Marketing trends to watch this year

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DIGITAL MARKETING GURU’S

7 MARKETING TRENDS TO WATCH THIS YEAR Marketing has evolved so much over the years. Digital marketing plays a vital role when working on the marketing strategy of any brand or product. And digital marketing in itself has many aspects to it, so how do you keep up with the ever changing trends and plan ahead? Don’t worry, we got you covered. In this report, we are going to present the hottest marketing trends for 2018, that you should watch out for and plan ahead.

Video Marketing Last year, i.e. 2017 was huge for video marketing. This year, it’s going to be bigger. Remember, Facebook filling your NewsFeed with nothing, but video. Also, their recently launched video program, to possibly counter YouTube. This just shows us the strength, and power of videos. People are more likely to consume content which is in the form of a video, rather than a podcast or a blog post. Companies now incorporate video marketing into all aspects of their customer experience. In fact, video marketing is projected to account for 80% of total internet traffic by 2020. If you are missing out on video marketing until now, don’t wait any further. Create videos and visual content, and see your traffic and sales go up.

Chats and Chatbots Waiting for customer support has always been a terrible experience for customers. Thanks to chatbots, i.e. the Artificial Intelligence powered live chat tools, customers can receive immediate responses to basic, repeatable questions. As this technology advances, we can expect to see more companies embracing chatbots to improve their online presence and customer support.


Stories and StoryTelling It’s basic human nature to love good stories. So, it’s easy to see why so many brands are focussing on craftins stories in their digital sphere. With social media evolving from a traffic generation channel into a customer engagement platform, companies will seek to delight customers through creative storytelling and transparency about their brand purpose. Suppose, you have some amazing stories to tell about you, or your brand. How much difference would it even make, if you don’t even have the right audience for it? You need a decent amount of social media following, be it Instagram followers, or Facebook Page likes or Twitter followers. If you don’t have a large audience, then you should go for services like the S ​ MM Panel Indian​, which can help you grow your audience in the cheapest and most effective ways.

Rising Costs of Social Media Marketing(SMM) and Social Advertising Gone are the days of organic reach providing steady traffic, and engagement. Now, companies must advertise on social media in order to gain any traction. It’s really hard to get all that organic reach, and thousands of likes and subscribers without spending any money. Social Media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, continuously update their algorithms to kill the organic reach, so that advertisers spend more and more on their advertising platforms. With the increase in number of advertisers on each social media platform, the costs for advertising have been rising, and brands must either increase their Social Media Marketing(SMM) budgets, or find new channels to raise brand awareness. However, there are still some services like the S ​ MM Panel​, which help you in your efforts to increase brand awareness, get decent social media following at cheaper costs.

Growth Hacking Growth Hacking is rapid experimentation across marketing funnels, product development, sales segments, and other areas to identify the most efficient ways to grow a business.

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Growth Hacking remains at the top of mind for entrepreneurs looking to grow and scale their businesses quickly. For 2018, expect to see marketers explore SEO and video marketing as growth hacking methods.

User Generated Content Customers trust one another’s experiences and opinions more than advertisements or celebrity reviews or endorsements. This is one of the reasons why so many brands are turning to user generated content to boost sales. I personally check Google reviews, when booking an appointment say for a haircut or with a dentist. If you haven’t leveraged this form of content yet, adding testimonials and reviews to your website, or Facebook pages or Google Maps, is an easy way to jump on this trend.

Interactive Content Gone are the days when companies could simply upload plain text blog posts and receive massive traffic. To engage users in 2018, brands will have to use more interactive forms such as quizzes, polls and videos in their content marketing strategy. This is not a definitive list, but if you do follow the trends mentioned in this document, it’s surely gonna help your marketing strategy in 2018. There are some other trends as well, which we might have missed. It’s you ultimately, who has to plan and identify what will work for your brand, and what won’t.

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