Thursday 24 January 2013

Digital marketing trends in 2013

Here are some interesting global trends which we can look forward to in 2013:

1. Search Engine Rankings
A brands' Facebook likes and Twitter followers are going to play a significantly larger role to boost search rankings of their page. In addition, brands will also have to continuously refresh and update their content on the website and blog to appear within the first few listings for relevant key words. 

2. Decline in paid search 
Paid search , especially or B2B businesses will continue to decline. In 2012 marketers saw the initial indications of a decline in lead generation and resultant effectiveness from PPC campaigns due to cost and stronger data protection. Marketers will find newer, more cost effective alternatives. 

3. Mobile advertising 
This will become a key component in your marketing budget as more and more people use their mobile to search. This is true specially for local businesses. Display advertising in mobiles will also gain steam with consumers spending more time on their smartphones and tablets. 

4. Growing popularity of mobile wallets 
With smartphones becoming integral to consumers' lives, mobile wallets will catch on not only to make online payments but offline payment too. Tech companies such as Isis are offering mobile wallets designed to work with existing marketing, CSM and loyalty activities. These services will not only help payments but also make it easier for consumers to present loyalty cards and redeem offers. 

5. Greater influence of social media
Brands will continue to see an increased customer engagement with their brands in social media. To improve customer relationships, 'listening' as a tool will gain prominence and more mass scale adaption. Businesses will have to re align themselves to respond to customer demands faster. According to Conversocial, 30% of Twitter users expect an answer from a brand's customer service in less than 30 minutes while 29% of Facebook users expect it in under 2 hours. These numbers will only grow. 

6. Gamification  
Regardless of industry focus,brands will look for inspirations from the video game sector to boost user engagement and brand loyalty. More and more brands will look at embedding gaming in their otherwise dull processes such as online form filling and collecting loyalty points by making it more fun and value added for customers.    

7. Single customer view analytics 
2012 saw a slew of niche data company acquistions as the big analytics players look to provide their customers a more holistic view of their customers and potential customers on one single dashboard. As marketers have access to more data about how customers engage with their products and content across the web - from shopping pages to social media sites- the need will now be to aggregate the data from across the web and different devices and present that back as a single source of useful information. 
     

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