The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way businesses function. In the past year, more organizations have transitioned into the online business model. Not just that, many employees will also continue to operate remotely in a more hybrid working setup in 2021.

Last year’s radical responses to COVID-10 have given us fresh insights into game-changing digital marketing trends that will shape this year’s marketing culture. This blog will help businesses understand the digital marketing trends that will help them retain their existing clients and generate more leads, traffic, and revenue this year. We have singled out five areas where the savviest digital marketers have to focus their resources and time in 2021. Let us get started now.

5 Digital Marketing Trends Of 2021 Explained

Leveraging Social Media To Drive Engagement

In 2021, businesses should be ready to dedicate resources to social media marketing. On average, in the second quarter of 2020, social media took up to 24 percent of almost every US company’s marketing budget, which is a massive spike from a measly 13 percent last winter.

During the pandemic, marketers are prioritizing customer retention – a trend that will endure in 2021 as well. The thing is, the pandemic has skyrocketed the amount of time most people spend on the internet; this time usually includes researching products, organizations, and brands.

This type of consumer shift develops fresh opportunities for marketers to connect with new audience segments and boost their reach. Marketers are taking concrete initiatives to re-engage with existing customers as well.

For a couple of hundred dollars, a social media marketer will develop a proven content plan, post engaging content regularly through a business’s social accounts, monitor visitors, drive consumer responses, and attract new businesses. If a small business has been downplaying the importance of hiring a social media service provider, then now is the time to rethink.

Prioritizing Google Listings And Local SEO

A small business can attract more audiences by making its local listings verified and accurate across different search platforms. Small business owners who operate in a B2C model must make sure that their listings are intact; then only they will be able to draw more prospects.

When it comes to maintaining accurate local listings, businesses cannot deprioritize the importance of Google My Business or GMB. With GMB, a business will have to offer valuable information regarding its name, address, operating hours, etc., to the targeted audiences.0 By including geographically defined service areas into its local listings, a business will make sure it will show up in searches with the “near me” key phrases.

However, sometimes a business may feel that it is very unproductive to limit its service areas. Nonetheless, it is important to understand the fact that most search engines, including Google, prefer relevance in their algorithms.

That is why having defined a business’s service area will help it show up for any searches that are done keeping local markets in mind. When a business keeps its listings-specific data updated, it will quickly convey to its prospects and target audiences about any modifications in the business hours or any other upcoming promotions.

Communicating To Share Availability Status

As per a McKinsey report, the lack of availability of products or services is the key reason why customers switch their brand allegiance. Digital marketers can help overcome this challenge in a couple of ways. The most common solution is to quickly communicate the availability status of servicing hours or real-time stock levels.

Besides, companies should always set clear and reasonable expectations as far as sharing product or service availability goes. For example, if a business has high-volume items, it should make sure to put a banner on the site indicating when the key products will be back in stock.

Also, if a business is not collecting its customers’ contact information, now is the best time to gather this information and build a solid subscriber list. With a subscriber list, a business will be more proactive when it comes to notifying its prospects and customers about the availability changes.

Capitalizing On The Power Of Voice Search

As of now, voice search is not included in Google’s algorithm. Having said that, voice search is influencing the current search results, too. Moreover, voice search queries often deliver a different set of results when compared with text-based search queries.

That is why it makes sense for businesses to stay on their toes by incorporating voice search components. By taking this approach, a business will make its content consumable especially for those consumers who prefer voice searches instead of text-based ones. Experts believe that voice search has become such a big phenomenon that brands are readily developing content that is fully optimized for voice.

A business should craft content in a more conversational and direct way so that it can seamlessly get synced with the voice search queries. That way, a business will experience more traffic by remaining relevant to more consumers.

Building Interactive Content

Bringing interactive and informative content to its social media channels and website will help a business provide an incredible level of value to the consumers. Interactive content will help prospects engage well with the brand.

For instance, a realtor business will have to add an effective and free-to-use mortgage calculator on its website to experience a traffic surge. By providing a free mortgage calculator, a realtor will not only help visitors calculate mortgages but also glean important data about the prospects. This kind of information will eventually help fine-tune the buyer persona and offer-targeting too.

A few other proven examples of interactive content marketing feature quizzes, assessments, polls, games, surveys, contents, and interactive videos. Among these options, contents are a battle-tested way of astronomically boosting a business’s reach and visibility at a high pace.

The Way Forward

These digital marketing trends may not represent the whole list, though. However, if a business is starting to plan its digital marketing strategy for this year, these trends will definitely help it get started effectively.

Most CMOs and digital marketing managers can dramatically improve their chances of successfully doing conversion just by shifting resources to local search and social media. If these strategies are implemented well on time, it will design personalized content initiatives and boost customer engagement in the long run.

All in all, these trends will help businesses design and deploy a digital marketing strategy that will help boost site traffic, generate leads, grow sales, and expand the customer base like never before. Just in case catching up with these trends gets too overwhelming, a business should leverage the expertise of digital marketers. A digital marketing company will always have a proven track record of delivering result-driven campaigns.