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There is always a lot of interest in the new digital marketing trends and innovation as we are into the new year 2021. Why wouldn’t there be? If you want your business to stay competitive in the market, you have to adapt to the rapidly evolving changes in digital marketing.

Make no mistake, we are living in a time where technology moves very fast. In the same way, the interest and behavior of the consumers also change. They are hard to predict. You cannot stick your head in the sand and hope that the same old methods will work.

 

SL NO.	Digital Marketing Stats to Keep in Mind for Online Marketing in 2021
1.	By the end of 2021, 85% of the customer service will be powered by the Chatbots.
2.	Personalization matters. 63% of the people in the world are annoyed with so many generic advertisements.
3.	72% of the businesses say that videos offer better conversion
4.	58% of the people buy products recommended by an influencer
5.	51% of the searches will be voice searches by 2021
6.	Small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads than businesses without blog pages.
7.	Long-form of contents (blogs/articles more than 2000 words, bring 77% more backlinks)
8.	51% of the brands use mobiles to identify new brands and products on the market.
9.	68% of the online experiences start with search engines
10.	Video content drives 50X times more organic results

 

What are the 2021 digital marketing trends to help you grow your business?

Here are the digital marketing trends for 2021 that will help your business to not only survive but also thrive.

1. Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is about using AI for automating the ad-buying so that it is easier to target more specific audiences. For instance, real-time bidding is an example of programmatic ad buying. The automation is much more efficient and faster. This means you will have higher conversion and lesser customer acquisition costs. This is changing the whole face of digital marketing. 86% of the digital display ads in the USA are programmatic.

Source – Singlegrain

2. Chatbots

The use of chatbots is also a very important part of digital marketing in 2021. This is an AI-based technology that uses an instant messaging system to chat with anyone in real-time.

• By the end of 2021, 85% of the customer service will be powered by the Chatbots.
• At present, 80% of businesses need chatbots.
• 63% of the respondents want to message an online chatbot for their queries about a brand or a business.

Source – Oracle

We all want an immediate response to our problems or queries. Thus, chatbots offer a great solution. They answer promptly and also, they correctly recall your complete buying history. These virtual assistants are great for offering customer service and meeting their expectations. Also, you can easily automate repetitive tasks.

3. Conversational Marketing

This is pretty much simple. With the increasing use of Chatbots, the reality of modern marketing is, it is more conversational. People want it in that way and brands are trying to give it to them. So, you have to do the same thing. When customers ask a question, they want a quick response.

With conversational marketing, you will have a one-to-one real-time connection with your customers. Your audience expects to find what they are looking for and they want it now, not later. When you think about the future, you have to be available across different channels.

Source

4. Personalization

If you want to stand out in 2021, you have to personalize your marketing tactics. This means tailored content, products, and emails.

• Did you know that 63% of the people in the world are annoyed with so many generic advertisements?
• 80% of them say that they are more likely to do business with a company that offers tailored experiences.

Consider the following examples:

• Cadbury’s has created a video campaign that is similar to the Dairy Milk flavor. They targeted the users from the data of their Facebook profile, using age, interest, and location. The campaign got a 65% click-through rate and also a 33% conversion rate.
• Starbucks uses a gamified mobile app that gets data like purchase history and location. This is to offer customers their favorite drinks and snacks. They have also brought up a Rewards System for the customers.

Clearly, personalization works great for businesses.

5. Video Marketing

Video marketing is one of THE most important marketing trends today. And it will remain important for the next 5-10 years.

• Did you know that 70% of consumers say they share a brand video?
• 72% of the businesses have analyzed that video offers a better conversion.
• 52% of the customers have to say that watching a video makes them more confident in buying a product.
• 65% of the executives also visit a website after watching a video.
• 68% of the people learn about a new service or product by seeing a video

And not only just YouTube, but there are also a lot of ways to get better engagement with video marketing. You can make a small video post or use a live from Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. If there is a video on your website, it is 50X more likely to get more organic search results. Why? People find video content much more compelling. This is why Google will push such pages higher that have videos.

• Live videos are popular for businesses because they use them for interviews, product/service demos, behind-the-scenes before the launch of something, and company events.
• 1:1 framed videos are great when businesses want to share personalized messages instead of calls or emails.
• Video SEO is a major benefit of video marketing. YouTube and other videos are displayed in SERP’s. This is why it is more important to optimize videos. You can use text overlays, closed captions along with the descriptions, title, and file names.
• 360-degree video content is trending now. It offers a much more interactive experience. It is useful in a wide range of businesses, like real-estate, gaming, tourism, and more.

Video Marketing

Source

6. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a sort of word-of-mouth marketing but the approach is a bit different. You have to use the key leaders to amplify your brand message to draw the attention of a larger market.

Influencers can be celebrities. However, for small businesses, you can target Instagram or YouTube personalities who have a high niche following. They can help you spread the word about your business or product through social channels.

• 63% of the consumers trust the opinion of the influencers.
• 58% of the people buy products because it was recommended by an influencer.

According to a study by Mediakix, ad expenses on influencer marketing will reach more than $10 billion by 2021.

Influencer Marketing

Source

7. Social Messaging Apps

If you think that social messaging apps are just to send texts and emojis to your friends, then think again. Because these numbers tell a whole new story.

• 55 billion messages are sent every day on WhatsApp.
• 10 billion messages are sent out every day on Facebook Messenger.
• The top social messaging apps are Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat.

Thus, you know how popular these social messaging apps are. People are spending more time to message each other. Therefore, it makes sense to market your products and services where your potential customers are hanging out. These apps are great to send messages to your customers directly because they add value to the experience.

Social Messaging Apps

Source – Statista

8. Using the Micro-Moments

What is a micro-moment? It is an ‘intent-rich’ moment where a person uses a device to know, go, do, or buy. Here are the four micro-moments that really matter. If you want to take advantage of the micro-moments in 2021, you have to be where the consumers are searching for information. Just like Google puts it, marketers need to “be there, be quick and be useful”.

In 2021, the customer journey will be much more dynamic and their decisions will be unpredictable. And you cannot blame them because, in the age of smartphones, we have become accustomed to instant gratification. When they think or talk about anything they want to see more, know more, and buy more with just a few clicks. To make the most of the micro-moments in 2021, you have to do the following:

• Identify the “I want to buy” moments
• Be there in the moments
• Offer relevant content
• Make things easy for them to purchase
• Analyze every moment which matters

9. Use of Voice Search & Smart Speakers 

With the increased use of voice search, it has become important for companies to rethink their digital marketing plan. Consider the following numbers.

• 50% of the searches in 2021 will be through voice
• 55% of American homes will have smart speakers by 2022.
• 72% of the people that have a voice-activated speaker use the device for their daily activity.

Thus, overall, people expect voice search to be more common in the future. AI has become smarter. The number of errors from voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google has reduced. A lot of brands are already using voice search in their digital marketing strategy for delivering voice-based content to the customers.

Source

Now, remember that not only more companies will use audio content for brand awareness but also the ads will be next. This means Alexa will tell you the answer to your query along with the name of her “sponsor”. For the voice searches, remember to write in a conversational tone, in a way people speak. Also, keep your focus on “featured snippets on Google”. Think about the keywords with which we speak instead of what we type.

The key is to understand that voice search is not another channel of force messages and sales. Instead, marketers have to come up with a unique approach for better customer interactions. Voice search should be a part of a broader and more connected brand experience.

10. Browser Push Notifications

There is an increase in push notifications. 85% of the online stores have used them in 2020. Twice as many people sign up seeing a push notification then they do after seeing a newsletter. Did you know that 54% of the users convert after seeing a segmented push notification? Push notifications can even have images and CTAs to improve conversion rates.

11. Content Marketing will Dominate the SEO

According to John Muller, Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst in Google, “Rather than chase the latest SEO trends, it’s more important to ensure a site has fast speeds, useful links, and well-written content.”

• 88% of B2B content marketers agree that creating content makes their audience view the organization more credible and trusted.
• The cost of content marketing is 62% less than outbound marketing. Also, it brings 3X more leads.
• Small businesses with blogs will generate 126% more leads than those without blogs.
• With content marketing, the conversion rates are 6X times higher.

Google values, well-researched articles. Thus, businesses will invest heavily in content marketing throughout 2021.

 

Source

12. Big Data and Deep Learning

By 2021, the Big Data industry in the world will take a massive leap. This is great news for marketers if you know how to use the power of Big Data. According to Forbes, 78% of the companies are already having or developing a customer data platform to manage, analyze, and leverage their data.

Data experts are the top priority for a lot of companies. 41% of companies say that this is one of the most desired skills at present.

. Big Data and Deep Learning

Source – Statista

13. Google Ads and Smart Bidding

Every business will have to face competition on social media. Thus, paid advertising will be one of the best sources of getting more leads. Therefore, the smart bidding feature of Google Ads will be used a lot more. In simple terms, you have to trust Google’s AI system for the PPC campaigns. Google will optimize the budget to maximize the ROI. This works for any PPC goals including:

• Target CPA
• Target ROAS
• Advertising Conversion Rates

With the smart bidding feature, you can use different customizations like:

• Physical location
• Device
• Weekday or any time of the day
• Remarketing list
• Interface language
• Ad characteristics
• Browser
• Operating system

The best part is, you can let smart bidding handle your PPC campaign and you will have more time to focus on making other plans for copywriting and analytics.

Source

14. SERP Zero Position

For the last few years, voice search has changed the way SEO works. The most important factor was the rise of the featured snippets. This has given birth to the “position zero” on Google’s result page. Here is an example of it.

In 2021, 41% of all the voice search answers will come from the featured snippets. If you do your SEO right, you can be the one to end up in position zero of the Google search engine results page. This can give you a huge competitive edge.

The trend is increasing with 63% mobile searches and 35% of the desktop searches have ‘zero-click search’ results. Here are the most common words found in the search queries.

SERP Zero Position

Source

15. Branding

We live in an era where consumers have a wide array of choices. It doesn’t matter what sort of niche you are in. 66% of the consumers feel connected to a brand when they feel that they can trust it. To earn the trust of your audience, you have to build a solid brand. The reason why branding is so important is because of Google’s EAT ranking factor.

EAT stands for:

• Expertise – your website needs to have quality content from an expert writer
• Authority – The has to have authority over the subject
• Trustworthiness – The site must have some authoritative links that redirect to other trustworthy sites.

Google will cater to the user experience by looking for the most accurate, updated, and well-researched content.

16. Better Analytics

Modern marketing and metrics are like identical twins. If you are not investing in better analytics, then you will face issues in getting the results you want to see. The problem is, we live in an era where the average consumer will check a brand from six touchpoints before making a purchase.

With so many channels for managing a lot of ways to market the products and services, the job of analytics tracking is becoming an important mission. This is why a lot of companies are looking beyond the basics of Google Analytics for a better Business Intelligence solution.

There are a lot of Business Intelligence options (both paid and free). For instance, you can use Google Data Studio, Metabase, and Tableau.

17. Privacy Marketing

ple all over the world are very careful about their privacy. This is why Facebook and other social media platforms are always updating their privacy policies.

As business owners and marketers, you have to rely on people. The new rule is, marketers these days have to earn the contact information of their targets. People want to know that they can trust the brand and their personal data is safe.

Source

Make sure to do the following:

• Research and understand your audience
• Develop a relevant message for your audience to engage
• Get the right channel to engage with that target audience
• Try to develop an intimate relationship through thoughtful engagement

18. IoT Advertising

With the Internet of Things, more and more devices are getting connected. Thus, the brands and marketers want to use the data for their own business and advertising.

For instance, Johnnie Walker has a Blue Label bottle that has an in-built electronic sensor. This can tell if the bottle has been opened, where it was opened, and also its position in the supply chain.

There is also another example. Malibu, another drinks company uses its “connected” bottles as a digital touchpoint for promoting exclusive content.

IoT Advertising

Source – NCTA

19. Long-Form Content

In 2021, short blog posts will not get you anywhere. Typically, the posts have to be around 2500-3000 words to attract the most traffic. Since these posts offer more in-depth and exploration of different topics. Also, the long-form contents allow the creators to set themselves as an expert on a certain subject. Thus, it also offers more chances to target keywords.

Did you know that long forms of content will get you 77% more backlinks than short articles? This is important to drive more traffic. 56% of the bloggers get better ROI when they spend more than 6 hours creating a single blog. It might seem a bit excessive, but it attracts more traffic, increases the on-page time, and also boosts the organic search rankings. This is great for business.

Long-Form ContentSource – serpIQ

The benefits of long-form content are as follows:

• A longer time is spent on website pages
• Reduced bounce rate – because when people find what they are looking for in your webpage, they will not go back
• More backlinks and more social media shares
• Will get you traffic as long as the blog is there on your website
• Higher Google ranking

20. Structured Data SEO

One of the most evolving digital marketing trends is structured data SEO. A lot of us might feel that SEO is dead. Absolutely not! SEO is a shapeshifter. It bounces back in different forms. Structured data will be more important than ever in the search engine results.

Structured data is any data that is organized in a way that makes it better for the search engines to crawl. Content creators can get this done on the backend of the website using a code or organizing information in the form of tables.

Structured Data SEOSource

When done in the right way, structured data offers a major SEO boost. You may get the zero-position rank by using a graph box for displaying important information about your business.

Another important benefit of using a structured data SEO is, you will be able to generate Rich Snippet results. It displays images, stats, reviews, and pricing. These rich snippets are also known as rich cards. They are great for bringing more clicks, especially on mobile devices.

With more than 50% of the global traffic on mobile devices, the competition for the rich snippet results will increase. Thus, a lot of marketers will leverage structured data SEO in 2021.

Lastly, presenting one of the most futuristic trends in digital marketing for 2021!

Neuromarketing

Last but not the least, the digital marketing trends in 2021 will also include neuromarketing. This is a strategy that analyzes measurements of an individuals’ brain activity and nervous system to figure out which type of content they like most.

Now, this might seem to be a page from a sci-fi novel but the fact is, technology is evolving rapidly. Thus, it will soon become a viable tool for marketers. This is not rocket science. It is designing marketing materials (the ads, website, email campaigns, and content) to invoke certain neurological reactions that are linked with purchasing.

After that, you can use this information to optimize your content and then adjust your strategies for effective digital marketing.

This is it! Here are the 20 digital marketing trends for 2021 to increase leads, conversion, and sales. Change is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. Every brand and business organization should be prepared to embrace the new technologies, strategies, and tools to get an edge over their competitors.