Now is a good time to sit down and assess how you will approach your marketing strategy for the rest of 2018. It’s important to realize that the world of marketing is rapidly changing. If you want to keep your marketing relevant you need to keep up with those changes.
Here are some of the biggest trends for 2018:
Enhanced Customer Experience
Customers are expecting more from businesses now; they want a responsive and customized experience. Your customer experience (CX) includes every touchpoint that customers have with your business.
Here are some tips for making sure your CX is on point:
- Have good company policies in place for dealing with customers, and make sure your employees are well trained in them.
- Engage customers on social media and messenger. Personal interactions are a great way to humanize your business.
- Make sure your UX (user experience) is smooth and seamless for your customers.
- Try using chatbots on your website to help guide your visitors or answer common questions.
- Track your customers’ satisfaction. Ask them how their experiences with your business were.
Micro Marketing
Following along with the idea of customer experience, it’s increasingly important to identify your audience’s unique needs. You can do this by segmenting your customers into appropriate categories. For instance, if you have an email list, you can separate that into several lists based on what ads your customers responded to, their buying habits, or their preferences.
You can use a similar approach with paid advertising. Segment your audience into specific groups, rather than marketing to your entire audience at once. For example, if you have services for homeowners and some of your services are for new homeowners, and some are for those looking to repair their old home. You can run separate marketing campaigns targeting each group more specifically. This makes your marketing more effective because it is tailored to your customers needs.
Native Ads
According to Business Insider, native advertising is expected to drive more than 74% of all ad revenue by 2021. Native ads give a more natural placement and formatting. Because of that they tend to be more effective than traditional banner ads. In 2018, we’ll most likely see a rise in native ads with smart content that can adapt to the audience using cookies and in-depth targeting techniques.
Livestream Video
Video has been a trend for a while, but right now the big news is livestreaming. Livestreaming for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are transforming the way people watch videos. There’s an excitement and intimacy to livestreaming that you can’t get with regular video content. The great marketing advantages of live video are that you can interact with your customers, answer their questions in real time, and create buzz around your business.
More than 21% of business owners say that finding the time to market their business properly is one of their biggest challenges.
Contact The Light Digital to for help marketing your business in 2018.
