Despite the volatility of the digital marketing landscape, both large and small brands understand the importance of leveraging mobile and social channels in their quest for customer loyalty. According to an April 2015 Forrester survey of 89 business-to-consumer marketing leaders, almost half of the companies intend on boosting their investments in digital marketing this year. Comprising nearly 30 percent of total digital marketing spending, mobile and social channels remain the first priorities.
While brands appropriate more of their marketing spend in the digital space, they’re still spending the same amount in traditional channels. “Marketing leaders mustn’t allow the latest gadget-du-jour to distract them from developing an adequate level of mastery of digital programs that have become essential to their marketing mix,” cite Forrester analysts in the study.
Roll out digital marketing trends wisely
As savvy marketers explore the best digital marketing trends for their messaging needs, “securing incremental budget for marketing experimentation and innovation” remains a challenge in their overall marketing strategy. Marketers must actively research and experiment with the latest digital trends before adopting them into their marketing toolkit immediately.
The successful implementation of digital marketing trends is no easy task. In a Forbes article, Neil Patel, cofounder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics, offers several key tactics for creating an optimal digital marketing strategy.
Think outside Google
Marketers must become less reliant on Google and “engage more direct forms of interacting with their target market.” While search engine optimization is crucial in the uncharted waters of digital marketing, consumers crave other options besides Google. DuckDuckGo, Facebook and Bing are challenging Google for the search algorithm crown.
Mobile domination
Since the target demographic of Millennials use their smartphone for everything including shopping, directions, dating and socializing, brands must offer mobile-optimized websites in order to remain competitive. If brands fail to respond to the high demand for mobile-friendly experiences of their digital-native consumers, they may face extinction.
Content is king
Since content is at the core of digital marketing, it’s important for brands to hire professional writers with experiential knowledge. These writers must also be able to increase brand engagement through succinct content writing whether a tweet, status update, article, blog post or website copy.
Optimize customer engagement with earned media
As digital marketing budgets increase, so are content marketing costs. According to a 2015 marketing budgets report by Econsultancy and Oracle Marketing Cloud, 71 percent of brands expect to boost their earned media spend on social media and content marketing. Brands are increasingly relying on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to create a personalized and organic customer experience.
Before YouTube talent became brand ambassadors like beauty tutorial guru Michelle Phan, marketers were merely posting their own TV commercials to the social channel. In fact, “more than 150 brands have teamed with an array of talent on Google-owned YouTube and a handful of networks to produce entertaining and engaging ads.”
“Creators on YouTube are increasingly crossing over into mainstream pop culture. Most brands are looking at these collaborations as part of a larger campaign or media program,” relayed Jamie Byrne, director of content commercialization at YouTube, in an Adweek article.
Smashbox
Culver City, Calif.-based cosmetics company Smashbox recently launched Made at Smashbox, a partnership program with the Collective Digital Studio, which invites YouTube fashion and beauty vloggers including Alexa Losey and Monica Church into its photography studios to produce videos. This digital marketing initiative is aimed to engage its target audience of “digital native, make-up mavens,” global general manager Beth DiNardo told Fast Company.
The program is mutually beneficial for both parties: vloggers get to record professional videos with a full makeup, style and production crew while Smashbox heightens its social visibility on YouTube and other platforms. Although the do-it-yourself beauty influencers aren’t restricted to Smashbox products in their videos, they must create two posts on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram during the video and post-production.
Proactiv
To target teenagers, acne-treatment brand Proactiv selected nine YouTube beauty bloggers to revamp their TV infomericals in 2014. Leveraging her MyLifeAsEva channel, Eva Gutowski explained how Proactiv is part of her daily morning routine in a humorous video that generated 385,000 views. Proactiv saw a 72 percent increase in subscribers after the 15-part YouTube series.
Following the YouTube series’ impressive metrics of 2 million-plus views and 13 million impressions, Proactiv continues to invest more digital dollars in one-off videos.
“We can’t just assume that what worked before is what’s going to work in the future. We have to keep experimenting to try different messaging,” Proactiv CMO Jay Sung told Adweek.
Clearly, the bottom line on return on investment is simple: make sure your marketing playbook involves some serious digital marketing capital.
