Insights: 5 Digital Marketing Strategies For 2015
As the digital landscape continues to change, Digital Marketing continues to evolve. Keeping abreast of trends is paramount for business owners and digital marketing professionals to create clear Digital Marketing strategies in 2015.
Here’s a quick insight into 5 digital marketing strategies for 2015.
1. Content Is King
In 2014, the world’s largest search engine Google (GOOG) updated its SEO algorithm to improve rankings of websites with engaging and quality content and reduce rankings of websites that focus on keywords for improvement or are low in relevant content. In recent years, Flash based technology has also been penalised heavily by not being supported on Apples (AAPL) mobile devices and Google recommending upgrading sites to HTML5.
Why is this important to me?
The lines between SEO, content and social marketing are becoming blurred, however as we move forward they will continue to play important yet separate functions in Digital Marketing. SEO is now greater focused on the technical aspects such as meta tags and keywords, content has become the primary driver for searches and Social the promoter of content.
What do I need to know?
It’s simple, look to developing a strong Content Strategy. Update your website regularly with original, informative and trustworthy content. To rank well and gain new visitors, brands need to add new content – the greater information you provide the more suitable the content will be for users searching Google for your product or service.
A blog is an ideal mechanism to help build breadth of content for Google algorithms, so too is information rich content including case studies, research based content and video (an ideal substitute to Flash). Further, with mobile usage continually on the rise short form content that’s easily readable on mobile devices or utilises video and visual content will deliver greater impact on mobile devices.
2. Optimise Your Website For Mobile
As mobile device ownership and usage increases worldwide so too is mobile internet usage. With one of the highest per-capita rates of mobile usage in the world this trend will also impact Australian mobile users.
Optimising websites for mobile was a focus in 2014 – a ‘responsive’ website and / or App was a must-have for any organisation. Late in 2014, Google (GOOG) revealed it was identifying if a website is “mobile friendly” and ranking “non-mobile friendly” websites accordingly less compared with a “mobile friendly” websites.
Why is this important to me?
Enter 2015, as websites are 'optimised’ and App’s clutter the desktop it is now critical to develop a clear Mobile Strategy to support mobile usage across website, social media and Apps to retain use of those assets. A clearly defined Mobile Strategy focused on the purpose of each is extremely important. By not defining online strategy for each mobile asset, business risks immanent loss in usage and retention.
What do I need to know?
Develop a clear Mobile Strategy with a focus on tailoring content and marketing to deliver quality information. Create an experience for your users and tailor content specifically for mobile users by website, App or social.
Whether you choose a optimised website or App, increasing usage of mobile devices means brands can not afford to not have a mobile presence.
3. Cut Through With Paid Social
Social Media offers an ideal platform for brands to connect, network and stay in touch with existing and potential customers. As demand increases and social networks mature and focus on revenue, social platforms are controlling activity to drive better content and in effect drive brands toward paid social in order to gain cut-through. Social media has shifted for brands from a 'user opts-in' approach to interact with brands to a 'user pays' format for brands to access users.
In 2014 Twitter (TWTR) introduced its advertising platform to Australia, allowing messages to be targeted toward specific audiences within 140 characters, Facebook (FB) offers a similar platform through “boosted” or “promoted” posts as does LinkedIn (LNKD) and Facebook’s recently acquired platform Instagram. As a result, Digital Marketing now requires greater strategy and smarter use of budget in the social space to gain greater cut-through.
Why is this important to me?
As social news feeds continue to clutter at a high rate, marketers now need to develop innovative ways to gain greater cut-through and build relationships. As social platforms continue to reduce reach for brands such as the demise in organic reach and Facebook (FB) controlling the type of content within a post, visibility and cut through for brands in the social space has become a real issue.
Paid social is now an absolute necessity for the Digital Marketing for brands to cut-through all the social chatter. In fact, the types of content and posts we see in feeds and the advertising products social platforms offer will continue to expand as metrics and analytics improve, demand grows and social platforms seek greater revenue through new advertising product offerings. Not only will this affect advertising spend and the methods utilised to advertise in order to reach desired audiences, it will also affect how brands target and communicate through content.
What do I need to know?
To establish an effective Social Marketing strategy brands need to focus on paid advertising in order to gain cut-through. Gone are the days of brands gaining ‘free advertising’ through organic reach, brands need to look at how they market across social to gain effective impact with the right audiences. Content is again important, the same rules apply for paid as it is for unpaid posts – if your content is not interesting it won’t engage users no matter what your advertising spend. The rule is now advertising will get brand messaging to the audience to a point, however it is the Content Strategy [as per point one] that will engage your audience.
4. Refocus Email Marketing
With Facebook (FB) reducing brand visibility to encourage advertising and search engines such as Google (GOOG) making algorithms more complex, Email Marketing is emerging as a renewed focus for business and marketers. A stalwart of the digital marketing mix and overlooked in recent times, Email Marketing is still an effective digital marketing strategy and one requiring greater insight in 2015.
Why is this important to me?
With the saturation of Email Marketing over the years, marketers now need to come up with innovative ways to gain greater cut-through and build relationships. With declines in open rates, click throughs and direct transactions, gone are they days sending emails in an attempt to make a quick sale. In fact people are opening emails less and now tend to 'screen' emails on mobile devices prior to opening them on the desktop, preferring to only open emails of interest once at the desktop. Being creative, knowing your consumer, communicating intelligently and building relationship-based marketing is more important than list segmentation or algorithms.
What do I need to know?
To establish an effective Email Marketing strategy brands need to refocus the development and continuation of the relationship with the user and find creative mechanisms to entice and incentivise users. Likewise brands need to monitor its consumers closer, lead generation and advance analytics strategies for example need to play an important role in Email Marketing strategy and content will require a significant focus.
5. Brands Need To Humanise
The humanisation of brands has been a hot topic in recent years and has become particularly important as brands seek awareness across social platforms. In the main, people want value added engagements and interactions that are personable, not exposure to a brand that is overtly corporate or commercial.
Why is this important to me?
The 'tone and tenure' of a corporate or brand voice is particularly important as social users interact, network and cocoon in communities online. Brands that are able to humanise themselves and connect with their audience will benefit from higher conversion rates, greater acquisition and retention and stronger brand loyalty.
What do I need to know?
The ability to humanise your brand should be a core focus of your Social Marketing strategy. Assessing not only how a brand grows online, but also how it engages and interacts is extremely important as users turn to social and choose to ‘opt in’ to engage with a brand. The ability to humanise a brand is an acquired skill and one that requires some depth of understanding of both brand and market.
Brands that engage, develop relationships, service and look to activate or reactive passive followers through engaging and creative initiatives will build stronger brand value. Utilising sponsorships with athletes or teams and identifying key social ‘influencers’ such as bloggers are great strategies to also humanise brands.
Today, Digital Marketing strategy is not one dimensional, Digital Marketing requires tailored strategic solutions across individual channels with multiple criteria to be effective. All elements of the digital marketing mix including content, mobile, social and email strategy must be key considerations to engage and retain relationships in 2015 and beyond.