Opinion: Digital marketing trends that will die in 2018

With close to 450 million Indians already online, the digital industry is fast-evolving. Since the launch of Jio, India has seen 9 times growth in usage of internet data. Owing to this, the dynamic platform of digital marketing has witnessed a lot of progression and development. The trends that worked a few years ago have reached their expiry date and newer, more effective trends have emerged. Let’s take a look at few of the digital marketing practices that are no longer effective in today’s day and age and their improvised versions that have taken over the online community. 

 

Non personalised emailers

 

Nobody likes mass e-mailers that flood their inboxes with coupons and deals they are not interested in. Non personalised emails are clearly dying out due as the content may not be relevant to the audience you are sending it out to.  However, this trend has been upgraded with personalized emailers that are guaranteed to catch the audience’s attention. Apart from mere personalization in the form of your potential customer’s name, you can retarget them with what they were previously searching for, and present them with irresistible offers based on their demographics, interests and past behavior on your website. This will not only pull them towards your website but will also leave them constantly refreshing their inbox in a quest for more such deals and offers. 

 

Quantity over quality

 

Brands have always been misguided by the notion that the higher number of posts they put up on social media, or the higher number of blogs they put up on their website, the more traffic their content will generate. However, the truth is that with the abundance of content available online, it is more important to provide viewers with high-quality content that really stands out rather than a multitude of average blogs that will just get lost in the ocean of information.

 

The trend of bombarding your target group with a plethora of information till they ultimately get converted to loyal consumers is now a thing of past. Potential customers are now being targeted with a fewer number of posts comprising of content that stands out from the rest of the Internet. The secret lies in bringing out a primary purpose in the blogs, like showcasing a particular product, branding or luring viewers with an emotional connect. 

 

Marketing on Twitter

 

Though Twitter is one of the leading social media platforms, the strategy of using twitter to showcase your product is on a decline. Though Twitter did post a higher revenue for the last financial year, we are not seeing a significant growth in the user base in India. Brands are flocking to other effective mediums like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram where they are more likely to get better reach due to the higher number of active users. Additionally, the cost of ROI and effectiveness of advertising spend on Twitter vis a vis the other platforms are very different. While twitter does well in some genres like news, entertainment and politics it is not a preferred platform for all brands in India. 

 

Short-form blog content

 

If you want to leverage the power of content marketing to showcase your brand and attract leads, it is time you bid adieu to short-form content. The average length of a blog is usually around 800 words but in order to rank on Google, you need to work on longer content with in-depth analysis, research and loads of information. According to data, a well-researched content that is around 2000 words have a better chance on ranking on page one of Google search. Pack your blogs with different types of content from infographics and videos to statistical research and relatable memes.

 

Apart from different forms of visuals, optimize your content with ranking keywords and related keywords while you sit back and relax as viewers come flocking to your website. Also, make sure you interlink your blogs well to provide readers with more related posts and keep them hooked on to your website. At the same time, apps like Inshorts are growing due to its byte sized articles – brands may want to continue experimenting by giving both short form and long form content depending on the purpose.

 

Manual optimisation of digital ad campaign

 

Optimising your ad campaigns is of key importance to generate leads and widen your client database. However, it is quite challenging and time-consuming for a marketer to manually check out each digital ad campaign and optimise them as per industry standards. These practices are now being done using automated tools and Artificial Intelligence. 

 

Relying on organic reach on Facebook

 

As dramatic as it may sound, there is no such thing as organic reach on Facebook anymore. As a brand, you need to promote your posts and invest on Facebook ads to reach your target audience. Facebook has also rolled out features where users can view top relevant posts which are hand-picked for them based on their demographics, interests and content consumption.

 

Last-click attribution

 

Last-click attribution is now being replaced by data driven attribution. This upgraded trend is a process in which the analytics model of the website credits the entire process of marketing, from attracting a potential buyer and procuring the lead to converting them to a consumer, rather than the last click that closed the sale. The last-click attribution model will let you understand that a recent buyer logged on to your website to indulge in a sale. But, the data driven attribution model will give you a detailed insight of the journey of the consumer, from the initial Google ad, to the Facebook retargeting and emailer they received to push them to make the purchase.

 

Everything comes with an expiry date and digital marketing trends are no exception. It is time you upgrade your digital marketing strategies and stay ahead of the online curve. 

 

(The author is a co-founder of SocialBeat.in)