Digital businesses and multi-platform retailers operating in the online sphere have not had the straightforward marketing story they may have expected from 2021. Indeed, a CNBC assessment of marketing efforts from various medium-to-large online businesses has highlighted uncertainty in how to go about the process of digital marketing in a consumer market that has shifting needs. While AdSense and Facebook remain powerful platforms for an advertising campaign, left-field alternatives such as podcasts and digital catalogs are becoming more relevant in an age marked by concerns over privacy.
Telling a story
The move away from tried-and-testing marketing strategies is in pursuit of a less technical, more ‘organic’ digital world. This is, ostensibly, part of the drive behind Google’s changes in their privacy and technical hierarchy, according to AdWeek. As a result, businesses are having to become even more creative in their advertising and marketing strategies. What does this mean in terms of application? Marketing industry experts Neon Ambition (https://www.neonambition.com/
Natural growth
When it comes to natural marketing strategies, content creation has long been the king of organic growth. The Google algorithm has time and time again shown preference for high-quality, smartly worded content that brings in genuine clicks. However, more needs to be done to elevate that, especially in the absence of the sort of data that was common with ads in the Google algorithms of old. One success story highlighted by The Drum focused on collaborative working; the idea that the marketing division or function of a company is not managed in a silo, but in tandem with every other area of the business. This holistic view of marketing nods to a wider industry trend.
Adapting to the audience
Analyzing customer trends and looking at what they might purchase has been the future-seeing, predictive nature of many digital marketing efforts in years gone by. Now, according to Entrepreneur, the key is in identifying exactly what makes your target audience tick and then sticking with it. Rather than trying to pre-empt what a customer wants and then creating content for the hypothetical or, worse, creating content and trying to shape the narrative, it’s easier – and more effective – to really learn what the customer wants.
Learning those needs will help to shape goods to the actual narrative that customers are providing. Consumers are more switched on and well-informed than ever before, and in the remote working age, desire a level of familiarity and warmth – even from those providing digital services.
