Building upon the computing and online marketing changes of 2014, 2015 has ushered in a number of new strategies, which extend last year’s approaches. New online marketing developments include: the rise of mobile computing, social media as a necessary online marketing tool, online marketing strategies which focus on personalization and online sales tactics which focus on a global big picture.
In particular, three areas of practical strategic focus are critical for 2015’s online marketer.
1. In 2015 Social Media marketing is a dominant strategy.
As a group, Millennials are highly social and tend towards group-based decision-making. They tend to read online reviews at sites and of persons, which and whom they know and trust, as a major part of their buying process. Companies which focus on promoting their products on well designed social media pages, using techniques which encourage end user interaction, such as videos, pictures, which redirect to further interactivity endpoints and that lead their visitors to complete meaningful interaction tasks and steps with their websites, which could be anything from subscribing to a newsletter, promoting product awareness, answering a survey or outright purchasing their product, will maintain a strategic advantage over businesses which don’t invest, or don’t invest much, on promoting their products online using social media tactics.
And, given Google’s release earlier this year, which revealed that mobile site search has caught up with desktop search numbers, you’ll need to make sure that your site is mobile friendly, too.
2. Personalized marketing is the new wave to ride to higher sales.
Omni-channel marketing became a major buzzword in 2015 for online marketers. This new focus goes far beyond basic demographic segmentation, ie., multi-channel marketing.
In omni-channel marketing, the focus is to create a memorable experience in a way that reaches different prospects uniquely.
This process begins with measurement and tracking of your campaign’s analytics, in the context of what your marketing goals are. From there, begins the evaluation process of determining whether you met your goals which may have been enlarging your audience, increasing product awareness and informing new customers, or has the campaign resulted in low-interaction clicks resulting in no meaningful interaction with your website’s visitor.
Every marketing campaign should be measured in terms of the dollars expended relative to the benefits returned. Whatever has been the case, whether your campaign has produced the results that you have desired or not, is relevant data to build upon.
Highly personalized content is the key. And this content comes from a 1:1 marketing ROI strategy which focuses on your customer. It is data collection through omni-marketing channel approaches which builds upon social media marketing models. Getting to know your customer to such a level that you are able to actively engage him or her with your product will drive newer omni-marketing approaches.
For instance, providing a subtitling / captioning service for your social media video content would allow you a foot in the door reach into markets where English is not the primary language.
3. Multiple strategic approaches to various online algorithm rankings.
Besides the ever-changing, highly undisclosed Google ranking algorithms, it’s important for today’s online marketers to understand how Facebook, Bing and Pinterest, for example, process your customer’s search requests.
Long tail keyword Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has proven highly effective at allowing companies in niche markets to reach customers looking for their products. The research returns well in terms of search engine results ranking. Similar approaches need to be employed in social media and related sites which are becoming increasingly commonplace as well as necessary.
Conclusion
2015 has been a year that has seen many developments which have helped online marketers where they’ve been implemented; but has left late game implementers with steep learning curves which must be mastered quickly. While it’s uncertain what exactly the future will hold, one thing is certain personalized marketing strategies that build on social media and tactics which refine your company’s ranking in the various online venues in which it will be searched for by your customers is here to stay.