Today, we’re going to cover the Top 5 Digital Marketing Predictions for the upcoming 2018.
Some of them might be things that you, too, have expected. And some of them might be unexpected for you.
In any way, make sure you take advantage of each (or at least some) of them early on. Otherwise, you risk missing out on a trend.
So, without further ado, let’s begin with our list.
1. Influencer Marketing
Although Influencer Marketing is not something new, most businesses out there haven’t yet tapped into its full potential.
Most of them have tested it at least once but they still don’t have a whole strategy around this concept.
And there are still plenty of opportunities around Influencer Marketing. People will just have to find some strategic method to go about it.
Without a strategy in mind, going into Influencer Marketing is not a good idea.
But with the right strategy about it, Influencer Marketing can make significant increases in any business’ sales and it can help its branding as well.
There are numerous companies that have increased their sales by 20-50% simply by tapping into Influencer Marketing. And there are brands that are built 100% around that very same Influencer concept.
A great case study for successful Influencer Marketing strategy and execution is the brand Daniel Wellington.
Here is a great article about the story behind the success of this particular watch brand.
2. Better Audience Targeting
The broad and non-precise audiences are almost useless now (as opposed to a few years ago).
And the main quest of any savvy digital marketer nowadays is to reach the specific and precise audiences out there.
They are beginning to get harder to find and this makes an emphasis on audience targeting a MUST in the year to come.
In order to be successful at it, marketers will have to focus A LOT more of their attention on finding the right audience to target out of the unending ocean of choices.
They’ll need to go further than ever to meet the expectations of the customer.
Marketers will have to get EVEN better at matching their ad campaigns to the exact needs of their audience.
3. Dynamic Ads
And speaking about matching ad campaigns with the customer’s needs, here comes the time for our next prediction.
Dynamic ads have just begun being popular in the e-commerce industry a few months ago. And they are yet to grow.
They are possibly the best way to have your message perfectly tailored specifically to the user seeing the ad. And we predict that Dynamic Ads are going to become the norm for targeted digital marketing.
Marketers are going to mesh the search intent signals with the dynamic social advertising. This will allow them to successfully micro-target their audience and create meaningful audience segments.
With that, an even smoother customer experience is yet to come. More conversions and incremental returns, as well as better real-time audience insights, are an inevitable consequence of that.
The use of Dynamic Ads is yet to grow and all brands who take advantage of that will be able to create more targeted messages than ever before when they speak to their audience.
4. Storytelling
As brands get better at targeting their message to the end-user, a need for a better storytelling is also inevitable to arise.
Brands will have to tell their story in an even better, more elegant way. And they should be doing it every possible platform.
The use of live videos on social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, is also going to increase.
Video is slowly occupying more and more of the space on Facebook and many other platforms.
A brand which strives for success MUST be great at telling its story in a compelling and relatable for the customer way through video (especially live video).
The engagement of such live videos is slowly increasing nowadays. This means that everyone should start taking advantage of live videos as soon as possible.
We can also expect B2B brands to start producing longer length copy that features relevant real-life examples and case studies instead of their current wishy-washy corporate language.
5. Pop-Ups Are Finally Going Away
We’ve all been waiting for it. And now, pop-ups are finally going away.
This means that the overall customer experience is going to significantly improve over the course of the next few months.
People will be able to engage more with the content they are consuming without pop-ups trying to get their attention all the time.
They’ll become more interested in consuming any particular brand’s content and will be more engaged in doing it. They’ll become a better, more engaged “fan” of the brand.
Google’s initiative to penalize pop-ups on smartphone has already started this movement of getting rid of pop-ups.
And if mobiles are getting freed of pop-ups we can expect the same to happen with desktop in the few months to come.
We can expect the pop-ups to be gradually replaced by better designed and less intrusive cross-device responsive native advertisements.
And if everything goes as planned, 2018 is on the track to becoming the most successful year in regards to native advertising.
The customers will get more engaged in consuming any particular brand’s content without being annoyed by the ads they see while doing it.
To Sum Things Up…
We can definitely say that everything is changing for the better both for the brands and for the end-user – their customer.
It is definitely NOT going to get easier for marketers. In fact, it might get significantly harder for them to be able to advertise well in the digital space.
Although this might sound harsh, that’s actually a great opportunity for the well-prepared and savvy marketers out there.
In 2018, their ads will be able to shine above the competition more than ever. And anyone who fails to adapt is risking to be left behind.
