Digital Marketing has increasingly become the be-all and end-all of all forms of marketing, solely for the reason that the entire world has turned increasingly inward after the entire pandemic. But even in the field of digital marketing, the trends keep changing and companies and social media strategists must keep up with the pace. We shall discuss a few of the digital marketing trends that existed in 2021 and how the world needs to pace for future marketing trends.
Top Digital Marketing Trends in 2021
Because of the pandemic and the new norms of the new normal, digital marketing became the saving grace for a lot of companies. A few of the distinct trends which emerged as a result of the world turning inwards could be listed as below:
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Artificial Intelligence
Does it even need to be mentioned about how the system of artificial intelligence and every kind of AI-powered software is taking over the world by a storm? Artificial intelligence works in miraculous ways for digital marketing. It helps understand consumer behavior by tracking previous purchase trends and demands of the said customers. Through this, the software can provide a better and more personalized consumer experience.
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Instagram Reels
One of the most recognizable effects felt in the digital marketing field was that of Instagram reels. The 15-second transition videos incorporated the spirit of advertisements and commercialization for generation Z. It is fun, it is catchy and it is consumed voraciously by the social media generation regularly. All of these and Instagram’s business tools make it the perfect medium to advertise a brand’s product or service.
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Influencer Marketing
The influencer marketing market stands at a huge valuation at present because influencers- both micro and macro, help to market products at a grass-root level. The world has changed a lot from celebrities endorsing products to influencers providing authentic reviews of the things they receive. Consumers tend to have a more real connection with influencers and this has resulted in the immense growth of not just the valuation of the influencer marketing industry but also the number of influencers in every field. The valuation has been predicted to grow even further in the coming years.
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Augmented Reality
For people who don’t know about the concept of augmented reality, it is a sort of experience through which the customer can interact with the real-world environment and the virtual world at the same time. In other words, augmented reality aims at connecting the objects residing in the actual world to what a customer faces virtually and this, established a more cohesive consumer experience. In many ways, augmented reality has been proven to be more interactive than virtual reality for customers. Therefore it has become a very popular tool with brands that are continuously using it to convert more consumers online. For example, the IKEA store lets the users take pictures of their houses on their smartphones and upload them on the IKEA website to access the augmented reality feature. Through this, the customer can move furniture around virtually. The same is utilized by the Gucci brand for customers sitting in the comforts of their homes to try on their brand new launched sneakers.
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Voice Search Optimization
In research conducted by Review42, it was found that more than half the population of teenagers used voice search regularly. Voice Search Optimisation took off in a really big way in 2021 because of a lot of reasons. Vice search had developed quite early and was being used by multiple people. Google made its software more pliable to take any voice commands and is now very sensitive to any kind of voice search or command. Stats reveal that almost 20% of the homes have a voice modulated system like Google Home or the Amazon Alexa. All of these reasons have made voice search extremely popular in the digital marketing sphere as well.
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User-Generated Content:
User-Generated Content, more popularly abbreviated as the UGC is a very smart and clever way to incorporate the consumer base while developing marketing strategies. When the consumers participate in activities or contests related to their preferred brand ad their product, they automatically connect more with the product. This leads to better conversion rates. Statistically, any content generated by the users themselves yields four times more traction than any normal content. Thus, UGC figured in a big way for digital marketing strategists in 2021.
Top Digital Marketing Trends in 2022:
The future of digital marketing trends reveals more enhancement in the years to come. Some of the strong trends in digital marketing predicted by experts that are sure to make its presence felt in 2022 would include the following:
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Programmatic Advertising:
The effect of artificial intelligence has already been discussed. Programmatic advertising is the kind of advertising that uses artificial intelligence to bid for ads. In simpler terms, this would mean automating the entire process of ad buying. The process becomes much more reliable by removing humans to buy ads manually. Moreover, it has been proven from the numbers that the potential of programmatic advertising lies in its optimization capacity which overpowers that of a human being.
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Conversational Marketing:
Chatbots had already been prefigured hugely in commercial websites previously. All of the trends point to one fact that the consumers have become more driven towards conversational marketing. The primary reason why conversational marketing has gained so much prominence is that it helps establish a more intimate connection between customers and marketers. Conversational marketing methods may include virtual selling assistants and personalized emails or videos apart from chatbots.
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Visual Search
The goal from the beginning was to make digital marketing in particular and internet surfing, in general, a more cohesive experience that resembled reality. This would mean incorporating not just the voice box but also our visual senses. This is exactly where picture search or visual search to be precise becomes important. One of the more popular apps on the rise, Pinterest is based mostly on a visual search where a person can upload a picture to get relevant results. Another app that uses visual search is Google Lens.
Conclusion:
There are several other upcoming trends in digital marketing that are supposed to gain prominence in 2022. These would include geofencing, progressive web apps, blockchain applications on systems such as the BaaS or Non-Fungible Tokens, and several other areas. Digital Marketing thus has become an ever-changing dynamic field. One of the reasons why it has been changing so fast is also because of the immense potential it holds in the field of marketing. It is interesting to see what other trends come up in the coming years that would change the game for online commercialization once and for all.
