In the booming era of the digital revolution, technological trends are no surprise to anyone. It continues to thrill audiences with exciting and mind-blowing features. From being able to order food online to footing your utility bills – everything is a few clicks away. Likewise, it has hit the business industry, bringing some tech-savvy innovations, especially for the marketing department.
In today’s tech-savvy world, escaping the advantages of digital marketing is impossible. But do you think running after those old-school strategies are of any good now? Surprisingly, the new decade brings a whole bunch of new competitive marketing strategies. Marketers using black hat SEO practices, deceptive advertising, and content scraping – the time is up!
2020 demands an authentic approach to marketing, and you can make this possible by leveraging the latest tech tools and emerging channels. Experiment with new media formats, take a closer insight into changing purchase patterns, and brace yourself to make some digital noise. Are you wondering how? We are here to help you with the competitive marketing strategies of the digital era. Have a look below.
1. Bank on Video Marketing
We are far past that time when people enjoyed reading long paragraphs of text-based information. These days, most people prefer visuals in the form of images, infographics, and especially videos. Alongside increasing engagement with customers, videos are a great way to put your brand message across.
With increasing popularity, the two enormous marketing giants, Facebook and Instagram, have allocated 44% of their budget to videos. If you haven’t given a thought or you believe it is not your cup of tea, search for to help you get started. Since users are obsessed with videos, this trend is unlikely to fade away anytime soon.
2. Build Communities
In the 21st century, social media forums are a lot more than entertainment tools. It has become the ultimate marketing platform where corporations with deep pockets are allocating a hefty budget for social media advertising. On the other hand, the pay to play model is not working for small businesses. Instead of trying to compete, try to innovate better solutions.
Start building communities on social media using the ‘native group’ features. It lets you develop healthy relationships with customers, giving a sense of exclusivity to group members. Utilize this one-on-one level engagement forum to engage and interact with audiences. You can address the audience’s queries, complaints, and regularly host live sessions. You can bring like-minded people together, allowing them to have a dialogue.
3. Aim for Position ‘Zero’
Have you seen a featured snippet right on the top of the search engine results page – SERP? Marketers call it the position zero as it appears before all other organic listings. Thus, instead of aiming to bag a spot on the first page of SERP, you have to aim for position zero. It significantly boosts your click-through rate – CTR, while helping you become visible to a broad audience. Unsurprisingly, there is plenty of competition out there, but moving ahead can be easier for you.
- Create content that focuses on problem-solving – what, when, why, who, where, and write headlines accordingly.
- Focus on creating instructional content ‘how to’ since people find it more appealing.
- Structure in a list format to promote understandability.
- Answer questions through your content.
- With the rise of voice search, create conversational content around simple things.
4. Focus on All Stages of the Funnel
Sometimes, businesses make their way through the top results of SERP but encounter high bounce rates and low session duration. Unfortunately, this happens because of expectation mismatch, meaning you are targeting the wrong audience. The user lands on the website with an intention, but your content doesn’t meet their expectations. That happens when you spend days creating the top-of-the-funnel content but pay no attention to the bottom or middle content.
Diversify your content by bringing engaging topics and different formats. Create infographics, podcasts, along with text, to improve the versatility of your . Likewise, focus on addressing queries that are not on the top-of-the-funnel. Diversity and in-depth content allow you to convert visitors into prospects and then customers.
5. Micro-Influencer Marketing
Previously, we witnessed a rise in celebrity marketing, but in 2020, the wave is ebbing down. Customers now prefer trust and expertise over the clout, making brands realize that it is a wise choice to invest in micro-influencers. Therefore, they are no longer running after celebrities but look for someone they can relate to personally.
Micro-influencers act like role models for many people and have a potential reach of 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Pick an influencer of your niche – for instance, if you have an apparel brand, look for influencers who follow fashion. They will expose your brand to the right target audience without costing you an arm, as their charges are far below what celebrities charge.
6. Inspect Programmatic Audio
With the rise of new marketing tactics like podcasts and audio streaming apps – marketers have more avenues to connect with their audience. Are you wondering what programmatic audio is? It is not as complicated as it might sounds. It lets users place ads in the audio content – podcasts automatically, meaning you can advertise through audio streaming programs.
Explore ad formats such as ad pods or companions to get an insight into the benefits they are offering. Besides these formats, even Google, Soundcloud offers features. Thus, give your social media followers a break from routine content and tempt them towards audio streaming platforms, helping you gain an edge.
7. Invest in Artificial Intelligence
Although digital assistants and chatbots are nothing new, still many brands are missing out on them. These tech-savvy tools are capable of delivering content and helping users with their purchases. They provide 24/7 customer support, dealing with customer queries around the clock without any coffee or tea breaks.
Likewise, digital assistants are smart enough to understand user needs, helping customers book tickets, and make reservations. With the increasing trend of voice search, marketers must leverage conversational artificial intelligence tactics, letting people talk to them. Moreover, artificial intelligence systems come in different variations and pretty affordable price, leaving you with no excuse to miss out on it.
Final Thoughts
In the changing dynamics of the digital era, there is so much you can do with marketing strategies. Despite the competition getting intense, technology continues to bring new tools and tactics to keep the users hooked. Hence, don’t be afraid to try new marketing techniques because you never know what works for your brand and always keep up with the competitive strategies.
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