4 Digital Marketing Trends Affecting Small Businesses
Digital marketing trends evolve rapidly and every year there seems to be a diverse set of trends impacting businesses. Technology is moving at such a quick pace, that it’s usual to feel like you’ve got a box of whiplash trying to keep up.
In order to develop a successful online marketing strategy, companies need to stay up-to-date on the latest trends. Here are four top digital marketing trends to keep an eye on as you plan and develop your small business marketing.
1. High-level Design and Usability Standards
If you have a website for your business, then what? For some companies, simply having a business website is still good enough but there is a higher significance placed on design and usability.
The first impression matters. Customers want fast and efficient experiences. Networks are boosting, but websites and apps must keep pace. A business website needs to be aesthetically attractive and have excellent usability, which means that your visitors must find the website user-friendly and eye-catching. Additionally, the speed of a website is becoming a more important aspect when it comes to search engine rankings. The loading time of a website is apparently an imperative part of any website’s user experience. Customers won’t wait for a website to load. If it is time-consuming, there are plenty of other places out there that can hit upon similar information and services.
Website performance affects the behavior of customers. Design and usability are fast becoming an indispensable part of marketing efforts because if users don’t like what they see they’ll leave and look for another. Make it trouble-free for them to find what they are looking for with a fast-loading site that is easy to navigate.
2. Social Media Audiences
Audience is the lifeblood of social media marketing. Small and local business depends on their local market for new customers. They build up a customer base and satisfied customers spread a positive marketing message to their extended network by word of mouth.
Nowadays, social media presents a vast opportunity for small businesses to grow an audience with no location barriers. Every successful business has grown to be familiar with their audiences very well. One of the advantages of social media is getting to know your audience easier than ever. It is quickly becoming an essential way to grow your business.
You may be wondering what all the fuss is about if you’re one of the few small businesses that are not yet plugged into social media. Is it really a need to use social media or can you just get by with an optimized website? The short answer is yes, you need social media – at least you do if you would like to reach customers and stay competitive.
3. Mobile Devices
People are increasingly accessing the Internet through mobile devices. Small businesses need to welcome smartphones with open if they haven’t yet because customers are not going to put them down any time soon. Mobile devices are playing an increasingly essential role in the future of business. Mobile has been promoted as the next big thing and today it truly is becoming the platform, the technology you should listen to. There is a higher demand for information and any company focused on providing that information has the opportunity to grow. If you want your business to grow, you have to reach more customers, and to achieve that you need to go mobile.
“Today’s consumers are using mobile devices to access social media and business sites,” says Chris Horton, a strategist for digital marketing agency SyneCore and author of The Small Business Field Guide to SoLoMo. “They’re roaming the streets clutching smartphones and tablets, looking for things to do or to buy.”
People who surf the Internet through their smartphones are frequently much less likely to try to decipher a complicated to understand marketing message than someone on a PC. If something is not instantaneously appealing or relevant to a mobile device user, they’re likely to switch to a new app or web page right away.
Smartphones allow users to access their social media accounts through some of the most popular apps on hand. It means that your marketing strategies must not only take the social media landscape into account, but they must also do so with the understanding that a lot of social media users will be accessing their accounts through mobile devices.
Remember, mobile marketing is developing every day which means you need not stop improving and adjusting your strategies accordingly for your business success.
4. Content-Driven SEO
For small businesses, marketing is definitely one of the biggest challenges. One particular area in which you need to pay extraordinary attention is content-driven search engine optimization, (SEO). There are strategies and techniques that are involved in Search engine optimization (SEO) that when used properly, increase the amount of people that come to your website via search engines like Google. Getting adequate content, and more importantly the right content, on your site is your content strategy. Business owners always need to try the latest, interesting, and interactive ways to promote their business. One of the best things business owners can do is to generate a good content strategy for their website.
Google has pushed out two major updates – Panda and Penguin – that transformed the emphasis on high rankings. Google and other search engines continue to replicate the importance of producing content that people find interesting. This means written words, videos, graphics and infographics, podcasts, blog posts, slideshows, and all kinds of content that will entertain, educate, and enlighten.