Top 5 Digital Marketing Strategies that every marketer should bookmark in 2017

If you haven’t yet firmed up your digital marketing strategy for 2017, this blog post is the ideal starting point. One of the reasons I am so passionate about the marketing industry is the anticipation of what new changes every year brings. As an ever evolving applied science, it continues to amaze me with its freshness.

So what are the top 5 digital marketing strategies for you in 2017 to bookmark and keep a watch on?

Get into Videos – That’s the new content king

Okay, right now long form content and infographics are the content choice of most businesses. However they are meant for low attention spans. Video marketing will become the best bet for users on the run. Video ad sharing has already been improved 63 times over the years. Part of the reason for this is the increase in technology, so everyone can view videos both at home and on the go.

Click-through is increased up to 300 percent when adding videos to emails.  Adding a video to your website increases the chance of a front page Google result by up to 53 times. Around 71% of marketing experts say that video conversion rates outperform other marketing content consistently. Audiences are 10 times more likely to engage with video content – share, embed or comment more than related social posts or text only blogs.

If you have been using Facebook you might have noticed the quiet launch of Facebook Live– the live streaming facility. All types of businesses can use live streaming to improve engagement with their Facebook followers. To get started on Facebook Live, simply click on the extreme top left “Live” button in your News Feed, write a short description of what your audience is going to watch and then start filming. Faceboook Live is going be most effective digital marketing strategy of 2017.

Embrace new social media channels – Snapchat, Instagram

While there remains a place for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, new social media channels will allow you to reach consumers in exciting and new ways. Additionally, new channels allow you to explore more creative methods of explaining your stories and conveying who you are.

Instant Articles on Facebook, Instagram Stories and Snapchat provide companies and even professionals a channel to experiment and target specific group audience. The snapshot will be one of the most effective channels for brands to connect directly with consumers in creative ways. Snapchat, not only has the capacity to build a user base rivaling those of the main channels listed above, but it also has the capacity to build enough influence on users the way other platforms do.

It’s easy to engage audience on Snapchat because of its engaging visual factor. Because it’s a personalized app, it’s easy to tailor campaigns according to your set of audience. According to Business Insider report, around 58% of youngsters are likely to purchase a product if the brand sends coupons to them on Snapchat. Especially in case of e-commerce sites, sending offers and discounts is easier on Snapchat, along with a catchy image or a video.

Curious to learn how to leverage these trendy social media channels to improve your user base? Join Social Media Marketing course 101, a short but valuable online social media course and guess what, you have to sacrifice just 1 hour for this.

Follow interactive content – Stop blowing your trumpet!

As a marketer, are you in the habit of developing and creating content that highlights your company, business or strategic ideas at the top of the search engines? Great! But now don’t do it anymore.  This year you need to step out and think about your reader’s desires, worries, fears and needs. Readers expect real ideas out of you that are well written with mix of interesting ideas and thoughts. Although SEO is important, but don’t forget to highlight your readers’ needs first and then consider Google page Rank. Instead of using keywords to drive more traffic from search engines and their algorithms, use keywords highlighting your points and draw readers by providing information that is valuable to your audience. This should be your modified digital marketing strategy of this year.

Quizzes, ROI calculators and interactive infographics help you describe your brand’s story in a more dynamic fashion.

 Tune into Data Visualization Tools

Being marketers, data is our lifeline. We consistently need quantitative information to inform us who is buying what, when, why and which particular messaging is most effective for them. But even data analysts face problems, analyzing what data are exactly saying; our brains weren’t made to process vast amounts of raw numerical data. Now, technology is finally catching up with “interpretation” part of data analysis. Already, this year, there are dozens of data visualization tools in the market, so start using them.

These tools are perfect to harness data and present it an aesthetically-pleasing manner for a quick diagnosis.  One can find many data visualization tools in the market, but one of the most highly diversified data visualization tools is Tableau, my personal preference for this year.  It is available in five versions (Desktop, Server, Online, Mobile, and free-to-use Tableau Public).

Leverage Mobile Messaging apps

One of the must apply Digital Marketing Strategy for modern marketers is definitely allowing users to communicate with contacts in a space outside of public social media networks (Such as Facebook Mobile Messenger, Snapchat, WeChat and Whatsapp). For all those brands who want to connect directly with consumers in an informal, intimate setting, then this is a great way to do so at scale.

The two biggest messaging app – WhatsApp & Facebook Messenger are ad-free zones, but brands are free to set up accounts to chat directly with customers. Messenger and Whatsapp are likely to evolve as hubs for brand-based services. They can provide valuable data about what consumers are interested in and what they are buying, that would help fuel Facebook’s advertising. Expect mobile messaging app owners to inbuilt new options for reaching consumers via their platforms in 2017 as usage continues to grow.