On 8th January 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped down as “senior” royals. And on 9th January 2020, the World Health Organization announced a deadly coronavirus had taken roots in Wuhan, China. A lot has changed since we bid adieu to the year from hell – 2020!
But data-driven marketing? It is here to stay and how! Here are the key areas in data-driven marketing you should be focusing on now.
Micro-Moments
By definition, a micro-moment is “an intent-rich moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need – to know, go, do or buy.” So, if your brand can deliver on such impulses swiftly, you can close a deal just as fast.
The idea behind such moments is simple: instant gratification! If you can leverage the web users’ ‘I want to buy’ moments by delivering informative, relevant, and readily digestible content on time, you can convert them into paying customers effortlessly.
Remember, in 2021 and beyond, the customer journey will be largely unpredictable. Thus, if you can optimize your marketing channels to identify micro-moments and provide valuable information instantly, you can boost sales in no time.
Voice Marketing
Consider this: voice shopping is expected to jump to $40 Billion in 2022. In other words, adopting voice search strategies can help your company optimize the sales funnel and provide unique customer experiences, which can foster business relationships for better retention rates.
Voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri are becoming smarter by the day, providing accurate, relevant search results to the users. As such, leveraging voice search can translate to lucrative outcomes for your business.
But at the same time, remember to keep a conversational tone and pay attention to keywords people may use while speaking rather than typing a query. Such optimization ensures your voice search rankings are high and improves branding effortlessly.
Chatbots
If you’re not harnessing the chatbot technology in 2021, you’re missing out on providing a differentiated CX experience that can drive better ROIs for your brand.
AI-enabled chatbots can chat with users (customers or website visitors) in real-time and around the clock. They are also cost-effective, faster, and less intrusive, making them the perfect tools for automating brand communication.
Besides that, chatbots can:
- Offer 24×7 service
- Respond to user query instantly
- Answer simple questions without losing patience
- Communicate with multiple users at a time
While surprisingly, nearly 63% prefer to talk to chatbots who can answer queries swiftly and accurately. Thus, if used correctly, chatbots can effectively automate manual, repetitive tasks, so you can focus on more important marketing processes.
Branding
The current market scenario looks like a scene straight out of The Hunger Games film – with more brands competing for customer attention today than ever before.
Today’s customers like brands who “get them”. As such, emotional resonance and transparency in your branding should be paramount. To that end, quality intent data can help you align your content strategies to what your customers are scrounging the internet for.
If you host well-researched, up-to-the-minute content your ideal audience is searching for online, you can earn customer trust readily and build a robust brand presence to improve brand loyalty and enjoy higher customer retentions.
Video Marketing
Video marketing trends are not going out of style, at least not in the next 5-10 years. Why? Because video content has become one of the most popular ways for customers to learn about new products and services. No wonder Cisco estimates online videos will contribute around 82% of all the web traffic by 2022.
But if you’re only thinking of video content in terms of YouTube only – don’t! Videos can work marvelously on any platform, say LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. In fact, Google pushes webpages hosting video content since customers find them more compelling and engaging.
So, if you’re overlooking video content, you should rethink your strategy and harness video marketing trends like:
- Video content SEO using appropriate keywords for better ranking on the SERPs
- 1:1 video format when you want to send a personalized message to a prospective buyer
- Live video/broadcast streaming on Facebook, Instagram, etc., where you can share live demos, give a tour of the office space, provide a products’ behind-the-scenes, etc.
Mobile-Friendly Services
While the merits of mobile-friendly services have been delineated time and again, many marketers are still playing catch up! When, in fact, content readily digestible on mobile devices performs better than your conventional long-form emails or sales copies do.
A report by Statista estimated mobile commerce would take a market share of 72.9% by 2021 – a bite of the marketing pie you should dig in!
At this point, you should focus on including mobile-friendly services in your marketing kitty to improve customer experience across mediums and communication channels. Geofencing, push notifications, IoT-based advertising, etc., are a few tactics you can leverage to target mobile users and earn higher ROIs.
User-Generated Content
Many have cited user-generated content (UGC) as the new word-of-mouth marketing, primarily if you’re targeting markets rife with millennial and Gen-Z buyers.
UGC content, when done right, can easily outperform any brand-created content based on two factors: authenticity and relatability. Because after all, people tend to believe others’ opinion over what the brands are advertising.
You can create a UGC strategy to share content ranging from video, testimonials to reviews and blog posts on your website or social networks. And in return, offer incentives like free demos or discounts to encourage more audience to take the initiative.
This way, you can skyrocket your brand awareness to drive better engagement and conversion rates. Besides, enhanced customer satisfaction will be a welcome bonus!
In Summary
That’s it! The various data-driven marketing trends you should focus on while going into 2021. But in any case, as we advance, all data-driven tactics will solely focus on providing a more connected and seamless customer experience across channels. As such, you should stay nimble and test out new trends to see what works in your favor and adapt accordingly.
