Aaron’s Top Nine Digital Marketing Trends For 2021

Without question, so much has happened this past year. Many of these events have drastically altered the Digital Marketing landscape. From changing consumer habits due to the pandemic to Google updates, those changes are surely here to stay. What worked early last year may not work today. The same could be said when working with different types of clients.

With that being said, Digital Marketers should take note and work to adjust to these changes. In Digital Marketing, it’s all about adapting to constant change and being flexible in changing your online outreach strategy. When it comes to trends, there are nine trends we as Digital Marketers need to get ahead of. Let’s take a look at these, shall we?

Voice And Visual Search

Today’s consumers are looking for easier ways to find what they’re looking for online. At the same time, they’re also looking for more convenient ways to do that as well. They would really love it if they didn’t have to type or leave their couch. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that voice search has become more important by the day.

The same can be said about visual search. The infamous saying that ‘a picture means a thousand words’ has become truer today than it has in the past. When it comes to visuals, marketers need to focus on image alt-text and sitemaps to ensure success. As for voice, they need to focus more on conversational keywords as opposed to computer text. For more tips about optimizing for voice search, check out my previous blog post here.

Experience Marketing

Experience Marketing (EM) has also become an evolving trend to look out for in 2021. This talks about how customers define how businesses respond to them and not vice versa. Every customer touch point – online reviews, web chats, surveys – turns into opportunities to discover vital insights to enhance the customer experience (CX).

That’s why you want to go further than just traditional feedback methods than just metrics like the Customer Effort Score (CES). While these do tell you how happy customers are, it doesn’t tell you what to do with that information. EM does that via these three ways.

It deepens the reach of data mining across customer reviews and survey responses.
It develops insights in seconds via machine learning.
It alerts the right people and uncovered patterns in customer data.

This helps teams to move quickly and make more informed choices on how to improve that CX.

User Generated Content (UGC)

When it comes to content, online consumers are much likely to trust that of regular folks than they do traditional advertising. Consumers today crave experiences with brands that are enjoyable and inspire them to take action. They also want proof before they buy and want to make sure that they’re making the right choice.

UGC helps build communities, relates to regular folks, and allows brands to meet their customers where they’re at. On top of that, it goes a long way in helping brands generate lots of content. UGC not only helps provide that social proof brands. It also helps build relationships with customers. With that said, brands should consider making UGC part of their online marketing strategy.

Reputation Management

With what has happened during this past year, It has become increasingly important to manage your reputation online. Whether you get good or bad reviews, you always want to respond to them promptly. It’s not a deal-breaker for potential customers if your brand gets a bad review. It all comes down to how you respond to it. The best way to respond is by showing that you’re committed to resolving their situation

One thing you should never do is try to game the system by creating fake reviews. That never ends well as customers look to multiple review sites to ensure that a certain brand is legit. Customers also check to ensure that brands will positively advance their cause. The best way forward is to listen to the customers’ concerns and work towards a solution that best benefits them. By going this route, they’ll view you more favorably and you’ll be more likely to end with a great review.

Personalization

In today’s online world, people prefer brands that best relate to them and are more human. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from you if you provide them a personalized experience. That same HubSpot study also states that 99% of marketers say that personalization helps advance customer relations.

Whether you’re starting an email marketing campaign or creating web content, you must keep these stats in mind. Work to tailor that content to better meet the specific needs of online consumers. Also, don’t be afraid to share your story. After all, people love stories that speak their minds and make them feel that your brand relates to them.

That’s why you want your content to be relatable to your audience and not just about your brand. That’s how you’ll be able to stand out amongst the crowd online and gain good-paying customers.

User Experience (UX)

Without a doubt, it’s vital to give your online audience an excellent user experience (UX). This means that you need to do several things to make that happen.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Up To Speed

Site speed is a key factor when it comes to consumers choosing to stay or leave a site. Each second matters in this case. If your site takes too long to load, people will leave your site for your competition. That’s why you need to work to make sure that your site is up to speed. The GTmetrix Speed Test is a great tool to use to check your site speed and will give you details on how to do so.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Seamless Across Devices

You always want to make sure that your site is easy to navigate across all devices whether it’s mobile, desktop, or tablet. This means that you need to do these three things to make that happen.

Use responsive design to allow your website to adjust to the screen size of the device being used.
Make your content easy to see.
Ensure that site users don’t have to pinch to zoom in.

By keeping these steps in mind, you’ll help ensure that the UX of your site will be very good.

Content That Is Easy To Consume

In this day in age, people are always on the go. With that said, making your content scannable and easy to read is vital. This means work to create content that is easy to read via a standard reading level. You must have a Flesch Reading Ease Score between 60 and 79 to achieve success. To go the extra mile, aim for a score of 80 or higher.

The Ease Calculator helps check your score and guides you while you write your content. Grammarly also helps you make your content easy to read for your readers. It also helps you catch mistakes you thought you’d never make.

Here are some tips below on how to make your content easy to read.

Make your paragraphs no more than 3 to 5 sentences long.
Divide your content with sub-headers and make sure your H3 headers are below the H2 ones.
Add bullet points as needed.

Also, use the Inverted Pyramid writing style. This is where you put your key points at the beginning and then work to entice readers to read more. With this method, your readers will be able to better scan your content text and be able to derive value. This makes it more likely that they’ll take the actions that you want them to take.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing will be even bigger this year compared to last year. As mentioned earlier, today’s consumers look to brands that are authentic, human, and can relate to them. Study shows that 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than they do corporate ads or celebrities. That’s why brands should take note of this and make influencer marketing part of their plans.

When considering influencers to partner with, go for those who would best relate to your brand. It can be tempting to court macro-influencers like baseball players but that might not work for your brand. If you’re a smaller brand, you should consider micro-influencers. They may have a smaller following but they are cheaper and would do best at relating to your audience. All this is vital to keep in mind when considering influencer marketing.

Link-Building

Link-building is an essential part of any brand’s Digital Marketing plans. With that said, it will only work if you don’t cut corners and actually use this practice to build relationships. One thing you never want to do is to seek links that are not relevant to your brand’s cause. You also don’t want to buy links either. Those type of Black-Hat SEO tactics makes you look spammy and loses you credibility with your audience.

The best way forward is to seek links with others who will best benefit your brand’s cause. It will help you build trust with your audience and gain credibility with the search engines. Once again, Quality over Quantity is the way to go with link-building as is the case in other marketing situations. It will be a win-win scenario for both you and your linking partner thanks to your disciplined approach to seeking high-quality links.

Consumer-First Strategies Help Transform Your Brand For The Better

There’s no doubt that putting the needs of your valued consumers front and center is key to success. It will also help you overcome these fast-changing trends and help you stand out amongst the online crowd. This will also help you in your quest in helping your brand become that next great story. With that said, keep these nine trends in mind and you’ll help transform your business for the better.

What other Digital Marketing trends should brands keep an eye out on in today’s online world? What other strategies should brands adapt to grow their online presence and ensure success? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this article and share your thoughts below.

Three Tips To Improve Your Online Reputation Management

Online Consumer Searching For Products — Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

When it comes to today’s online world, consumers today are looking for brands that they can trust. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen brands both big and small make today is not paying attention to the needs and concerns of the online consumer. In other words, they’re taking them for granted, and in this competitive online world, that is a difference maker in determining whether or not consumers will do business with your competitors. A great way to combat that is with a little something that we like to call Online Reputation Management (ORM). ORM is the online practice of shaping public perception and reputation of a business online. With that being said, we will now go over three key tips that will help your ORM flourish for the better.

Respond To Reviews

One common mistake some brands make is that they ignore reviews and don’t comment on them whether they’re good or bad. This can make the impression that your brand isn’t human and could care less about their customers. No brand wants to have that happen to them so responding to reviews is crucial. In fact as ReviewTrackers has reported, 52% of customers expect a response from brands within 7 days after leaving them a review, especially reviews that are negative. When you receive a positive review, make sure to respond to it in a way that shows appreciation towards your customers. When you receive a negative review, make sure to respond to it in a way that shows that you’re taking responsibility and showing commitment to resolving their inquiries in a timely and efficient manner. By doing those things, they would be more likely to do business with you in the future and recommend others to do the same.

User-Generated Content

Another great way brands can improve their online reputation is with User-Generated Content (UGC). This strategy is a winner as 70% of consumers consider UGC when making their purchasing decisions. This just comes to show you that what consumers trust the most before making their buying decisions are their peers. A great way to make use of that UGC is to highlight those positive reviews along with testimonials in order to help your brand stand out in a big way. If you really want to go the extra step in accomplishing that, invite one of your customers to do a video testimonial like Dove did.

Molly Burke Testimonial For Dove

Video is of the most easily consumable forms of content for potential consumers. Dove sure went the extra mile in highlighting how Molly Burke had a positive customer experience with them. This type of content will help your brand stand out towards your customers in a positive way and the search engines will reward you for it. The best SEO is indeed what I like to call “People-Based Marketing”.

Influencer Marketing

When it comes to Influencer Marketing, it can help bring quality results to your ORM strategy. Influencers aren’t not necessarily celebrities but they are people who have a decent-size following on social media and are much more in line with the persona of today’s consumers. Having an influencer on board in helping get the word out about your brand can help increase your brand reputation and online presence. After all, 8 out of 10 consumers have purchased a product or service as a result of a recommendation by an influencer according to a study by Rakuten Marketing [4]. This comes as no surprise as online consumers are much more likely to believe the recommendations of their peers than they would traditional advertising. It all comes down to finding the right influencer that best resonates with your brand. By doing just that, you’ll be on your way towards success online.

Consumer-First Strategies Help Your Online Reputation

When it comes to ORM, it is similar to dating. Only difference is that you’re working towards building relationships with many people. You have to always work each day towards building that relationship and do it in a way that shows care towards the needs and inquiries of the consumer. Like in any relationship, it takes so long to build and can only take mere moments to destroy. With ORM, the importance of being proactive in ensuring that you always build trust with your consumers because without trust, you have nothing. People may think that ORM is small but in reality, it’s a big deal. These three tips that we just went over will help your brand make that next big step in improving your online reputation. By adopting a consumer-first strategy, you’ll be on your way towards success with your ORM and eventually, a loyal consumer base.

Aaron’s Top Six Digital Marketing Trends For 2020

Two months have passed and already 2020 has been a year of big time events . That is especially true when it comes to the Digital Marketing industry. Already we’ve seen some impactful changes that affect how we reach our target audience. What may work yesterday may not work today so Digital Marketers should definitely take notice and prepare to adjust to changes. After all, the Digital Marketing industry is all about constant change and constant adjustments to your online outreach strategies. When it comes to trends, there have been many but there are six Digital Marketing trends that we as Digital Marketers should take notice of. Let’s look at these, shall we? 😉

Influencer Marketing On The Rise

In recent years, we have seen the rise of Influencer Marketing in a big way in comparison to corporate advertising. People these days look for brands that are authentic and relate to them in a more personalized manner. In fact, 63 percent of consumers trust the opinions of influencers than they do corporate advertising that makes it about the brand. When it comes to reaching out to influencers, it is important to reach out to those who would be more relatable to your brand as opposed to focusing on macro-influencers endorsements. If you’re a smaller business, definitely consider micro-influencers as your go to when it comes to reaching your ideal consumer.

Dark Social Becoming The New Thing

Dark Social is absolutely becoming another rising trend in this day in age and no, there’s not gonna be a Zombie Apocalypse coming to take over the world. Dark Social is a term used to describe website referrals that go through private social media platforms that aren’t trackable by analytics programs. According to a survey of 3000 US and UK internet users, dark social apps are used by 63 percent of people to share content. Both younger and older generations have been using Dark Social in increasing numbers so it is important for brands to join in on the fun and to do so in an authentic manner. For more information about how to properly use Dark Social, I welcome you all to view my latest article here.

Mobile Friendly Sites Are A Must

With people on the go these days, it has become increasingly important for businesses to ensure that their websites are up-to-date and up-to-speed on both desktops and mobile devices. People want great user experience on websites and want it fast. If your website takes too long to load, your potential customers will leave you for your competition and your page ranking in the search engines would likely drop. In fact, your bounce rate will go up the longer your website takes to load as witnessed in this study by section.io. Online users are likely to visit a lot more pages when page load time is 2 seconds compared to 8 seconds. Definitely work to have your sites up to speed while also ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly either by responsive design or adaptive design.

Voice Search Is Becoming Increasingly Important

Without a doubt, today’s consumers are looking for newer and more convenient ways to search for what they’re looking for. They especially would enjoy not having to type in their search or even leaving their couch to order something. With this in mind, it is no surprise that Voice Search has become increasingly important. In fact, half of all searches will be via voice by this year with 52 percent of people keeping their voice-activated speakers in their living room. [E] This is important for people of all age groups so it has become important for brands to include voice search in their Digital Marketing strategies going forward. By doing that, they’ll be ahead of the game in meeting the increasing demands of today’s consumers.

Reputation Management Is A Must

When it comes to Reputation Management, let me just say that this is a big deal in today’s online world. With people increasingly viewing online reviews as a big factor in their purchasing decisions, brands must look to build trust with their target audience. One of the biggest ways to do that is to respond to comments and reviews whether they are good or bad. In fact, 78% of people agreed that brands who respond to reviews and comments made them believe that they care about them. Brands both big and small should always work to respond to comments and reviews in a way that shows that you’re committed to the needs of the customer while making them feel at home. After all, that’s how you build and maintain relationships with your ideal consumers.

Personalization

Last but certainly not least when it comes to my Top 6 Digital Marketing trends to keep an eye out in 2020 is personalization. In this day in age, people prefer brands who are authentic and relate to them. In fact, 80% of online consumers are more willing to do business with brands who provide them a more personalized experience. Whether you’re starting an Email Marketing campaign or developing your online content, it is always important to keep these stats in mind when it comes to tailoring your content in order to meet the individual needs of the consumer. Don’t be afraid to share your story to your audience. People love stories that speak their mind and makes them feel that they relate to your brand. Your content should focus more on others and not just about your brand. That’s how you compete and that’s how you Win Big in today’s competitive online world.

Change Happens For The Better

There’s no doubt that the preferences of consumers have changed and when that happens, so will the way we as Digital Marketers reach out to those consumers. It is crucial to always be on top of online trends and be flexible to change in order to meet the demands of today’s online consumers. In today’s fast-changing online world, authenticity is the name of the game when it comes to attracting and retaining your ideal online consumers. Authenticity is how you compete in today’s online world and it is how you become that next big thing. By keeping these six big Digital Marketing trends in mind, you’ll be able to achieve great successes in attracting those valuable consumers and Win Big in today’s competitive online world.

What other Digital Marketing trends should we keep in mind in today’s online world? What role does authenticity play in the success of brands? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.

The Importance Of Influencer Marketing Today

There is no question that the nature of today’s online world is shifting towards more consumer-centered ideals. What that means is that online consumers want to hear less from brands about what they’re selling and more from brands about how they relate to them and their needs. In other words, authenticity is the name of the game when it comes to building relationships with online consumers. This is a big reason why Influencer Marketing is on the rise and is a great way to get ahead in today’s online world. In this article, we’ll go over the top reasons why Influencer Marketing is important and how one can use it to get ahead in today’s competitive online world.

It Has Become The New Norm

There’s no doubt that Influencer Marketing has basically become the new norm. In fact, 92 percent of consumers around the world have stated that they trust earned media like recommendations from friends and family over traditional corporate advertising according to a study done by Nielson. People these days can’t stand brands that attempt to shove sales jargon down their throats. What they want to hear from brands is how they can help them solve the problems that they face. In other words, online consumers are into brands that resonate with them and are caring about the ordinary people. This is a big reason why Influencer Marketing has become ever so popular today and isn’t going anywhere too soon.

Finding The Right Influencer

When it comes to trying to use Influencer Marketing to get ahead in the game, we must first know what we’re looking for in an influencer to potentially work with. We must do some research and ask these three questions:

Will they fit in with a brand and the vision that it has?
What role will they play in helping a brand accomplish their objective? Will they fit in with a brand and the vision that it has?
Will this potential influencer resonate with the brand’s target audience?

By answering these three questions, you’ll have a better picture on how to plan out your online marketing strategies. When it comes to influencers, there are three types of influencers listed below and what they’re best described as:

Mega-Influencers- Typically have at least 1 million followers and tend to be celebrities like Beyoncé, Chicharito and Alex Morgan for example.
Macro-Influencers-Typically have somewhere in between 10K to 1 million followers and tend to be journalists, bloggers and other people who share their passions with the world.
Micro-Influencers-Typically have less than 10K followers and tend to be ordinary people like you and me.

Now when it comes to selecting the appropriate influencer to reach out to, it all depends on who you are, what type and size of business you are and what you’re looking to accomplish. Corporations with room to “splash-the-cash” like Gatorade for example tend to go for those Mega-Influencers like they to Kevin Durant and Dwayne Wade for example.

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For small businesses, especially those who are more limited on advertising cash, you might be better off investing in either Macro or Micro-Influencers. They’re less costly and are much more likely to resonate with your brand as they’re viewed by online consumers as a more trustworthy source. One thing that every type of influencer has in common is that they’re more likely to respond to you if you show interest in what they do and offer something of value to them. Always important to keep in mind to always reach out to them in a professional manner and ensure that it’s a win-win situation for both sides in order to lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships with potential business partners.

Putting Your Influencer Marketing Strategies To Work

Now when it comes to actually putting your influencer strategy to work, we must work to connect with online consumers in an authentic manner. The way we go by doing that is to obviously know who your target audience is first. Once you’ve figured that out, find out what the passions and interests of your target audience are and work to tap into their passions. A great example of that is when Nike partnered up with Megan Rapinoe and the USWNT to run a commercial inspiring women to strive for their aspirations and to shatter glass ceilings in order to advance women’s rights in this country.

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Nike without a doubt built inspiration among women and all those who are passionate in wanting to see women succeed everywhere including myself. Another important note to remember is to consider the feelings of how your target audience would react. It’s always recommended that you don’t try to relate your Influencer Marketing campaigns to controversial topics. If you must, proceed with caution and analyze your target audience to ensure that your current and potential consumers don’t get offended. Strongly recommended that you always focus more on the passions of your target audience.

Another great way to up your game in Influencer Marketing is to feature your influencers in consumer testimonials. A great example of that is when Dove featured an actual consumer in Molly Burke on how their products gave her a positive new experience as she faced blindness.

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This is definitely a great way of using Micro-Influencers like Molly to showcase how their products can give them that totally new feeling that one never experienced before. As mentioned earlier, when an ordinary consumer like Molly has this kind of positive experience, they’re more likely to be trusted by potential consumers more than traditional advertising would. Without a doubt, Influencer Marketing campaigns like these two can go a long way in advancing your brand or cause in a positive way.

Influencer Marketing For The Win

With the increase of Influencer Marketing in today’s online world, there’s no question that businesses from small to big need to get onboard as the future of advertising will depend on Influencer Marketing. Always important to remember the kind of target audience you plan to reach out to, figure out which types of influencers would resonate with your target audience and work to capture their attention by tapping into their passions, interests and emotions. With this type of formula in planning out your Influencer Marketing strategies, you’ll no doubt have great successes in making your brand stand out in an authentic way and lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships with your current and potential consumers.

What do you feel is key in using Influencer Marketing in advancing your brand and/or cause? How has Influencer Marketing influenced your decision to consider a brand? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.

What Makes A Successful Marketing Philosophy In Today’s Fast-Evolving World Of Digital Marketing?

Every single day, I’m curious about everything. Curiosity is finding answers to things.
-Mickey Drexler

When it comes to today’s online world, things are always changing in a rapid manner. Some changes are small while others may hit us by surprise. If you’re a business (especially a small business), it’s always important to take a proactive stance and be on top of your game when it comes to your online advertising campaign. In this article, I will describe three good steps to a marketing philosophy that will lead to a more success in today’s fast-evolving world that is Digital Marketing.

Research Industry Trends

Being on top of industry trends is critical for every business of every size but it’s especially important for small businesses. This makes the difference between whether you’ll become an industry leader or get left behind by your competitors. A big reason why many well-known retailers have gone down under of late is failing to adjust according to industry trends. They’re late to the game when it comes to researching the external environment while also working on their weaknesses in adjusting to the changing industry trends. For example, Sears failed to get ahead of the game when it came to e-commerce. They didn’t capitalize on the opportunities the online world would have provided them whereas their competitors did. Eventually, their failure to do their research when it came to the online word eventually led to their downfall. This is just another reason why being on top of industry trends is crucial in order to be ahead of the game and remain a competitive force in your industry. Fortunately, you can get ahead of the game by doing many things such as reading business newspapers and online articles each day, hearing from industry experts, and most importantly, knowing your target market which now brings us to the next step in having a successful marketing campaign.

Know Every Detail Of Your Target Market

It’s not enough to just know who your target market is. We must also know what their behaviors, preferences and exact needs are. Otherwise, all you’ll have in your Digital Marketing playbook are Hail Mary plays and that obviously wouldn’t be an effective strategy. A great way to find out every detail about your target market is to figure out which social media platforms they hang out in and observe how they interact. From there, you can figure out what their preferences and exact needs are. If you’re marketing to a younger audience for example, you might want to try Instagram or a Dark Social platform like Snapchat. Also, don’t go immediately for a sell. Instead, show them what value you have to offer them based on their needs that may lead to a sale in the future and never be afraid to use videos to get the attention of your audience. On the contrary, today’s online consumers love videos as studies have shown just that. The name of the game when it comes to success in today’s online world is authenticity. The days of the “One Size Fits All” approach are gone. We must always learn to tailor our online advertising campaigns based on the individual needs of the customer. By going the authentic route, your campaign will see much better results.

Test Out Your Marketing Campaign

You know what industry trends that your business faces and you know everything you need to know about your target market. Now, it comes time to put your marketing campaign up for the final test before officially launching your online advertising campaign. There are various ways to test out your marketing campaign but I found out that the best way to test out your marketing campaign is by Split Testing or as many Digital Marketers call it, A/B Testing. What A/B Testing basically means is that you’re putting two elements of your campaign to the test to see which one of those two resonates better with your target audience. Just like when you’re researching your target market, you must also learn to tailor your testing based on the areas you feel where your campaign needs work. In other words, don’t be too general in your testing. Dig deep into your testing and look into the specific aspects you feel that your campaign needs feedback in. If for example you want to test out how you communicate to your audience, you might want to test out your messaging strategies and figure out which one of those two will resonate better with them. Remember to ensure that the length of your testing is not too short or too long in order to get more accurate results and better understand which elements of your campaign work and which elements need work. By investing in A/B Testing, you’ll see much improved results in your online marketing game than you would have without it.

A Recap Of A Winning Marketing Philosophy

Having a great marketing philosophy is key to planning out your online marketing campaign. It gives you an idea on how to lay out your road map to getting your audience to notice you and eventually lead you to increased sales. To recap this article, we must always be on top of industry trends each and every day, know every single detail of your target market while knowing what their exact needs are and test out key aspects of your campaign to ensure maximum success when it comes time to launch your online advertising campaign. As Maya Angelou would say, “When you know better, you do better.” A disciplined marketing philosophy like this one will go a long way in helping you stand out to the crowd in a positive way while also saving you value advertising money and eventually help increase your sales in the long run.

What do you feel is a recipe for increased success towards a successful campaign? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to post your thoughts below.