If you’re an entrepreneur or a digital marketer, this time of year tends to be quite hectic. Between holiday madness and planning of a digital marketing strategy for the following year, things tend to become quite frantic.
With so much to keep in mind and with so much planning and organizing, it may seem like a nightmare to find your way around various tasks. Don’t worry, we’re here to help.
We’ve done some researching, and we’ve scoured the web in search for the best digital marketing trends for 2018. This guide aims to provide you with concrete insight into the world of digital marketing for the following year, and it should help you truly understand how to devise your marketing plan for 2018. So, without further ado, let’s dive in and take a look at what we can expect from digital marketing in the following year.
The Rise of the Artificial Intelligence (AI)
We’ve already witnessed the amazing evolution of AI. It has become an essential part of various automated services throughout the world and in multiple industries. In the Fourth Annual State of Marketing research, done by Salesforce we learn that there are almost 60% of all marketers who already use AI to their advantage. It’s estimated that in the following couple of years, all marketers will turn to AI as one of the most important tools for their job.
With AI in digital marketing, you get to personalize user experience quite significantly with data analysis, chatbots and even augmented reality. Decision making is simplified with AI and your marketing strategies become easier to organize and more predictive to analyze.
Some marketers even use image recognition in order to achieve maximum ROI. It allows them to analyze a lot of data from social media in very short time periods, so focusing on the AI as one of the tools for your digital marketing would be a smart thing to do in 2018.
Live Videos and Mobile Video Consumption
Live videos, webinars, and video conferences are an essential tool in marketers’ arsenal. They have been used for quite some time now, but as the internet evolves, so do the videos.
For example, Facebook Live stream search popularity went over 330% since the activation of Facebook Live, and that’s just one of the various benefits videos can bring to your marketing campaign. Quite a lot of people said that they would rather watch a live video than read a blog or an article.
Another thing you must take into consideration is that in 2018 search engines will start penalizing those websites that are not mobile-friendly. The expected growth of mobile video consumption is around 25% for 2018, so it may be smart to focus on developing a mobile video strategy.
Expansion of Affiliate and Niche-Influencer Marketing
Another interesting fact about the following year is that most experts predict a rise in influencer marketing. It has been on a steady rise throughout 2017, especially on social media and in online communities.
As the niche-influencers advance, the number of celebrities endorsing products and services is bound to drop. The main reason for this is that influencers are working with extremely engaged, relevant audiences and their connections are spread all around the world. One of the best things you can do for your digital marketing in the following year is to invest in niche-influencer and affiliate marketing.
High Demand for Quality over Quantity
Content marketing became the leading element of the digital marketing, but this brought us quite a lot of low-quality content. With so many people working on the content creation and content marketing, the Internet has become over flooded with second-rate content. It did help with SEO, but more and more people are complaining about the virtual sea of this content which is not engaging or simply doesn’t have any value.
This leads to a moment, expected in 2018, where there will be a change in the mindset for content marketers. What most of the digital marketing professionals expect is that marketers are going to change the way they use content, and focus more on the quality and original value of the content they use, even though this might be a more costly solution. In the following year, content marketing will evolve from ‘more is always more’ to ‘less is more’, starting with the quality of written content.
Mastering Micro-Moments
With the expansion of mobile marketing, marketers have noticed another thing that can help them with developing a successful digital marketing campaign. That thing is called ‘micro-moments’, and it represents using the fact that more and more people are becoming extremely reliant on their mobile devices.
From researching the market for buying a home to looking for groceries, more and more people are having these micro-moments with their devices, but only big brands have mastered the way of using them to their advantage. If you’re looking for a way to expand your reach and evolve your digital marketing strategies, focus on fulfilling the needs of your customers to access the needed data at any given moment. It might be very helpful during 2018, as mobile market expands by the hour.
Native Advertising is on the Rise
SEO experts from GWM have stated that, if you’re aiming for the best possible visibility and reach, you need to focus on native ads. Basically, most of the users hate interruptive ads and pop-ups. The percentage of those who instantly leave a website when they are faced with pop-up ads is extremely high. That’s why marketers are focusing more and more on native ads. Native ads are those ads that viewers and visitors barely even notice while they’re browsing.
Things like instant content, search advertising, sponsored listings, advertorials and other non-invasive advertising techniques are what represent native advertising in the best possible way. It may seem a bit deceiving, but the end goal is to get the right information in front of your viewers when they need it the most. It’s expected that native ads will grow in the following year, so make sure you include those in your marketing strategy for 2018.
Big Data and Its Conversion
Big data analysis is fundamental for any serious digital marketing company. Having the proper data allows you to understand how your customers and visitors think, what do they have, but most importantly, it needs can tell you how your visitors behave on your website. Big data really stands for its name – it represents massive amounts of information, and there are various ways to handle that information.
There’s segment marketing, native marketing, personalized marketing and so on, and they all rely on proper analysis of the data collected from users and visitors.
This process isn’t that simple, but there are tons of free and payable tools and software that can help you a lot. Big data industry is expected to reach the worth of more than $100 billion by the end of 2018, so if you’re planning for a success in the following year, arm yourself with big data tools and knowledge, and the results will start showing up faster than you may think.
Wrapping It Up
These methods and practices we’ve listed above have proven to be on the rise during 2017. As it always goes with predictions, you can’t be sure what is going to happen, but you can follow some signs and act accordingly.
The internet is expanding, and mobile market is also growing incredibly fast, so if you want to stay on top of your marketing game, there are a lot of things you need to focus on. It may seem hard, and it’s most definitely challenging, but it’s far from impossible. With the right workforce and some careful planning and organizing, 2018 can be the year your digital marketing company skyrockets.
Author
David Koller is a passionate blogger and copywriter for Media Gurus, mainly interested in SEO and Digital Marketing.