I can’t quite believe we’re into another year already! I hope 2016 has been a successful and profitable one for your business. The start of a new year is often a great time to re-evaluate and re-think your marketing strategy so that your business is even more prepared for the months to come.
We’ve seen a number of marketing trends in the digital world this year and thought it’d be a good idea to give you the heads up on what we think will be well worth considering for 2017.
Conversion Optimisation
Rapidly becoming the new marketing buzzword, this is one I can really relate to. How do you implement “Conversion Optimisation”?
I think one of the most important elements to marketing activity has to be accountability. It’s pointless spending your hard earned cash on guesswork and stabs in the dark, so the key to Conversion Optimisation is consistently reviewing the statistics and expertise whilst critically analysing your creative work.
Start with your website. How’s your bounce rate? Average bounce rates for UK websites usually fall between 40%-60%, how does yours compare? Make a note of some of your key Google Analytics stats such as users/sessions, acquisition channels, referral sources, most popular pages etc. for future use. Continuing to monitor these key statistics will give you a better idea going forward of website performance.
Next think about all of your other digital marketing activities, what are the most important figures to monitor? Think about email click through rates, average monthly Facebook/Twitter reach, your average cost per click on Google Adwords campaigns etc.
Lastly and most importantly, your sales/enquiries. This is ultimately the most important statistic, as it directly affects your bottom line. Tweaking, improving and revisiting your marketing activity WILL impact on your level of sales. Over time you will start to see trends of what marketing activities are working for your business, enabling you to optimise your conversions and spend more money on marketing that works!
Facebook Ads are improving
If you use Facebook’s advertising platform you’ll notice that the platform has changed recently, giving you more freedom and increasing your options when designing calls to action. Especially on mobile! If you haven’t dabbled in Facebook advertising for your business or organisation, I’d highly recommend checking out its excellent targeting and flexible advertising options.
When you use Facebook, your behaviours and usage trends are recorded which results in a plethora of potential targeting data that you can use to effectively promote your products/services. You might have noticed that when you like a new page on Facebook you’ll start to receive ads on your timeline that are related or connected in some way to that page. E.g. I like the “Star Wars’ and “Playstation” official pages on Facebook, so recently I’m starting to receive a video ad promoting their new PS4 game before Christmas.
Facebook advertising is incredibly targeted and continues to get better and better. For more info check out their dedicated explanation page – https://www.facebook.com/ads/about
Adwords dominating search more
Small tweaks have been made year on year to Google’s search, with this year seeing the removal of right-hand sidebar ads and more ads at the top and bottom of the search pages. SEO services now often need to be combined with other types of digital marketing techniques in order to have success in ranking organically for your desired keywords over a sustained period of time.
Organic rankings can take time, whilst Google’s Adwords is guaranteed targeted traffic there and then. Great for new websites in particular, or when you’re looking to promote a specific niche type of product or service. Google’s Adwords platform works exceptionally well when your enquiries have a higher net worth, as it makes the ROI more achievable and you can run the campaigns for longer periods. The longer the campaigns, the more you can refine, tweak and work on getting the Cost Per Click (CPC) down.
With Google holding all the cards with their own search engine functionality, expect Adwords to become an even more important string to a marketeer’s bow.
More and more content
With online marketing campaigns, to put it bluntly, you need stuff to talk about. Customers want to know more about organisations and businesses online, including the people who work there and the culture associated with the brand. With social media creating a more wider insight into people’s lives, it’s rubbed off on the business world as well.
Modern and upcoming/high growth businesses keep followers updated with the latest office pics, staff stories, real product shots etc. Thinking about which types of content will get good engagement and feedback is paramount to a successful online marketing campaign.
Evaluate what your best blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram images and marketing emails have been.
Automation
With technology developing constantly, each year we see more powerful marketing tools being developed to make all of our lives easier.
Automation starts off with collecting data in an organised way. When an enquiry comes in or a sale is made, make sure that you’re collecting as much useful data as you possibly can. For example, in a B2B environment, simply by collecting contact names and business names you can add personal automated effects to your email marketing. Combine that with birthdays, and you can send out birthday greetings or exclusive birthday discounts! All you have to do is setup the system, and away it goes…
Next year I envisage that there will be more automation with social media management, allowing auto responses and actions to be more personalised and easier to monitor. Email marketing has already made some brilliant strides forward with automation, which I’ve already covered in a previous blog.
In short, 2017 will definitely bring better technology, faster internet connections and new marketing trends. Ensure that you’re ahead of the game and start planning what your aims and goals are now, or give us a bell and we can guide you every step of the way! 🙂
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