With new financial year already upon us, businesses across the globe are busy revamping their current digital strategy for enhanced ROI while some of the world’s biggest brands move forward to reorganise their digital integration plans in 2015.
This blog peeps into the major online marketing predictions based on true facts and figures so that you can prepare for a grand 2015 FY and put all your digital efforts in the right direction. From market research and conversion strategy to integrated organic tactics and full funnel analytics; this piece will help both SMB’s and large scale enterprises to execute winning digital campaigns in 2015.
Based on a recent Digital Marketing Trends 2015 survey conducted by Smart Insights, the screenshot of which is shared below, we’ve predicted top 6 Internet Marketing trends while keeping in mind the drastic transformation digital marketing landscape has undergone in the past year.
All the trends are mapped in the decreasing order of hierarchy in order to help brands prioritise their 2015 digital plans accordingly. Based on the individual market share from above survey, we’ve covered trends shaping up in Content marketing, Marketing Automation, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization
Though 2014 Digital Marketing landscape already proved that Modern SEO is central to Content Marketing, custom content marketing campaigns are likely to mark the future of internet marketing in 2015 (as 78% CMOs believe that custom content is the future of marketing). Similar to the past year, content marketing campaigns will continue to enhance customer engagement and boost organic results in favour of creating more relevant, inspiring, valuable content that influences customers without pretending to sell. Hence, smart marketers are likely to use dynamic content to deliver highly personalized online experience that can help in targeting the right audience at the right time. Besides this, marketers will understand that content marketing is no more a one-time process and is rather an ongoing process that needs planning and strategy. Instead of relying on already tested solutions, businesses will start paying heed to exclusive customer experiences while curating targeted content in a clearer and client-oriented way.
Shared below is an infographic featured on PRWeb that explains the custom content development process in detail. Let’s take a look at the below image to follow a streamlined approach to effective content creation & distribution in 2015
Also, 2015 is likely to see an unprecedented rise in budgets allocated to content marketing as both B2B & B2C companies that have planned to run custom content marketing campaigns expect to generate 67% more leads per month than those organizations that don’t believe high-quality content plays a key role in the digital marketing of the future
Mobile Content Marketing is also a new trend that is likely to gain momentum in 2015, as per various trusted sources (including Toprankblog) as a consequence of which the growing demand of adopting mobile apps as a part of content marketing strategy is increasing amongst world’s topmost brands and large scale enterprises. In 2015, we’ll see more and more marketers adopting a mobile content marketing strategy to increase engagement with their customers and convert leads to sales. One of the mobile apps “LoyaltyBlocks” lets online marketers to create customised rewards and offers for their mobile customers via downloading the app and simply registering your business online using an Android Tab or your smartphone.
Most of the B2B & B2C businesses in the technology industry attribute their digital success to the intelligent usage of marketing automation tools. According to a recent research from The Aberdeen Group, using marketing automation tools can improve conversion rates by 50% more. By automating repetitive tasks, marketing automation software not only helps in increasing efficiency but also eliminates the possibility of any human errors (especially when it comes to email marketing automation).
In 2014, online marketers relied heavily on the historical data for marketing directions and smart insights. While existing marketing automation landscape strives to turn real-time marketing more substantial in 2015, smart marketers will start perceiving these automation systems as a strong weapon to blend traditional marketing activities (like CRM, Email marketing, Content Management, Lead scoring and Analytics) into integrated tools while boosting conversions & customer responses via targeting relevant audience and outreaching prospects with timely messages.
Below, I’ve listed Top 10 Marketing Automation Tools as per G2 Crowd comparison of the best marketing automation software based on number of ratings, customer satisfaction level and market presence.
Although marketing automation tools are basically software platforms designed for marketing departments and organizations especially for targeting a specific area of marketing such as email marketing or social marketing, brands are pretty much convinced to include it as an important part of their digital marketing plan in 2015. This will also save both time and money while benefiting enterprises that are planning to run digital marketing campaigns on a large scale in 2015.
With the rise in mobile internet penetration, the Mobile Ad Marketing ecosystem is likely to grow even big in 2015 monetizing “on-the-go” consumers in multiple dimensions. Recently, Forbes covered a Mobile Ads study from a renowned mobile ad serving and tracking firm Medialets that indicates advertisements on tablets attract 44% higher CTR than those on handsets while ads on mobile apps perform 2X better than those on the mobile web. Also, according to eMarketer’s new projections released last month (Dec, 2014), of the more than $150 billion in global ad market growth projected through 2018, $118 billion is likely to come via mobile.
All the above facts clearly indicate the impact of leveraging smart ad serving technology to reach consumers and gain relevant customer insights based on demographics, location, device and behaviour is gaining momentum in the digital marketing world. Basically mobile advertising campaigns are executed in 4 major forms namely SMS Ads, Search Ads, Web Display Ads and Mobile App Display Ads. Shared below is a screenshot that graphically explains the difference between all the 4 types of mobile ad targeting.
As a consequence of the growing popularity of mobile-ad targeting, both small sized as well as large scale businesses are planning to include mobile apps in their digital integration plans in 2015 for enhanced customer engagement and loyalty via introducing In-app offers, social sharing options, promotions, event notifications, instant feedback mechanisms, one-touch calling & geo-location, push notifications and improved interactivity.
Recently news arrived that Facebook has finally killed organic reach. As more and more social networks are looking forward to rely on paid content in the future, brands are paying for social advertising to get potential traffic on their website and drive sales while achieving mass awareness for enhanced brand reputation. Even if you’ve been able to organically earn your way into newsfeed via sharing great content in the past year, you should at least start experimenting with paid social ads so that your brand can be better positioned on all major social networks especially Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin by the end of this new financial year.
Below is a graph that clearly indicates why more and more brands are inclining towards including paid social media advertising as an important part of their digital marketing plan in 2015.
Though some social media managers may consider mixing appropriate proportion of both paid and organic strategies to outreach with a clear marketing message this year, permission based marketing is another thing that is likely to gain momentum amongst brands that are interested to drive enhanced engagement via social media in 2015.
While improving website conversions is on the topmost priority checklist of digital marketers in 2015, we’ll see CRO experts more focused towards “personalization” technologies to enhance customer engagement and boost sales through incredible digital experiences. This is because digital marketers have finally realised that usability and UX are the biggest factors that affect brand’s credibility especially when it comes to interacting with your prospects using multiple interaction channels – may it be a website, mobile app, email or any other digital media.
For improved conversions and sales, it is important for future CRO experts to go beyond A/B testing and peep into optimization of the entire digital platform to deliver a highly personalized experience to customers across the globe. As an example, I have shared an image below that clearly explains what personalization elements conversion optimization experts can focus on to improve sales on their websites. The example portrays a leading ecommerce website Petsworld.co.in that increased its sales of pet products and accessories via conversion optimized landing pages using common “personalization” techniques.
As consumers become more informed, conversions are likely to go to the brands that succeed in exposing higher levels of personalization by introducing sophisticated search functionalities on their websites (depending on local, psychographic and demographic data). Though this trend already revolutionised conversion optimization in the past year, it will remain a major agenda in the checklist of smart digital marketers in 2015.
2014 saw a lot of local businesses stuck up in a tough position due to budget constraints and wasted ad spend that lead to unimpressive ROI metrics. In 2015, we’re likely to see more and more SMB’s chasing mobile rankings by optimizing their SEO strategy for mobile traffic using automated mobile search software, responsive website design, dedicated mobile apps, intelligent mobile UX tactics and locally optimized landing pages. This will not only drive measurable ROI for multi-location businesses but will give them maximum exposure on social platforms, thereby improving local listings based on genuine customer reviews. Though Google has recently started including a “mobile friendly” notation next to websites in mobile search results, newer search engine algorithm updates will also be focusing on citations and reviews for improved rankings in the SERPs. As stated by Searchenginewatch, nearly 46% of searches are now using mobile exclusively to perform product research, making local SEO optimization a must for ecommerce businesses and product based companies.
We hope to see the above predicted internet marketing trends dominate FY 2015. At TIS, we have an intelligent team of smart digital marketers & SEO consultants who’ve brought positive impact for some of the biggest brands across the globe. In case you need help with your online marketing campaigns, we’re taking projects for the current fiscal year. Contact us to request a quote and avail heavy discounts till Feb, 2015 !! Good luck!!
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