* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Digital Marketing Trends
Advertising management wikipedia , lookup
Consumer behaviour wikipedia , lookup
Bayesian inference in marketing wikipedia , lookup
Targeted advertising wikipedia , lookup
Food marketing wikipedia , lookup
Social commerce wikipedia , lookup
Ad blocking wikipedia , lookup
Marketing channel wikipedia , lookup
Social media and television wikipedia , lookup
Audience measurement wikipedia , lookup
Search engine optimization wikipedia , lookup
Neuromarketing wikipedia , lookup
Sports marketing wikipedia , lookup
Marketing research wikipedia , lookup
Marketing communications wikipedia , lookup
Multi-level marketing wikipedia , lookup
Affiliate marketing wikipedia , lookup
Online advertising wikipedia , lookup
Target audience wikipedia , lookup
Social media marketing wikipedia , lookup
Ambush marketing wikipedia , lookup
Target market wikipedia , lookup
Guerrilla marketing wikipedia , lookup
Marketing strategy wikipedia , lookup
Integrated marketing communications wikipedia , lookup
Marketing plan wikipedia , lookup
Youth marketing wikipedia , lookup
Sensory branding wikipedia , lookup
Multicultural marketing wikipedia , lookup
Green marketing wikipedia , lookup
Marketing mix modeling wikipedia , lookup
Global marketing wikipedia , lookup
Viral marketing wikipedia , lookup
Direct marketing wikipedia , lookup
Advertising campaign wikipedia , lookup
Digital Marketing Trends 16’ Table of Contents Introduction 03 Digital Display Advertising 05 Content Marketing 07 Search Marketing 12 Marketing Analytics 15 Marketing in 2016, How Will It Be Different? In the ever evolving world of digital, marketers must continuously update their game plan. Enhancing the customer experience at every touch point has rarely been more important so let's begin with useful tips for a successful 2016. Introduction 1 2 3 Have a restless nature. Effective marketers have a restless nature. They love to question, challenge and relentlessly debate things to push the envelope. Sometimes that means tactics for a mobile ad campaign, the latest Google updates and how it will impact local SEO, or sometimes it simply means discussing lunch options. (Does anyone else have endless debates about lunch besides us?) Keep it interesting. Marketing is easy, but good marketing can be tough. The only way to make good marketing is to strategize, implement, learn, and repeat. Things become boring and stale without constantly testing new ideas, products, concepts, and disproving outdated best practices. No one likes boring and stale. Reach the right person at the right time. Audiences are more fragmented than ever. Five years ago, only crazy people talked to their watches; now people can actually buy products using an Apple Watch. Understanding the customer’s path to purchase and matching the message to that path is critical. Most successful campaigns include multiple messages, and a clear understanding of a consumer journey to purchase. This isn’t a one message fits all world anymore. “ The only way to make good marketing easier is to strategize, implement, learn, and repeat ” Let's dive into trends and predictions for digital display marketing, the quickly growing arena of content marketing, the ever-changing search marketing landscape, and finally the importance of tracking and measuring everything. Introduction | 04 Digital Display Advertising Digital Display A Managed Approach to Programmatic Ad Buys Today, a growing number of businesses place digital ad buys without even talking to a human. In fact, programmatic ad buys attributed to 59% of digital ad spend in 2015, according to eMarketer. What is programmatic ad buying anyway? It is simply the process of automating the media buys on an exchange platform. Audience target, price, and location are input and a computer algorithm does the rest. This type of media buying and selling comes with its share of issues, such as poor data sources and quality. In 2016, businesses should consider managed programmatic ad buys. How is Managed Programmatic Buying Different? Programmatic buying is similar to a plane on autopilot. Autopilot is great and seems simple, but occasionally you have to—and should—take control. Sometimes a campaign will perform better with a human’s touch and real-world learned information. This blended approach is known as managed programmatic buying. Part of a managed programmatic approach is taking full advantage of the data. First part data, information collected by the website publisher, provides the highest quality data and deepest understanding of consumer behavior. This tangible understanding of buyer intent that first party data provides is fundamental to building successful ad campaigns. Trends for 2016 A managed approach to programmatic buying will allow an ad campaign to reach the right people at the right time more often, preventing waste. In 2016, marketing dollars can – and should be - spent more efficiently and effectively. The value of first party data collection and implementation is no longer a futuristic concept. It’s here. This year, work smarter and seek to make the most ROI from ad dollars and reach customers in new and better ways. Digital Display | 06 New Year, New Insights: Content Marketing 2016 Content Marketing Content Marketing in 2015 was about getting introduced to the concept, getting buy-in from the executives, marketers wrapping their head around what kind of content they should be producing, and figuring out how to measure ROI. Now that the “shiny object” of the marketing world has had a year to settle in, it’s time to get smarter, more efficient and produce more results with content marketing in 2016. Right now, 80% of B2B organizations and 76% of B2C organizations say they are implementing content marketing However, only 30% of those B2B’s and 38% of those B2C’s say that it’s been effective. Out of this group, only 44% of marketers say they understand what a successful content marketing program should look like. as part of their overall strategy. That’s Fantastic That’s not so good Now that the “shiny object” of the marketing world has had a year to sele in, it’s time to get smarter, more efficient and produce more results with content marketing in 2016. Knowing this, what does effective content marketing look like in 2016? And how can we move the needle forward in terms of more marketers understanding what goes into a good content marketing program? Content Marketing | 08 Content Marketing Here’s a quick guide to help businesses navigate content marketing in 2016. 1 Understand your audience. Let’s face it; too much content right now is created on a hunch. Businesses can’t afford to create things on a hunch. As marketers, we may have marvelous ideas for content that we think will meet the needs of customers, but ideas alone don’t mean that something will work. Backing up ideas with data is imperative. We need to show that our brilliant ideas align with the needs of our actual target audiences. Who is researching or buying your product or service? What kind of content have consumers engaged with the most in the past? You should be looking at your social interactions, number of views, time spent on the content, downloads, form fills, and most importantly, your Google Analytics. What did people do after they read your content? That will tell you a lot about what your content efforts are doing for you and what kind of content you should be creating. 2 Look at your buyer’s journey and stick to that funnel. As your customers move from the awareness phase, to consideration, to conversion and then finally to advocacy, what information is important for them to read, see, or hear to keep them moving through that funnel? Know what those messages need to be and craft content that is addressing each step of that journey. Content Marketing | 09 Content Marketing 3 Document your plan and strategy. Statistics tells us that most marketers don’t typically have a documented strategy. In fact, only 32% of B2B marketers and 37% of B2C marketers have their content marketing strategy documented. The rest are just winging it. Those who have a documented content marketing strategy yield better results from their content marketing tactics, social media platforms and paid methods of distribution. Your plan doesn’t have to be fancy, but it has to be created and documented, even a few months at a time. As Ben Franklin famously said, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” Wise words, Ben. Don’t be that marketer. 4 Meet regularly about your content marketing efforts. “But we have the plan documented and we know what we are going to do already, do we really need to meet more?” Yes, yes you do. Effectiveness of content marketing programs is greater among teams that meet more frequently. 61% of the most effective B2B marketers and 55% of the most effective B2C marketers meet daily or weekly. It can be just a quick touch point in person, a phone call or even a video conference. This will help keep everyone on the same page, figure out what is or isn’t working, and give the team opportunities to optimize current campaigns. Not sure where to start? See point number one. 5 Re-evaluate, revamp and test your distribution tactics. So you’ve written some brilliant content pieces. Kudos…but that’s only half the battle. How are you actually planning to get people to the content? Are you utilizing social media platforms? Search engine marketing tactics? Native advertising? Your content distribution should include both organic and paid tactics. To determine where and how you’re going to distribute your content, make sure you understand where your customers consume their content. Is it Instagram? Email? YouTube? One of the biggest issues content marketers run into is that they try to be all things to all people in all places. Hone in on your sweet spot, do testing on different platforms, and understand where your customers like to engage with you. Content Marketing | 10 Content Marketing 6 Implement video. This isn’t simply a suggestion; it’s a demand from your consumers. As it stands now, 78% of people watch videos online every week and 55% of people watch videos online every day. What does this mean for businesses? People want to engage with video almost more than any other type of content. For example, using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19%. It increases click-thru rates by 65%. And perhaps the biggest one of all… sites that include video have on average an extra two-minute dwell time compared to sites that don’t. Those aren’t stats that you can ignore. No matter if the video is extremely high quality or a super low-res, real-time video, consumers’ appetite for watching something visual is undeniable. 7 Engage influencers to help with your content marketing efforts. Consumers today are overwhelmed with information from all different angles. Choices between services and products are endless; it can be hard for businesses to cut through all the noise and really speak to their desired consumer. When making buying decisions, consumers (either consciously or subconsciously) often look to people they recognize and trust to help guide them in the right direction. Because of this, it’s so important for marketers to partner with influencers in their industry to help create credibility and brand stickiness with consumers. Influencers can help build relationships with a brand, create great content and increase the reach of a business’ content. Not sure where to start? Ask an influencer to create a guest blog for your company, interview them on relevant topic in your industry, ask them for quotes, or partner with an influencer for a video series. Content Marketing | 11 8 Trends in Search Marketing That Will Shape 2016 Landscape Search marketing, the process of gaining visibility from search engines through both paid and unpaid efforts, is staged for tremendous growth and evolution in 2016. According to eMarketer, spending on paid search is projected to increase more than 10% from 2015 meaning that businesses and marketers will spend 28.4 million dollars in paid search advertising. The primary reason this medium continues to demand its share of advertising dollars is because of its ever evolving capabilities. Looking forward to 2016, here are 8 trends that will impact this evolution Search Marketing Mobile First More searches are happening on mobile devices than they are on desktops and because of this many advertisers have already adopted a mobile first strategy. A mobile first strategy turns a greater ROI since mobile users are further along in the buying cycle and more likely to convert. The 2016 spend forecast for search is 28.43 million, 17.87 million of that is mob ile search. This same mobile first strategy is equally important as it relates to SEO. Just recently Video Content With Google’s purchase of TrueView and their experimentation of video search results, the presence of video content on a site will be increasingly important in an overall search strategy. In 2016 video is predicted to outpace written content as it relates to reach, effectiveness, engagement and overall ROI. Google announced that a desk-top specific site isn’t necessary and that mobile optimization will increasingly become more important. Digital Assistants Cortona, Siri and Google Now speak our language. But the way that people search with 28.43m digital assistants is very different than text search. In 2016, long-tail keyword queries that are similar to how people actually speak will place an integral part in a sound search strategy. WEB SEARCH Micro Moments 17.87m Because mobile has fundamentally changed the way we seek information in real-time, intent driven micro-moments allow brands to shape consumer decisions and behaviors. Consumers expect brands to deliver exactly what they are MOBILE SEARCH searching for in that moment. Advertisers that adapt and create a strategy around these The 2016 spend forecast for search is 28.43 million, and 62% of that is mobile search micro-moments stand to shorten the path to conversion and win the consumer in the moment. Search Marketing | 13 Search Marketing Audience Integration Previous methods of PPC targeting were limited to intent and geographic location only. But late in Conversion Tracking 2015 Google introduced “customer match” and that has been a game changer. This capability Conversion rate is the optimal indicator of allows advertisers to target a specific audience success for marketers, advertisers and content based on audience profile information. When creators. This metric, when applied to search, you layer audience targeting with intent and can provide more insight into a campaigns geography, ads become more relevant resulting performance. Although click through rates are in better campaign performance. still important, they do not tell the whole story. With Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and all of the resources available to track Social Media Content conversions, success by campaign and channel is now easier to track than it ever has been. Conversion tracking will be an integral part of Social media content will be more readily search marketing strategies in 2016. indexed having a big impact on page rank. When search engines look for relevant content as it relates to a search query, social media results, because of its recency and relevancy, will be given as much consideration as a web Due to its ever-evolving page. In 2016 more social media platforms will become indexed. capabilities and position towards end of the buying cycle, search will continue to sustain growth RLSA and results throughout 2016. The more audience sophisticated targeting, that mobile Remarketing lists for search ads is a feature usage, and social media integra- that allows advertisers to customize ads from tion become, the more crucial it is their search campaign to the people that to have a sound search strategy. have previously visited their site. RLSA is very effective and will continue to gain popularity in 2016 as part of comprehensive search campaigns. Search Marketing | 14 Marketing Analytics Measuring Your There is an old saying in business, “Half of my advertising is working. Marketing. tions is figuring out if and the effectiveness of marketing spend. In I just don’t know which half.” The big challenge for most organiza2016, all of the tools needed to properly track and measure marketing initiative are readily available. Better understanding of ad performance will prevent wasted time, effort, and money, and provide insight into how to reach more customers and convert them to your customers. When to Measure Any type of digital marketing should be tracked all the way through to conversion. What is a conversion? This varies from business to business, and advertising campaign to advertising campaign. Essentially, a conversion is an action or end goal. Every dollar spent on advertising should be attached to some kind of goal. Figuring out the goal isn’t the hard part, deciding how to measure that goal can be challenging. Beyond SEO | 15 Marketing Analytics Website traffic Conversion How to track Revenue Website analytics, such as Google Analytics, is the best way to track the customer path. Google Analytics is essentially a map of how users browse a website. It can provide basic information about site traffic such as, where they are coming from geographically, what browser they use, what device, what time of day they get there, which search engine or website brought them and what they did on the pages of the website, just to name a few. Google Analytics is the most used tracking platform. Tracking user behavior will provide a deeper understanding of what website conversion success looks like and useful insights into communication touchpoints with customers on and offline. So, tracking is important. Tracking user website activity should not be optional but mandato- Now what? are all trackable. There are even ways to track users who come into ry. Display ads, pay-per-click ads, organic clicks, social media clicks, the store and tie them back to digital advertising efforts. It is impossible to explain all the tools and methods in a single blog post, but knowing it is possible is the first step. But let’s face it, not everyone has time to truly master this and most business owners don’t. If this is the case, hope is not lost. Consider hiring an internal marketing specialist who understands the necessity of measurement or hire a company who makes smart marketing and accountability a habit and priority. Both of these will cost dollars, but any business that invests in smarter, more efficient marketing will save time and money in the long run. Google hosts helpful video tutorials to help you get started. So, install those pixels and start tracking. Beyond SEO | 16 You Should About us Alabama Media Group is a digitally-focused marketing, news and information company who operates AL.com, one of the country’s largest local websites, produces television and digital video programming, and publishes Alabama's three most prominent newspapers: The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and Mobile's Press-Register. Use these guidelines to direct your marketing efforts We also own Birmingham magazine, The Mississippi in 2016 and you’ll digital marketing solutions – including audience Press and gulflive.com; and offer advertising and be on your way to creating targeting, search engine marketing and social successful campaigns. analytics and event sponsorships. As a digital As with anything in the mine who their target audience is, what message is media optimization; plus creative services, data marketing partner we help our advertisers deter- marketing realm, the most important to them, and when their audience world of digital marketing demographic, psychographic and behavioral data is dynamic and always wants or needs to see it. We uncover their customers’ turning it into actionable intelligence. changing…and it’s only going to keep moving faster. Alabama Media Group is part of Advance Local, a leading media company comprised of 12 local affiliated news and information websites that rank Interested in learning more? #1 among local media in their respective markets and more than 30 affiliated newspapers known for Let us know – we’d love to their award-winning journalism. Advance Local is collaborate with you. Nast and American City Business Journals. part of Advance Publications, along with Condé [email protected] | 800.283.4048 www.alabamamediagroup.com