In between the many permanent fixtures of digital marketing in 2020 are upcoming trends maximizing clicks, sales, engagement, and attention from consumers. As a reaction to new behaviours and tech in the marketplace, trending strategies are proving to be incredibly advantageous to new and existing brands looking to increase market share.

Just like the rise of smartphones forever changed the way we market roughly a decade ago, there’s all sorts of new trends in digital marketing that are setting business growth on fire in 2020! Though these won’t apply to every brand, there are certainly at least a few strategies here to employ in your next campaign. Here are 13 digital marketing trends in 2020 to watch for.

13 Digital Marketing Trends in 2020 – A Look Into New Tech, Strategies, and Consumer Behaviour

Is AR or VR better for digital marketing?

Augmented reality and virtual reality are go-to digital marketing components, already used by IKEA, Michael Kors, Starbucks, Nivea, L’Oreal, and Volkswagen among other brands. Last year was the technology’s biggest market year yet, and in the months to come the value of VR and AR marketing is expected to grow to $200 billion. The biggest downside to using VR and AR is affordability, with most small businesses priced out. That said, with popularity and adoption hopefully will come lower costs in the future.

Is mobile targeting the best digital marketing strategy you can have?

Forget about desktops. All the digital marketing growth from consumer clicks, $$$, and engagement is more or less happening on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets. Targeting mobile goes beyond the minimum which is having a mobile responsive website. Consider SMS marketing, time-sensitive emails that correspond with a mobile campaign, traditional social media, non-traditional messaging apps like WhatsApp, and more.

Do you use AI in your digital marketing?

A lot of brands are already using various forms of artificial intelligence in their marketing or customer service. AI chatbots, for example, are used by small businesses and corporations alike. This year, it’s been predicted up to 25 percent of customer service jobs will be handled by chatbots. If you haven’t yet delved into the category of AI in digital marketing, chatbots are an excellent introduction.

Why is social media where your biggest investment in time should be?

The average social media users spends 135 minutes every day on networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and others. This year, social media will continue giving back massively in ROI. If you don’t yet have a dedicated digital marketing team and campaign for social media, here are some keys to get you going.

 Unique, relevant posts.
 Have conversations with followers, responding to comments.
 Use Facebook as a customer service avenue.
 Collaborate with influencers on social sites to find new audiences and increase recognition.
 Launch user-generated content campaigns that aim to increase awareness.
 Be personal, authentic, and real.

Why are social messaging apps so popular?

Social media platforms build engagement off public posts. Social messaging apps are advantageous for people who prefer one-on-one conversations and personal interactions. WhatsApp, Facebook Messager, WeChat, and others find more users spending time on them. Brands, with permission, can directly message customers and provide them time-sensitive promotions, personalized messaging, and add value to their experience with your brand. If anything, evaluate if there’s an opportunity in your local region to make an impact with messaging apps like these.

Is voice search as intuitive and preferred as it’s made out to be?

Over half of consumers already use voice assistants, the vast majority on their smartphones. Traditional Internet searches, move away from that. Think about voice search SEO with what consumers are asking their smartphones for. Consumers are asking questions, with long-tail keywords. SEO focusing on answering the type of questions voice search asks set up a website and brand for the future. The further we move into 2020 and then 2021, 2022, etc., voice search will have an increasing influence on how we search engine optimize websites.

What type of influencer marketing should I get?

Influencer marketing takes accounts with high engagement and/or large amounts of followers, and allows brands to advertise directly to these accounts’ followers. There are influencers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and elsewhere. The right influencer marketing strategy is to use micro-influencers which hold a higher value in several ways. Influencers with 1,000,000s of fans generally are more general accounts where you aren’t going to be able to successfully target audience. Micro-influencers are more affordable and though they hold a smaller amount of followers, oftentimes these followers are more engaged. Instead of looking at follower counts, engagement metrics are where to look in judging if an influencer opportunity is worth it.

What percentage of Internet traffic does video account for?

Video marketing’s popularity is exploring, with brands taking advantage of the fact that consumers love video more than any other type of media. This year, video will account for approximately 85 percent of all Internet traffic. In digital marketing, brands will want to invest themselves in a regular schedule of highly engaging video releases. High quality videos mean more conversions, delivering information directly to the consumer, and is arguably more appealing to today’s audiences than basic text.

Is live video a strong digital marketing strategy?

Live video continues to grow in small bursts but still only makes up less than 15% of video consumption. This doesn’t mean you want to ignore it though. Live video is interactive, an opportunity to ask questions and build rapport with your followers, and is a great relationship builder. While non-live video can be expensive to produce, live video doesn’t have to be so calculated. In fact, it can be something as simple as transmitting video from your smartphone camera!

What kinds of interactive content can I create?

Consumers want to engage with brands in unique, exciting ways. They don’t want article after article all the time. Mix it up. The more content types and interactive the better. In terms of interactive content, there are plenty of opportunities to create such with polls, animated infographics, quizzes, contests, assessments, and online voting. Interactive social platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have built their audiences off of interaction. Anything you can do to make things more exciting to interact with your brand, followers will come away from an interaction remembering the experience – that’s the important part.

Is email marketing still worth it?

Email marketing remains an intelligent, high-ROI strategy. Brands who work on acquiring subscribers, segment those subscribers into target markets, and who nurture those relationships. Emails are a great way to inform others about new products and services, promotions, any happenings or news, and more. An art onto itself, a solid email marketing campaign’s a key component in many digital strategies.

What is personalized marketing?

The more personalized the content is, the more happy the user’s going to be. Using data accumulated from consumer behaviour, recommend personalized products or services, use names in email and social media interactions, segment and give content that’s most likely to appeal to them, and more. Look at how Netflix or similar brands are doing personalization. You have an opportunity to give to every user a brand experience that suits them best, all based off data such as cookies, prior purchases, and other information gathered over the course of a customer-brand relationship.

What is the most diversified digital approach to marketing?

Multi-platform digital marketing that goes beyond the networks of Facebook and Google is advantageous to brands looking to capitalize on opportunity. Testing platforms, you may find unique targeting options that reaches millions of users. As wonderful as sites like Instagram, Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn can be, they are not the only networks available. More specialized forums and up-and-coming social sites are trending as a strategy to nab targeted audience on the periphery of these much larger platforms.

Are you looking to heat up your digital marketing in 2020 – contact an expert today at UE. Discover strategies in social media, SEO, email, content marketing, video, AIs, ARs, and more!

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1119-13-digital-marketing-trends-in-2020-%E2%80%93-a-look-into-new-tech,-strategies,-and-consumer-behaviour.html

LinkedIn boasts a massive user base of professional-minded people, brands, B2B sales opportunities, and more. Have you ever used it to do some old-fashioned cold-pitching – most haven’t. Sadly, though an effective sales strategy, this style of cold-calling or ‘direct marketing’ isn’t taken on by many.
We advocate for a re-think to anyone who has dismissed this type of old-fashioned sales technique. It may not be the most advanced or trendiest strategy for LinkedIn but it gets you results. In fact, big rewards exist for those who make the effort to gather new prospects, pursue leads, and focus on getting the word out. No matter what you’re selling, LinkedIn social selling strategies can help you boost engagement. Here are some tips, tools, and guidance on how to sell on social media the right way.

How Can I Use LinkedIn for Social Selling – Re-Interpreting a Classic Sales Approach

What is social selling?
Social selling is cold-calling prospects to find leads. It’s a classic lead generation technique, focused solely on generating interest and leads. This used to happen in the form of calling individuals from the phone book or door-to-door sales. On LinkedIn and other forms of social media, this selling’s done a little differently.
What are some facts about social selling on LinkedIn?
 62 percent of B2B buyers respond positively to a salesperson providing them with opportunities and relevant insights.
 75 percent of B2B buyers use social media platforms like LinkedIn prior to making a final buying decision.
 76 percent of B2B buyers will leverage recommendations from their personal networks in making purchasing decisions.
 Sellers who adopt a ‘social selling’ approach, compared to those who do not, experience on average 19 percent faster growth in sales.
 Social selling brands create up to 45 percent more lead opportunities than their non-social selling counterparts.
 LinkedIn is the #1 social selling social media platform in the world, exceeding ROI on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and elsewhere.
Is social selling effective on LinkedIn?
If you want leads, social selling will get you leads on LinkedIn. Social selling can be the start to building a relationship you eventually turn into a sale. Social selling works because it gives a connection to interested parties in your field. You can share information, let them know you’re there, educate or help others, and create conversation.
How can I use a LinkedIn profile for B2B social selling?
On LinkedIn, you get to see your customer’s contacts, their interests, ‘people also viewed’ and more. Use this information to get a sense of who’s out there, who’s most likely to respond in a positive sense to your message, and where to take your social selling on LinkedIn. Set up some saved searches where you get email alerts on new results as they come up. Monitor your professional network for potential lead opportunities. Publish your content marketing posts on LinkedIn and Slideshare as a way to establish authenticity, authority, and expertise. These all create the perfect setting on which you can cultivate leads.
What are some social selling tools to help me on LinkedIn?
There are over a half-dozen high quality social selling tools to use on LinkedIn to help find and grow leads.
 LinkedIn Sales Navigator will help to keep track of what’s happening in your network, offering contact recommendations in real-time as well as monitoring who visited your profile.
 eLink Pro is a great way to find new leads based on simple keywords. Put your keyword in the finder and it will connect you to matched profiles. eLinkPro also has a Twitter feature, allowing to do something similar with this other platform.
 Leadfeeder monitors web traffic and can be linked to other Analytics modules you may maintain. Leadfeeder’s best purpose is to help determine why some leads aren’t converting. Although social selling’s all about lead cultivation, this sort of follow-up is key to ensure the efforts put forth at the front end isn’t being squandered further down the sales funnel.
 Detective is an AI – that’s right, an AI! – that will help your lead generation efforts with automated browser searches. This can help give you info on certain data sets, hopefully enhancing the quality of your pitches long-term.
 Nimble is an app that centers on data aggregation, helping save you time and effort in identifying patterns and a way forward on future lead generation strategies. Nimble encompasses many research categories, if you allow it, and is well worth experimenting with.
Do you have to use social selling on LinkedIn?
Social selling on LinkedIn takes you into waters you wouldn’t otherwise find yourself in. It encourages you to reach out to people you may not otherwise connect with and see if there’s opportunity there. There is both good and bad social selling. The best social selling strategy on LinkedIn is reaching out to people who are the most likely to turn into a lead. We know it sounds obvious but it’s worth saying. You wouldn’t go selling vacuums to households exclusively of hardwood flooring. Find the most qualified, the most likely people to respond positively to your product, service, and brand. Know your audience.
How do I create the perfect social selling profile on LinkedIn?
An empty profile can really hurt your social selling numbers on a platform like LinkedIn. For this reason, always ensure your profile’s filled in and that you’re making regular posts. Content marketing plugs in here and plays a key role. If you aren’t consistently generating your own content, you can also keep a profile active by curating and repurposing others’ work. A mix of self-generated content and posts curated from other places is a smart approach. This will communicate to people who don’t know you that you’re a real and active brand.
Can I do social selling on other social media platforms other than LinkedIn?
Although social selling’s most closely associated to LinkedIn because of the platform having a high success rate, you can absolutely apply this approach to other sites as well.
 LinkedIn may be the recommended channel for B2B digital marketing but there’s also Pinterest which is perfect for eCommerce brands. A lot of users use Pinterest for future purchase ideas which makes it an important platform for anyone in fashion, art, house wares, or similar categories.
 Facebook is the most widely used social media platform which means it has the most competition. Facebook and social selling don’t go hand in hand, at least from a ‘cold calling’ perspective but it can still be a great relationship builder.
 Instagram is a great platform on which to target the under-30 audience. In terms of social selling, the rules are a little different and care must be taken as not to spam accounts. Another very tricky platform to operate from a social selling standpoint.
 Twitter is a great place for time-sensitive, news-driven, in-the-moment connections. Maximizing Twitter’s social selling resources will take time and effort, precisely why most dedicate their marketing resources elsewhere.
How do I know when to convert a lead from social selling?
It’s a fair question but there aren’t really any ‘convert a lead’ times when we’re discussing relationship building in digital marketing. As you cultivate a lead, if there are relevant sales opportunities, you can certainly present these to them. That said, social selling’s all about the relationship. Once you have the lead, if you can demonstrate you have something of value, eventually those that are interested will make a purchase. As with any type of sales, you can’t force it. All you can be is present, as a sort of facilitator. All in all, anything you do offer to a lead should have value to them. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time and possibly turning off your prospect.
Social selling and other LinkedIn digital marketing strategies can grow your business or brand in short, sustained bursts. If you have the ability to dedicate a part of your marketing to B2B social selling, it’s worth it.
Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1118-how-can-i-use-linkedin-for-social-selling-%E2%80%93-re-interpreting-a-classic-sales-approach.html

From an early age, we are told stories. Those that resonate with us at an emotional level are remembered and they come to transcend into something more meaningful. When we’re discussing social media marketing strategies, and in particular those that work the best, it’s storytelling which plays a key role in many of them.

The ability to tell a story can involve many things. For some, it’s a simple beginning, middle, and end. For others, it’s about introducing a conflict and resolving. It can be a moral lesson, entertainment, abstract, or strongly emotional. When you’re building a brand on social media, your ability to tell a story should be front and center. When a user sees a brand as more than commerce and a representation of something with true meaning – that’s when they click, convert, and start to associate themselves with a brand.

Are You Using Storytelling on Social Media – Tap into Emotion and Self-Need

What’s the best storytelling strategy for social media marketing?

You social media posts should deliver a rich message, delivered in a story. Seeing the same sort of sales pitch that every other brand like yours has isn’t going to win you as much attention as telling a story. But what story do you tell – well, one that resonates and that hinges on who your audience is. Your story also must be authentic which relies on you and what your company represents. The best stories connect a real, truthful company message to the interests and emotions of the intended user.

What type of social media marketing content can I use to tell a story?

Social media posts comprise of written posts, blogs, video, images, infographics, and more. Everything you post should have its own mini-story to it. Think about how a piece of content supports or represents your brand. If you can hook people with a story or a series of stories surrounding a product, service, or focal point of your brand, you’re already on the way to accomplishing your goal which is ultimately to get their click, whether that’s in the form of a comment, follow, like, share, or otherwise.

What’s the most effective piece of social content to post?

Video receives the most likes, shares, and comments of any type of content on social media. Analyzing why, one very quickly comes to the conclusion that two things are happening. First, consumers want video. For most, it’s their preferred content type. Secondly, video shows storytelling, it doesn’t tell it or dictate it. Video communicates a level of emotion in an interpretation that a written post or blog cannot match. Although you should use a diverse collection of post types when working on your company’s social media, don’t be shocked at video consistently outperforming other content.

How do I know my social media content is good enough?

If every second counted, would you write or create content any differently – an important question only because every second does count. Assume your customer is ready to click elsewhere when they land on your social media post. Do you have enough excitement to effectively capture their attention and keep it there – with every post, aim to be better. Every second in a video and every word on a post counts. Make it clear, inviting, engaging, and encouraging a click.

How can I inspire my own creativity as a social media storyteller?

On the spot, you might not be able to come up with a story that delivers your message. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of inspiration out there, especially if you’re an established company. Here are some areas to look for, on what storytelling devices to use on social media.

 What’s the story of your company? How did your company come to be? Outside of successful sales and revenues, a brand has got to stand for something. Tell the origin story behind you, your company, where the idea came from, and the good it puts into the world.
 How does your product or service cure a problem – that’s your story. Can you write a mini story of 3 lines or less around the concept? It can be pure fiction as long as it’s communicating the right message. In a sense, you’re drafting a script for your user to see themselves in.
 What is the true meaning of a product or service? Ask yourself how a product was initially created and for what purpose. Connect with the bare essential idea that motivated the invention of a product or service.
 What’s your genuine cause? If your brand is partnered with a charity organization or initiative, this sort of philanthropy is a strong brand-building strategy. Share the true stories behind the good you’re putting out in the world through your products, services, or donations to a cause of your choosing.
 How does your product or service fit into the lifestyle of your consumer? If you know your audience well enough, you should have a firm grasp on their wants, needs, and lifestyle choices. Whether they are parents, families, athletes, pet owners, homeowners, businesspersons, students, or otherwise, write a story that fits you into their lives.

How do I know my social media marketing is working?

Look at your social media analytics page. You should see the amount of likes, shares, and comments there. If there are a certain category of posts that are generating more activity than others, you know that it may serve you better to put future posts under that category. Comparatively, if you find that no social media marketing posts are getting clicks and you don’t know what to do, your entire strategy may need an overhaul. If this is the case, don’t be discouraged. Success comes and goes on social media, with even the most successful brands eventually having to pivot to new approaches. This just becomes your latest transition.

How can I use storytelling on social media to get me more followers?

If you really want to make an impact with storytelling, don’t keep it to the usual channels. As wonderful as short, succinctly worded social posts are, you also want to occasionally share pictures and graphics, engage in more dynamic features like launching a live stream, or promoting a social media contest. Anyone who wants new followers should look at fresh ways to connect with your existing user base because it’s your current followers that are your most effective strategy at growing that base. If there’s passion and fun in your fan base, others won’t think twice about engaging with these sort of messages either.

What’s the best way to be authentic on social media?

Although we wouldn’t advocate for anyone to focus exclusively on ephemeral content, it receives high points on the authenticity scale. If you feel like you want to go the extra mile in providing your user base with authenticity, one of the best ways is through unrehearsed momentary storytelling on live video or through content opportunities like Snapchat Stories, Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and elsewhere. This content disappears after a certain time which means you can be a little looser with it. Being a live video, you also don’t need to invest much in a professional production. Ultimately, this is a fine way to create social media user relationships and foster intimacy on a limited budget.

How can I get users attention with a social media marketing campaign?

Be interesting. No one likes dull, boring content. They want something that’s going to cause laughter, make them shed a tear, or get them to think. If you can reach your users at a base emotional level, you increase the likelihood of a click many times over. Look at the feeds of companies that use social media well. A lot of it is storytelling. Find your unique voice and tell stories with it that make a true connection to your audience.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1117-are-you-using-storytelling-on-social-media-%E2%80%93-tap-into-emotion-and-self-need.html

“My website isn’t ranking. Can you help?” We get this question all the time. So you’ve created one heck of a website, packed with engaging content and keywords in what you’ve been told are all the right places. Yet, for some reason, your website is nowhere to be found on Google. You’re not getting the clicks you want and the clicks you are getting don’t relate close to keywords you’re targeting.

SEO is harder than it seems. It’s not just about publishing quality content and a fast, mobile responsive website. Plenty of other variables come into play – a lot you can control but others which cannot. You’re working against competition as well. If you think you deserve a higher ranking than what Google is providing you, let’s look at reasons why your SEO isn’t working and how to fix them.

Why is My SEO Not Working – See the Reasons Why and How to Fix It

You aren’t link building

The more high quality websites you have linking to your site, the more authority and legitimacy you’re giving yourself in the eyes of Google. Sometimes in SEO we don’t target links or comparatively, we target low quality links. These don’t work. Enact a link building strategy that focuses on high quality links. Once you’re supporting your website with good quality links, this demonstrates to search engine crawlers that you’re worthy a high rank.

You chose keywords without researching them

It may seem obvious what keywords you want for your website but choosing keywords takes research. You’ve got to look at where a keyword is ranking, its competition, and judge its relevancy to you and your other keywords. By analyzing keyword performance via apps like Majestic, Moz, or Ahrefs, you can find out a lot about what’s most likely to generate a return. Opportunities aren’t created in SEO – they’re found. To find them, you’ve got to plug into data, research, and using these types of programs.

You’re publishing too much content

Let’s be clear – it’s not the quantity of content that is of concern, it’s the quality. When websites publish a lot of content more or less all at once, most of the time, the quality of content is low. Unless you’re sure what you’re publishing is high quality and unique, be careful on how much content’s being published. It makes more of an impact when you publish less content that prioritizes quality, rather than publishing an overabundance of content where none of it is valuable or unique.

You’re not optimizing the design of your content

A certain type of content marketing tends to rank very well on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. If the writing quality is outstanding on your content, this isn’t necessarily enough to get a promising ranking. On-page optimization in design has got to be prioritized as well.

 Any inbound links embedded in the content should be quality ones.
 The length of content should be 1,000-2,000 words, instead of 500 words or less.
 Subheadings under H1, H2, and H3 subheading tags can be used to further emphasize keywords.

You’re using an outdated SEO approach

SEO is not a concrete, static strategy. Search engine optimization changes every time a search engine like Google changes their algorithm. This makes it so that SEO strategies which worked in 2005 may not necessarily produce the same results in 2020. Even year to year, things are in seemingly constant change. This is why many websites prefer connecting with an SEO expert, digital marketing team, or experienced SEO professional. In that, they have a stakeholder monitoring the latest algorithm changes and speak in the SEO community, ensuring your site is established, coded, and written in a way to maximize its potential for success.

Your web design structure and coding isn’t optimized

There’s a lot of technical effort that goes into creating results-driven SEO digital marketing campaigns. Even if what you’re doing on the page is spectacular, if the technical code isn’t managed, your effort could be in vain. Here are some basic technical keys to a quality SEO campaign.

 Titles that are written with high-value keywords in concise, natural language.
 Create an XML sitemap so that Google can easily find and index web pages, as well as to avoid duplicate content issues.
 Meta descriptions are fully written with keywords embedded and no longer than 160 characters.
 Alt-tags with keywords are used at every opportunity, no longer than six words.
 URLs should be keyword-rich and no longer than 100 characters long.

You’re knowingly or unknowingly using black hat SEO practices

Black hat SEO strategies are dated and going to get your site penalized. Black hat SEO are comprised of techniques that some marketers use to cheat the system. Though once very prominent, these days, black hat SEO is always eventually found and when it is, it’s the website that pays the price. Black hat SEO strategies include maintaining private blog networks, paying for links, spamming links, stuffing in keywords, or using hidden text. This is considered wrong and unethical. Don’t pursue this method.

Competition on your target keywords is very high

When competition is high on keywords, the more work you’ll have to put to rank. A new brand shouldn’t be targeting high-competition keywords because you haven’t yet built a website equipped with the authority to take the challenge on. You’ll only be constantly defeated by popular websites with more age and authority to them. The solution evidently is to target SEO keywords with less competition, short-tail and long-tail both. This will help get you ranked on keywords and from there, you can continue building your equity as a website.

Your content is a let-down in quality and misusing keywords

Content that’s poorly written, being stuffed with keywords, and which isn’t relevant to the keywords you’re trying to rank for is the worst thing you can do for your SEO. A ranking website should have high quality content that’s written well and free from grammar mistakes. The discussed topics should always be relevant to the brand’s long-term goals as well as the target keywords. Over-stuffing keywords is also bad practice that could result in big penalties on a website’s SEO. If you’re unsure about why you’re not ranking well on Google, consider your content’s quality simply may not be there to justify a higher ranking than what it’s already received.

You have multiple pages of content that are similar

You may unknowingly product near-duplicate content with multiple pages written with similar content. This often happens when we are designing location-based landing pages or with keyword-specific pages. Duplicate content is a big mark against your SEO on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Every page has got to be unique and original.

You don’t know what your SEO objectives are

When we think SEO is not working, we may think this because we don’t have enough sales, revenues, conversions, email sign-ups, etc. The purpose of SEO marketing is to get the click-through. Once a customer’s clicked, the impetus then is on the website to convert. Choosing objectives for your SEO campaign, be aware of the limitations of search engine optimization. Brands and websites will find more can be accomplished when there’s investment in digital marketing as a multi-channel strategy with SEO being one channel of several, as opposed to counting on SEO exclusively.

You’ve got technical errors you didn’t even know about

When you connect with SEO experts and they conduct an SEO audit on your website, they complete an analysis to find if there are technical issues present. A lot of common technical problems that are found in these audits include improper redirects, slower than average page load times, mobile errors, and unintentional blocked pages. If they haven’t coded the site themselves, a lot of site owners may not even be aware these issues exist. Thankfully, they’re an easy fix.

Source: https://unlimitedexposure.com/basic-digital-marketing/1116-why-is-my-seo-not-working-%E2%80%93-see-the-reasons-why-and-how-to-fix-it.html