It’s that time of year when the thought leaders put forward their take on what will be trending in 2017. These always make for interesting reading, but remember to consider them in context of how realistically they can boost business for you in 2017.
Smart Insights are a reliable source of what digital trends are the ones to watch particularly as they they crowdsource and canvass opinion widely to ascertain the true importance of these techniques. Here’s a short summary of their results for the year ahead.
Smart Insights Digital Trends
Top 10 digital marketing trends for 2017
1. Content marketing – more businesses are employing a strategic approach to content marketing, there are more examples of rich content with interactive marketing apps feeding into personalised data that can be dynamically responsive to a visitor’s profile.
2. Big Data – is about market and customer insight and predictive analytics; Big Data presents an opportunity to increase sales through personalisation on a website and clever email marketing that’s driven by predicative analytics.
3. Marketing automation – a top trend in recent years, yet still has potential to be improved by using more applications of a CRM or capabilities of automated web personalisation – ensure you know the knowledge gaps to get the best results.
4. Mobile marketing – this embodies mobile advertising, site development and mobile apps; despite the increased adoption of mobile responsive websites the conversion rates are still low on smartphones, so brands need a better mobile strategy to make the most of the different mobile touchpoints.
5. Social media marketing – this shows continued growth for 2017 but some networks like Twitter and Facebook are becoming less popular yet Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest are still growing; for example there have been some innovative, interactive campaigns on Snapchat in 2016 that have reached wider audiences.
6. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) – this is really about making more of a data-driven approach by improving website experiences to increase leads and so generate sales, this can be achieved through more extensive testing, ignore it at your peril.
7. Internet of Things (IoT) – given that there is said to be 75 billion connected devices by 2020 with an enormous potential to share data; this certainly has the most relevance to device makers and retailers.
8. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO or organic search) – Smart Insights predict Mobile Marketing SEO will be particularly significant in 2017. Note Google can search on your mobile device Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) – the technology allows you to make pages on your website load more quickly, currently targeted at publishers.
9. Wearables (e.g. Apple Watch, activity trackers, augmented reality) – these are without doubt innovative consumer commodities and will continue to become more mainstream as prices go down, more people will embrace wearables.
10. Paid search marketing – Google AdWords will be the most important type of Pay Per Click in 2017 and making these mobile first is important, brands should follow up on this in the year ahead, particularly as mobile traffic has overtaken desktop for internet usage.
The digital marketing world continues to innovate faster than businesses can adapt. So consider a few of these insights and make them work for your brand in 2017. Make content more informative and engaging.
alexandrapatrick provides original, cost-effective strategic marketing services in Kent, UK. alexandrapatrick has particular experience and expertise in digital marketing, copywriting, public relations, location/destination marketing, healthcare marketing and marketing consultancy.
If you’d like to find out more about how we could support your business ambitions for 2017, email info@alexandrapatrick.co.uk or contact via Twitter.
