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Top 10 Digital Marketing Trends 2014

Posted by Carol 01/20/2014 10:37 AM

The Digital Marketing landscape evolves quickly – faster than most businesses can digest.

Since we live in this space, we make considerable effort to stay abreast of trends so we can stay at the cutting edge and help our clients.

Here is a list of the top 10 trends.

1. Pay to play

With social media maturing and adopting different models to monetize their platforms, it is likely that you will need to advertise on social media channels to boost engagement not only with your fans but to also attract new fans.

We have noticed a lot more competition in the social media advertising space as more brands advertise in channels like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

This trend also follows reports that Facebook have reduced the organic reach of posts so so page posts are less likely to appear in the news feed.

With businesses investing dollars into resources to support social media marketing, it’s likely that more money will be spent to leverage and get the most of the investment. So advertising costs are likely to rise.

It also a good warning to businesses to ensure that they don’t put all their eggs in one basket.

2. Personalisation

This is the year, many businesses will focus on providing their customers with a more personalised experienced. It’s an issue I remember grappling with many years ago when I worked on Coles Fly Buys loyalty program. So much data, how do you harness it? Unfortunately, much of the technology and systems were not in place to support the data captured at the time.

Businesses are now catching on.

Recently, I’ve noticed businesses like Coles provide me with a more personalised experience. Offers that are highly correlated with your shopping preferences are now delivered to your inbox on a weekly basis.

I love it and have found myself shopping at Coles more frequently as a result. Businesses that can harness this early will reap rewards.

The use of CRM, analytics and other marketing automation systems will help businesses improve personalisation.

3. Multichannel

In 2013, Google made a major change to AdWords which effectively forced advertisers to go mobile. While Google was criticised for revenue raising, there were some clear trends driving behaviour.

Consumers are using multiple channels simultaneously. It’s not uncommon to watch a television program and then look on a mobile device after seeing an ad on television.

Its not uncommon for consumers to find you via their mobile phone (maybe when they are on Facebook) and come back later to complete a purchase on their tablet or desktop computer.

Your customers decision making journey is multi-faceted. It’s important develop a strategy and be in the channels where your customers are likely to frequent. That doesn’t just mean being in the online space either.

Multi channel might make measuring the effectiveness of your campaign more problematic but it also provides opportunity to understand your customers decision making  journey and adapt to their changing habits.

Increased used of mobile channels means its critical  to ensure that your website is fast and mobile friendly.

4. Increased investment in analytics

Because consumers are using multiple channels from when they start their decision making journey to when they end it, it is becoming harder to attribute the effectiveness of different digital marketing channels.

Google introduced Universal Analytics during the year to counteract this but applications for use is somewhat limited right now unless a business is prepare to invest in technology to support measurement. Earlier this year we attended a Google Analytics conference where an an example of visiting a ski resort was sited.

Whilst it captured everyone’s imagination of what was possible, it’s use in real life was somewhat limited without the having the technology to support it (just like it was when I worked on the loyalty program).

However, we believe that this will change as new technologies emerge and prices decrease.

Keeping abreast of technology will be key in helping make the best use of analytics.

Additionally, integration of analytics with other business automation tools like CRM’s businesses grow.

5. Focus on email marketing 

With Facebook organic reach declining, continued changes to Google’s algorithm, and the continued rise of social media, businesses will return to focusing on assets they own and extracting more from those assets.

This is where email marketing comes to fore. The obvious cost benefit is that it is cheaper in the longer term to communicate and upsell products and services with existing customers (provided you keep satisfying their needs) than it is to acquire new ones. 

Allocating resources to improve email marketing effectiveness will become a key focus in 2014.

6. Conversion optimisation

Undertaking a process of making continued incremental improvements to your website will reap dividends.

With advertising costs in both Google Adwords and Social media rising, increasing the rate at which people buy will become more cost effective than increasing your advertising spend.

eCommerce and businesses wishing to generate leads via their website stand the most to gain from conversion optimisation. Key areas of focus are improved user-ability, more effective copy and removal of friction during the checkout of form filling process.

7. Focus on Content

Google’s Hummingbird update and focus on semantic search has meant that many traditional SEO tactics are now ineffective. Google are simply getting better at filtering search queries.

Therefore demand for content that provides real user value will continue to increase. This means that focusing on the customer experience and their decision making journey will be critical.

Having a strong understanding of analytics, a deep understanding of your customer along with a content strategy will help you develop your online assets.  Doing so, will also ensure you reduce your reliance of borrowing and paying for other peoples assets.

Last year I heard a prediction at a marketing conference, that a large corporate business might end up paying millions of dollars for a fully developed YouTube channel that supports their brand values and has an engaged audience.

The benefit being that it is faster and costs less to acquire engaged  viewers than to develop a channel from scratch. The same is true of a blog.

The reality is that content can be considered an asset. Apart from positioning your business as an authority, it is an owned asset that could also be sold to interested bidders.

8. Mobile Commerce

There will be a focus on reducing friction and at the point of checkout.  The introduction of mobile wallets (which store payment and shipping details) could improve conversion rates on e-commerce site.

However, there may be some barriers to overcome – namely security of payments via mobile.

9. Real Time 

There are a couple of ways to look at “real time.”

One trend is that businesses want to be seen as being nimble and responsive. They want to empower teams to be able to respond and react on their behalf but also manage risk. Its only two weeks into the new year and we have two conversations with organisations about this already.

The second area of real time is the integration of real time events with social media.

Its not uncommon to see television shows like the Voice, Q & A or even Big Brother show Twitter comments in the lower part of the screen. The concept of real time will extend further with marketers looking at strategies about how they can leverage real time better.

10. Visual communication 

The growth of Pinterest, Instagram & even Infographics last year was a surprise to many but when you think about it, it makes sense.   Visual images offer the advantage of being about to be read and digested quickly and easily – especially at a time when attention is scarce.

Using images with content will continue to be a critical success factor – use images in your Facebook posts, blog posts, and whitepapers.

Want to learn about other trends. Here are some useful references: