Bell bottom pants and vinyl are two that immediately come to mind. However you say it, the one thing you can say about trends is that they tend to come and go. There are some that stand the test of time (and eventually earn the term "classic") however most trends have no rhyme or reason and for most businesses, it is important not to hop on every trendy bandwagon that comes along.
Digital marketing trends are no exception. In fact it was only a few years ago that people were sounding the death knell of Facebook - especially following the recent scrutiny over concerns about how the data of its users is shared with third parties. In response to the question "Is Facebook still a good place for businesses to reach customers?" Readers of the San Diego Union-Tribune answered a resounding yes.
While there are many aspects to digital marketing, we would like to give you a couple of ideas to kick around with your marketing team.
Authentic Reviews
The trend for authentic reviews for 2017 is almost impossible to ignore as reported by Bright Local:
- 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017
- 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
- 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose a business
- Consumers read an average of 7 reviews before trusting a business
"Fake news" has been the catch phrase for 2017 raising the red flag for consumers in placing trust in a business. That same Bright Local study shows that 79% of consumers claim they have read a fake review in the last year and 84% worry about being fooled by a "fake review."
How can your business earn an authentic review
Ask customers and clients for reviews
Never ask for a "positive" review, or suggest what to say, tell them you are looking for honesty
Manage your reviews by responding to reviewers
Contact us about how we can help
Videos
If you don't think a video can help with your digital marketing consider this: 55% of people in the world watch online videos every single day.
mushroomnetworks.com reports that YouTube processes more than 3 billion searches a month and 100 hours of video are uploaded every minute making YouTube the 2nd largest search engine. It is bigger than Bing, Yahoo!, Ask and AOL combined.
Humans are "hard-wired" to have more honest interactions with visual information. It seems that in addition to our need for face-to-face contact, we love videos.
How can your business begin creating video content
Start small: a 15-20 second video focusing on your product is a great place to start. While your potential customers are looking for quality content with in-depth blog posts, their attention span is decreasing. What? Your customers want more content (and you need that content for higher Search Engine Optimization) but your audience has a short attention span. The way to get their attention is via video.
Know your audience and where they are: Should you be posting video to a YouTube channel or another platform? What might work for your business is embedding video on your website or in email newsletters.
Test: Is that the audience you want and are your visitors watching the entire video. Contact us to see how we can help you monitor the engagement and performance.
Perhaps it's not in your budget to utilize some of the same solutions that the large businesses are experimenting and using, but there are affordable tools to help you make smart business decisions and personalize the content for your audience. We can help you with all of your digital marketing needs - from web design and hosting to video, product photography, graphic design and copywriting. Let us be your complete marketing source including printing!
Give us a call and we will be happy to help you make the right choice. You may find it's time to donate the bell bottom pants to Goodwill and that Amazon can deliver a turntable replacement stylus. Old is the new New.
