What are the motives behind trends and how do we identify them? It is a question that we often ask ourselves; as marketers, we may want to keep ourselves updated with the latest trends and news to make sure we are not missing out on anything.
This is important as we must make sure that our brand remains relevant to the customers to avoid them becoming obsolete soon to sustain our businesses in the long run.
Here, we summarized 5 marketing trends right now that you need to watch out:
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a powerful tool that can help to boost your brand.
Thus, finding the right influencer for your brand is very important because the influencer that you pick is going to be a reflection of your brand.
It is very important not to pick an influencer based on the number of followers they have on their page, but instead based on the conditions that are relevant to your product/service, target market, and also industry you are working in to ensure you are doing it right.
According to a survey done by Linqia, a content marketing platform, it is found that in 2017, 86% of marketers reported using influencer marketing, and of those, 92% said it is an effective strategy.
In addition, the survey also found that 39% of marketers will increase their influencer marketing budget in the annual marketing budget in 2018, something that we all should take note of this year.
Instagram stories
Ever since the introduction of Instagram for businesses, its new feature in August 2016, called Instagram Stories, a lot of e-commerce companies have started to use it and even in Malaysia, we could see about half of the businesses post at least one story each month because they don’t want to fall behind other brands.
Instagram Stories is an easy feature that allows you to post a picture or video for 24 hours before it disappears.
You can add stickers, texts, or filters to make your post seem more fun and interactive. It also surpassed Snapchat in 2017 when it became a more popular tool.
Online reviews
And of course, to ensure the customers are happy with their purchase.
Video marketing on social media platforms
Many users found that videos tell a much more compelling stories and it is more fun to watch videos on how-to than to read lengthy texts to learn more about a product or service.
It is important for marketers to highlight that they should produce quality video content for their customers this year, because even on YouTube, we can see that the numbers of ads are increasing whenever we want to search for a video or listen to music.
McDonalds has also been able to prove its effectiveness with their successful McDonald’s Spicy Fried Chicken Campaign with the tagline ‘There’s Nothing Like It’ in March 2017 by doing ads on social media such as Facebook in video format, YouTube, and Instagram as it moves people to buy the chicken.
Besides, video is also predicted to drive more than 80% of web traffic by 2019, which means it is becoming more popular these days.
Chatbots
In 2018, it is predicted that companies are going to rely more on chatbots to increase engagement.
This is because Chatbots have undergone some major changes and are much more intelligent than before.
You can also now program a chatbot to your needs. Therefore, marketers are now making ways in using bots for their marketing strategies, as well as, in providing customer support.
Experts even stated that 2018 could be the year of chatbots as they help to communicate better with customers deliver information and make quick and better response with them.
Conclusion
It is important to fully analyze all the marketing tools available to find out which ones work best for your company.
Be it influencer marketing, Instagram stories, online reviews, video marketing, or chatbots, make sure you find one that will help to increase your engagement and also generate your leads.
Also, by tapping into one of the above-mentioned strategies, you will ensure that you are not being left behind in the marketing game.
You can also check out our previous post on marketing trends.
