3 Ways the Future of Marketing is Already Here

It’s no secret that the world of marketing is rapidly evolving and keeping up with the latest developments can be difficult for any business that wants to stay ahead of the competition.

Taking the time to zero in on your company’s digital marketing strategy in today’s day and age can be a daunting task. We understand how busy things can get for a growing business, which is why we’ve put together this article on the newest developments in digital marketing. You’ll discover easy ways to take methods that your business already uses and apply them in ways that help get you ahead.

If you’re busy with running your business, maybe it’s time to start looking into how hiring an outside agency can not only make your life a lot easier, but help grow your business through the application of these exciting new developments in the marketing realm!

We want to address your company’s growth ceiling and blast through it. So, let’s take a look at how the digital realm of marketing is changing and how it can benefit you.

So, let’s start with one area you may be familiar with already: your website’s content and making big – on the first page of search engine results. 

Content and SEO

Your website is made up of content and by using search engine optimization, or SEO, that content gets your company’s site “found” on search engine result pages.

Google has programmed “bots” to find your website and read the content within your pages in order to rank it. These bots live by a list of constantly changing rules that reflect the way people are searching. (Don’t worry, Splash and Google have become the best of friends over the years, and we stay in the loop on SEO updates made by the “bot”.)

So, now that you know a bit more about how SEO works, let’s get into how the way people are searching is changing.

Voice Search and Virtual Personal Assistants

As a culture, we have evolved to be more multi-task-oriented than ever before. Over 60% of voice-controlled tasks are used for online searches. This means that more and more smartphone users are turning to voice searches instead of text. The way content is constructed on websites will need to be adjusted to accommodate this fact.

The bad news: Google knows this, and the SEO bots will begin adjusting the way they rank websites.

The good news: now you know too, and can begin constructing a content strategy that includes tactics geared towards voice search and virtual personal assistants.

So, how do you gear your website’s content to appear for virtual personal assistants like Siri, Cortana, and Alexa?

• Conversational Keywords – write your blog titles in the same way you’d ask a real person for more information about a topic.
• Ensure your Content is Location-Specific – Smartphones focus on the area that your potential customer is searching from
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – research what people who search using full phrases are looking for, and answer their questions on a FAQ page
• Structured Data Markups – these are the code snippets that are grabbed by search engines to pull information onto the search page, and make you appear more visibly on smartphones

Email Marketing

Email marketing is ground zero of reaching your target audience, no matter if you are business to business or business to customer. Email marketing continues to boast the highest return on investment when compared to all other channels of marketing, thanks to its relatively low cost and trackable conversion rates.

Automation and Personalization

These two fancy words are the future of email marketing, and the future is now. Let’s get you caught up on what these terms mean:

• Marketing Automation – the software that exists with the goal of automating marketing actions. It’s designed to help you prioritize and execute your marketing tasks (such as email and social media) automatedly.
• Personalization – gearing your marketing efforts to better appeal to the individual and smaller groups of people that are more likely to convert.

Marketing automation and personalization go hand-in-hand. They’re meant to not only make processes much easier for everyone, but they also reveal your company to be a more genuine, personal brand.

So, what’s the scoop with email marketing and how does it relate to marketing automation and personalization?

Great question, we’re glad you asked.

By segmenting campaigns to be more personalized, you are able to identify pain points and create messaging that sells a solution to the challenges customers face.

Fun fact: businesses who segmented their campaigns saw a 760% increase in revenue.

This. Is. HUGE.

It means marketers are now able to focus your message and deliver it to the specific people who want to hear from you.

Here’s some tips on helping encourage your audience to take action:

• Send Welcome Emails – create an email that automatically goes out to new subscribers, and make them feel welcome. Did you know leads are 21 times more likely to convert when contacted within 5 minutes of an action?
• Hello @firstname – gear your emails to sound as personal as possible, with occasional messages that use the first name tag.
• Trigger Emails Based on User Behavior- use purchase history, transactional emails, and content interactions to gear your email campaigns for specific audiences

For a more detailed look at Marketing Automation and Email Marketing, check out our blog post here.

Wearable Technology

The age of wearable technology is upon us, and reaching those who choose to wear their gadgets is vital for marketing your business.

The average person checks their phone 85 times per day, and that’s a device that isn’t directly attached to their body. Smartwatches, for example, can be checked as soon as a notification, email, or social post is sent, giving your marketing team the chance to reach customers instantly.

So, how can you use wearable technology to better grow your business?

• Stay on Point – keep your messages short, to the point, and enticing.
• Voice Search – remember that bit about gearing your website for voice searching and virtual personal assistants? This comes into play in a BIG way for wearable technology.
• Targeting – gear messages that segment those with wearable technology and research how your efforts perform through targeted analytics.

Stay Ahead of Marketing Trends

Phew, that was a lot of new information. As a key decision-maker, you have the power to ensure your company gets ahead of the competition by deploying marketing techniques that boast cutting-edge strategies.

How can you manage to run a business and market using all-new tactics? Hire a full-service marketing agency with a forward-thinking mentality. Splash Omnimedia focuses on not only the tactics that deliver results right now, but the ones that will deliver in the future, too.

Focus your time and effort on running the day-to-day operations, and talk to Splash Omnimedia about growing your marketing strategy for the future.