times the rate of desktops. Because of this emphasis on mobile results, location based marketing will continue to grow in importance as will the role of social media platforms.
Social Media a Necessity
While Facebook remains top dog among social platforms, many other social networks are quickly rising in importance. Twitter is often underestimated due to smaller usage numbers but studies have indicated that an overwhelming majority of North Americans are exposed to tweets on a regular basis due in news reports or on television. Using hashtags in your advertisement will continue to be a great way to target relevant communities and focus your content.
The benefits of social media include improved company branding and brand awareness, word-of-mouth advertising, and increased customers loyalty just to name a few and these factors will keep social media relevant and indeed critical to online success.
Google+ Finally a Contender
Largely due to changes in Google Authorship and Author Rank, Google+ is set to become a critical social media by the end of 2014 and will likely become essential for B2B content marketers. Google+ has seen the biggest increase in use of any social media from 2012 to 2013 and Google continues to push at making it a useful and important social marketing tool.
Content Marketing Still King
Social posts and updates, email newsletters, articles, and blog posts will continue to be an essential part of an online marketing strategy in the coming year. A successful business will focus on content marketing rather than advertising as the benefits for quality content will far outshine traditional advertising campaigns. Due to Google’s focus on unique, fresh content for high rankings, the job market for content creation is set to explode.
Visual Content Gaining Popularity
With consumers on the go more and more often, easy to digest content will continue to reign supreme. Infographics, short videos, and image sharing platforms like Instagram and Pinterest will continue to gain steam as important aspects of an online marketing campaign. Video marketing is much cheaper than it used to be thanks to YouTube and more accessible video recording and editing tools.
