Regardless of the era, a center of all relationships was a person. He is and will be a key focus for every company in marketing as well. Nevertheless, even though the marketing object is the same, the methods are changing.

It is digital marketing that lies at the core of any promotion today. For this very reason, companies have to know how exactly the technologies change the trends. How to plan a strategy today using the advantages of digital marketing?

Personalization

Customers see hundreds of ads daily. Many of them are undifferentiated, which is annoying. Especially if the advertising is irrelevant to the person. That is why the need for a personalized approach is increasing. What does it mean?

1. Content needs to be provided at the appropriate moment.
2. The advertising should be consistent with specific interests.
3. Ads need to be posted according to the customer’s geolocation.
4. It’s important to analyze the customer’s behavior towards the brand or product.

In other words, personalized marketing allows creating the individual offers based on:

• previous actions;
• demographics;
• interests;
• personal data.

Why is it important to personalize every offer? Because customers don’t want to spend time on irrelevant coRegardless of the era, a center of all relationships was a person. He is and will be a key focus for every company in marketing as well. Nevertheless, even though the marketing object is the same, the methods are changing.ntent. They need businesses to detect their desires automatically.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has been important in the field of promotion for a long time. It was also a trend in traditional marketing when a celebrity of the global scale starred in a TV commercial. This method was always effective, so it’s not surprising that it’s used in digital marketing as well.

But here is the new term – micro-influencers. As a rule, these are bloggers with channels on YouTube or just popular people on social media. Micro-influencers occupy narrower niches making it possible for small- and medium-sized businesses to attract an audience.

For instance, such celebrities as Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho featured in a commercial for Lays chips. However, the local brand of milk products obviously doesn’t have that budget. Therefore, it can agree on cooperation with a food blogger on Instagram.

User-Generated Content

One of the simplest and cheapest, however quite effective methods of digital marketing. UGC (User-Generated Content) is a great way to enhance the brand's reputation. How does it work? Users share information about the brand without any agreements. They do it because they really liked the product.

Sharing user-generated content is a digital marketing trend not just today but also for several years to come. But how to encourage such publications?

• repost as much customers’ content as you can;
• make special offers;
• make donations to charity;
• create challenges.

Everything popular on the Web now is your chance to get user-generated content.

Chatbots

Every brand has to ensure high-quality user support. There have been only two ways of getting the answer from the company for a long time. They were email or phone. However, there are several reasons why these ways are ineffective today:

1. A customer wants to get an immediate response.
2. The questions are simple oftentimes. It’s uncomfortable to call or email just to ask them.
3. Hundreds of customers can ask the same questions. Your employees will just get tired of the monotony.

For this reason, the next digital marketing trend is chatbots. They also appeared a few years ago, but they’re still being improved. Nowadays most sites already have advanced bots, which can even classify the questions to give a relevant answer faster.

Due to chatbots, you can improve the relationships with the customer and increase the company’s efficiency.

Augmented Reality

The implementation of augmented reality is an emerging trend. A majority of devices started supporting this function relatively recently. Due to augmented reality, many cafés and restaurants appear on the screen of users, who are typing «where to eat?» in the search engine.

Similarly, it’s possible to create apps, which will include information about clothing stores, grocery stores, sport equipment stores, etc.

But there’s a completely different application of this technology. For example, Apple allows seeing how a particular product will lie in your room or in the workplace. Automobile companies also make it possible to place the car on your parking lot.

Otherwise speaking, they make it look like the customer practically owns the unpurchased product already.

Content is a Foundation of Marketing

One of the magnets for both search engines and customers is high-quality content. And in fact, it doesn’t matter whether this content will become the advertising or not. Its task is to attract a client to the brand.

If you create high-quality content, you can interact with a client and get to know his desires. Besides, interesting content is an opportunity to take the customer's mind off ordinary advertising.

It’s important to remember two rules:

1. More isn’t always better. You should post content at certain intervals.
2. Tell insightful information related to your product in your posts.

Video Creation

Video becomes the most valuable «product» in digital marketing. Such platforms as YouTube, Facebook Live, Netflix, and even Instagram with its IGTV are the chance to tell about the brand and product as much as you can. Moreover, these platforms enable to transfer any video from TV to the phone, which significantly increases the reach.

Wyzowl conducted a survey, which showed that 95% of customers watch videos that are explaining product features or service opportunities. Consequently, by posting videos the companies always interact with their clients.

It’s worthy to highlight such opportunities of videos:

• tell the history of the brand;
• quickly explain the product advantages;
• invite customers to certain events.

Besides, you should pay special attention to live videos. They’re extremely popular with the majority of Web users. The proof is a successful implementation of a function of live streams on Instagram. A lot of users spend about three times as much time watching live videos than pre-recorded ones.

Shoppable Posts

How to get a customer from social media to visit an online store? This question has been a key one among businesses for several years. But today there’s no need in that. Because there’s an opportunity to buy products directly through the post.

Such posts are meant to reduce the number of actions the user has to take to buy a product. So there’s no need to send Direct messages or enter the website anymore. As there’s information about the price and sizes and the link to order on the post.

60% of Instagram users state that they find new products for themselves using this exact social network. About 70% of Pinterest users gave a similar answer. Both platforms took these facts into account and provided the function of shoppable posts.

Considering the growing popularity of social networks and their role in every customer’s life, such posts will become irreplaceable for every company.

Data Visualization

Apart from the video content, you need to pay attention to specific data visualization via simple images or charts. For example, tell the customer about your recent attainments not in textual form but via a pie chart.

The ordinary text will always be a vital marketing component. However, it loses its efficiency without visual elements. Images and charts that convey meaning are always an additional interaction. Respectively, the user will get more useful information and will spend more time on your site or social media page.

Omni-channel Marketing

Now as never before people give serious consideration of what they spend money on. They want to invest in brands, which respect and value their customers. For this reason, they analyze a vast quantity of resources before making a purchase.

That is why it’s very important to promote your brand through as many sources as possible. Omni-channel marketing will make it possible for you to:

• keep track of potential buyers’ interactions;
• raise a brand’s awareness;
• pay attention to details;
• get more information about the customer.

Visual Search

Open the gallery on your phone and check the «Screenshots» folder right now. Most of you will see there at least 100 screenshots. Lion’s share of images is the screenshots of clothing, digital products, or other products.

Using any of these images in the search on Pinterest, you will be able to find a brand that manufactured this product. Consequently, you will be able to buy it if desired.

Visual search isn’t just an action simplification of the Web users. This is also a part of digital marketing. Most brands maintain Pinterest accounts, due to that, they have greater reach and more sales.

Customers have been using this function for a long time. It’s particularly relevant in cases when they don’t remember the brand name, or when they just can’t find the right search query. So visual search is one of the digital marketing trends for 2021.

Communication via Messengers

Let’s go back to the first trend – ad personalization. It’s necessary to build a consumer profile to implement this trend. One of the key steps is communication with the buyer. That is why many companies constantly text with customers via personal messages.

Firstly, this is an opportunity to establish closer contact with the customer. Secondly, this will let you know about requests and complaints firsthand and not from the summary statistics. Thirdly, you will show the client that you’re really interested in all details. And the customer always wants to know that brands are listening to him.

Therefore, you should create accounts for your brand on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook right now and text with your clients. At the time when email loses its efficiency as a means to contact customers, the messengers will become a great replacement.

Prepare for 2021

Now is the right time to start planning the marketing strategy for 2021 (if you haven’t done it yet). Must-have is to make a sequential list of goals and ways of their achievement.

If you want to get more traffic and boost sales, then listed above trends must be among your methods. Keep in mind that your competitors are testing these trends right now. So you can’t neglect them either.

12 Digital Marketing Trends You Need To Know for 2021 key takeaways:

#1. Personalization
#2. Influencer Marketing
#3. User-Generated Content
#4. Chatbots
#5. Augmented Reality
#6. Content is a Foundation of Marketing
#7. Video Creation
#8. Shoppable Posts
#9. Data Visualization
#10. Omni-channel Marketing
#11. Visual Search
#12. Communication via Messengers
#13. Prepare for 2021