6 Best Digital Marketing Trends for 2021

Digital marketing took off in the 1990s, and since then, it has been evolving rapidly. Every year we witness a new evolution on the digital platforms, bringing more businesses and customers on board. From social media forums to analytical tools – the online world has become the epitome of marketing. Well, 2021 won’t be any different for the digital marketing landscape. We would experience impeccable tech integrations and software that are likely to be a game-changer for businesses.

However, before exploring new trends, you must strengthen your existing marketing strategy. You can improve your social media presence, make your business profile more engaging, or generate content that offers value to the readers. Similarly, you should have a digital storefront – website to ensure customers have a smooth shopping experience. Apart from this, you can launch paid advertising campaigns to direct more traffic and leads to your webpage.

Once you get the basics right, learn about emerging digital marketing trends and keep pace with them. You can look into influencer marketing, build a solid link profile, or integrate immersive technologies into your campaign. Don’t know much about evolving trends? Here we are listing the six best digital marketing trends for 2021.

Keep Track of Links

Do you have links coming to your site? These are outbound links that direct traffic from one page to another. Hence, the more links, the higher traffic you can generate. Unfortunately, it is not as straightforward as it sounds. More than focusing on link quantity, you have to ensure links are coming from credible sites. Google monitors the source of backlinks, and if any of them come from spammy links, your entire website could receive a penalty.

In addition to earning backlinks, you have to keep an eye on them to ensure your business isn’t in trouble. You can leverage savvy tools to monitor your link profile and make sure you don’t come under Google’s radar. Also, evaluate the traffic top linked pages generate. If it is converting into leads or customers, publish more content on that site. Besides, you can check for broken links and fix them immediately to keep the traffic flowing.

Optimize for Visual Search

With the continuing popularity of visual searches, every marketer must focus on visual search. It allows users to take a photo and upload it to a search engine. In turn, the search engine generates results that match the image. Considering that individuals process visuals faster than text, you must optimize your pictures and help more people find your products. Here are three ways you can optimize for visual search and drive more leads.

• Conduct a Keyword Research: Keywords provide a product image’s full description, letting your picture appear in the relevant search results.
• Add Alt Tags: Undeniably, an Alt tag is the perfect place to input information about photos. It helps search engines decipher the context of the image, improving your search rankings.
• Optimize Titles & Descriptions: Integrate all the keywords in the image title and description to help people find your products faster. Besides, it will also let the audience understand your images better.

Tackle Ad Blockers

With excessive promotions, people use ad blockers to remove unwanted advertisements from their feeds. Hence, in 2021, marketers also have to overcome obstacles like ad blockers. Otherwise, they will have their leading stream of traffic automatically cut off, including all the pay-per-click campaigns. You have to determine if these ad blockers are a problem for your marketing campaign. Depending on your ads and customers, the damage might be negligible.

If your ads fall victim to these ad blockers, the best way to deal with them is to adapt to the situation. You can re-allocate your advertisement budget and invest in other lucrative campaigns. After all, younger audiences and adults don’t respond well to paid advertisements anyway.

Invest in Sustainable Branding

Corporate social responsibility has become inevitable for modern-day brands. People in 2021 are passionate about environmentalism and their communities. As a result, they want to make sure companies making money show concern for the planet earth. If we look into the stats, almost 81% of the consumers believe businesses should help the environment. Since this goes beyond the market for green products, you can also benefit from implementing sustainable workplace practices.

You can communicate your practices through the power of branding and content. Firstly, initiate green strategies in the office. You can encourage employees to use paper cups and bottles instead of plastic. Second, you can introduce bio-degradable packaging to play your part in reducing environmental damage. You can give branded reusable bags or convey green themes across social media channels.

Improve Retention Via Segmentation

It takes far less money, effort, time, and resources to keep your existing customers than find new ones. Therefore, marketers should put equal effort into the later stages of the buyer’s journey. After all, happy customers’ word-of-mouth can do wonders for any brand. They provide a referral to their friends and post reviews on social media groups. Above all, they are likely to give you honest feedback about what issues they face, helping you identify the problem areas.

So, how can you retain customers? You have to segment customers based on their tastes and demographics. After this, you can offer after-sales services to ensure the customer is content with their purchase. Similarly, give your existing customers preferential treatment. Perhaps, send them targeted emails, personalized offers, or engage with them on social media. It would strengthen your relationship with customers, developing brand loyalty.

Integrate Immersive Technologies

According to Gartner, 70% of the brands will be experimenting with immersive technologies by 2022. Hence, this year could be an ideal time to begin exploring and integrating these technologies. You can find ways to integrate virtual or augmented reality in marketing campaigns and enhance the user experience. Brands like Tom Shoes are already using such technologies. They have come up with a ‘walk in their shoes’ campaign where shoppers experience a journey from California to Columbia using VR.

Likewise, automobile company Vroom is offering an online car-buying experience. It takes people through a powered showroom where they can browse different car models. These technologies offer customers a memorable and unforgettable experience which helps convert leads into actual customers. Besides virtual reality, you can also integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning into your campaigns.

Wrapping Up

Digital marketing trends keep evolving with changing market dynamics. Some innovations open doors to untapped consumer markets, while others streamline marketing efforts. To remain competitive in the digital marketplace, you have to keep pace with these trends in 2021. Thus, build an excellent link profile, implement strategies to retain customers, and invest in immersive technologies. You can also incorporate sustainability in your campaigns to emerge as a responsible and successful entrepreneur.