The last two years have put businesses through many hardships, from having to close doors to incorporating new ways to interact with customers. They’ve forced businesses that were on the fence about building a digital presence to adapt or, unfortunately, be brushed aside. The digital world has also seen many new marketing tactics move into a more prominent role. In this article, we are exploring the top seven tactics you should consider incorporating into your marketing strategy.
Micro-Moments
Over the years, there have been many trends regarding new and improved ways to target and show ads to potential customers. Traditional advertising channels, such as the newspaper, phonebook, and radio, rely heavily on putting messages out to the masses and show ads to everyone, regardless of their want or need for the product or service. Those methods are now taking a back seat to other technology-based media due to the increased usage of laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. Now more than ever as marketers, we can put our ads in front of potential customers at specific micro-moments. Micro-moments are stages in a customer’s buying process.
Customers act on their needs within these moments, and their expectations are high and patience is low. This makes the user experience more important than ever.
How should you make the most out of these micro-moments?
- Discover your customers’ “I want to buy” moments.
- Get in front of them during these moments.
- Deliver relevant content.
- Make it easy to convert them to a customer.
- Measure every moment that matters.
Improve Google Search Results
Google introduced a new BERT system, which is designed to help Google in its effort to understand the natural language that people use in search queries. This means, even if your company was ranked steadily at “number two” in organic search results, following this update, it’s possible you won’t be found until page three or four! We are not trying to scare you; we are just simply stating the worst-case scenario. The update isn’t penalizing your site for SEO issues; it is, however, finding more relevant results for the searched keywords. This means that rather than chasing the latest SEO trends, you should focus on your site speed, useful links, and well-written content.
For more on this, please reference our blog post on these Google algorithm changes.
Content Marketing – Blogging
Based on our last trend with the update of the Google platform, content marketing/blogging can play a huge role in your company’s marketing strategy.
Stats from Content Marketing Institute:
- Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing and generates 3x as many leads.
- Content marketing has lower upfront costs and deeper long-term benefits than paid search.
- 615 million devices now use ad blockers, which means your ads are not being seen by as many people.
- Small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads than those without blogs.
- Content marketing rakes in conversion rates 6x higher than other methods.
With Google placing a higher value on well-researched, regularly updated articles, many leading businesses will continue to invest heavily in content marketing long past the pandemic.
Long-Form Content
In 2022, posts with at least 3,000 words attract the most traffic. This allows content creators to brand themselves as experts and for more space for targeting keywords. A study from Search Engine Journal indicates that long-form content gets 77% more backlinks than short articles, which is critical for driving organic traffic.
Benefits of long-form content:
- Longer time spent on your site’s pages. The more content available for users to consume, the more time they’ll spend doing so.
- A decrease in bounce rate. If users find what they’re looking for on your page, they won’t go back to Google to find another source.
- Backlinks and a ton of social media shares. Pillar pages get shared widely and often, especially among influencers in a given space.
- Consistent traffic throughout the lifetime of your blog or website. Pillar content is evergreen content, so its value doesn’t diminish over time.
- A high Google ranking. The high word count, shares and backlinks will all contribute to improved visibility on Google searches.
Omni-Channel Marketing Strategies
As mentioned above, consumers are inundated with hundreds, if not thousands, of advertising messages each day. According to www.clicksz.com, for your company to cut through the noise, you must incorporate a consistent voice across all mediums, including store signage, your website, social media and catalogs.
Benefits of omni-channel marketing strategies:
- Engagement rate: 96% on omni channel vs. 5.4% on single channel
- Purchase frequency: 250% higher on omni channel vs. single channel
- Average order value: 13% more per order on omni channel vs. single channel
- Customer retention rates: 90% higher for omni channel vs. single channel
Zero-Click Search Results
The days of typing a question in the search query bar and clicking on the top answers are a thing of the past. Google rolled out a new part of their algorithm called zero-click searches.
These refer to search results that appear at the top of the page and answer the query, allowing users to find relevant information without making any further clicks. As seen below, the question is answered without any further clicks to a website.
There are three primary types of featured snippets:
Things to focus on when creating content for featured snippet content include:
- Producing quality content
- Incorporating question-style keywords
- Using imagery
- Incorporating facts and stats
- Using one of the snippet type structures listed above
- Including an FAQ page on your website
UGC – User-Generated Content
Does your business want to target the elusive Millennial and Gen Z markets? By encouraging your audience to share unique content by offering them an incentive, discount or partnership, you can quickly increase brand engagement and drive conversion rates. Utilizing your consumer base will help ensure people discover your products and services. These generations trust others like themselves more than they trust companies. A recent survey found 90% of shoppers reported that UGC influenced their decision to purchase more than any other form of advertising. Ninety-seven percent of 18-29-year-olds said their peers had an “extreme influence” on their purchasing decisions.
This content can include comments on social media, blogs about products, testimonials, and videos. We are seeing more engagement from businesses looking for those “real” consumer influencers.
Due to this trend, influencer marketing is growing rapidly! How many times have you been scrolling through your social media feeds and come across a well-known person in your interest circle promoting a product? Odds are you notice it without being aware of what they are doing. From girls promoting a type of makeup they use to a hunter promoting a type of apparel, these influencers can play a large role in a company’s marketing. Many companies will look for a person to which they can attach their brand based on a large social media following. These companies will be automatically seen by the followers the influencer has built up over time. This can be very beneficial when trying to get in front of a very targeted audience.
Video Marketing
Out of all of the trends we’ve listed above, video may be the most important and has ties to all of the other trends. With content shifting to more mobile and “on-the-go” devices, new ways to reach your audiences are a must. Video is your answer! Since these mobile devices have relatively small screens, it may be hard to read fine print or full-size articles. More and more companies are using video to explain their products and services. Now, just to be clear: The written word isn’t going anywhere. These videos need skillfully crafted descriptions, titles and scripts/subtitles, which are all searchable by search engines.
In most cases, when typing in a search in Google, a video will be displayed relating to your search. Sites that include video are 50 times more likely to drive organic search results compared to text. People find video content more compelling. Therefore, Google pushes pages that include videos up the ranks.
One of the best things about video marketing is that it makes it easy to reformat your content. Instead of just putting it on YouTube, you could also:
- Get it transcribed so you have a text version of the video.
- Publish the transcription in you blog under an embedded YouTube video for better rankings.
- Upload the raw video with the transcription as subtitles to Facebook. Videos uploaded directly to Facebook garner a greater impression share and more engagement than shared YouTube videos.
- Turn the transcription into a standalone blog with a short rewrite and the addition of relevant stats and images.
- Convert the audio, and use it as a podcast episode.
- Use video thumbnails in your email marketing campaigns and the word “video” in subject lines to increase open rates by 19%.
Another video marketing trend that is getting increased traction is live video. Live video is popular with a large number of businesses who use it for interviews, product demos and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the brand, such as life in the office, how products are made, company events, etc.
The social media platform Instagram may also be veering from its days of imagery and moving to video-based content with the growth of their Reels media.
Each one of these strategies can play a vital role in helping your business make it through the current state of our economy. If you are struggling to implement these into your marketing efforts, Baer Performance Marketing can help. Drop us a line or give us a call, and we can bring your online presence up to speed.
