How content are you with your content?
If the answer to that question is either “not very” or “huh?” then it may well be time you tried out some of these digital marketing trends suggested by Karina Welch, marketing manager at digital agency Blue Mountain Media.
Writing for Entrepreneur, Welch highlights the importance for businesses to develop a fluid and adaptive digital marketing strategy focused on a range of different content types, saying “technologies are rapidly evolving, right alongside the wants and needs of consumers”.
Here are five digital marketing trends to take for a spin.
Although this might seem obvious in a world dominated by social media, Welch says brands cannot bank on written content alone and need some images to spruce things up.
“People need clear, concise dissemination of information, and visuals do just that. The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percent of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. Ergo, visuals speed up comprehension and retention,” Welch writes.
“Effective logos, infographics, photographs, animations and website design are all laying new foundations for enhancing brand identity, and they aren’t likely to disappear anytime soon.”
Welch suggests your brand should take a leaf from the Buzzfeed playbook and introduce a few quizzes and polls into its marketing strategy, claiming this sort of content will turn “one-time visitors into brand loyalists”.
“Interactive content requires active participation by the user. In effect, these new forms of content — quizzes and polls, contests, voting, calculators, assessments and animated infographics — are adding a whole new layer of depth to the total user experience,” she says.
“As of 2015, online videos accounted for 50 percent of all mobile usage, and video content is still very much on the rise,” Welch says.
“In order to heighten the emotions and excitement for users, brands are now ‘going live’. This means that businesses are able to promote their content ahead of time and then interact in real-time with their consumers.”
Getting onto Facebook live and other streaming platforms can be a great way for businesses to engage directly with consumers, with Welch saying it can add a “humanistic” aspect to brands. But make sure your business suits the platform before hitting the record button.
With seemingly every social platform now offering a version of Snapchat’s “Stories” function (a feature that allows accounts to share images or videos to their followers for just 24 hours), Welch believes more brands should be prepared to share expiring content.
“Much like the live video element, expiring content is helping to increase excitement for consumers. With expiring content, users are given a limited window of time to view content before it quickly disappears into oblivion, never to be seen or heard from again,” she says.
“Expiring content helps pique user interest, while also working to keep their eyes glued to the screen in anticipation of what’s to come.”
Finally, Welch advises brands to think outside of the online box and bring their digital marketing tactics in-store, much like clothing retailer Uniqlo did last year with a billboard campaign that required customers to snap a photo of a rapidly changing number on a screen.
“The in-store digital marketing trend is one of many that are now finding ways to blend the physical world with the digital world, all in an effort to enhance user interactivity,” she says.
“Now the dominant mode of connection in the digital world, user interactivity should now be at the core of your business’ marketing strategy.”
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