15 Digital Marketing Trends For 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the working of organizations. A lot of products and services have moved online to cope up with the changing circumstances. With a substantial rise in online stores or online shopping, businesses are boosting their digital marketing efforts to continue serving customers and building new relationships. And thus, it becomes all the more important to update yourself with the latest Digital Marketing Trends.

The impact of COVID-19 has also left a significant change on consumer behavior. Additionally, due to the novel changes in buyer’s journey, businesses are expanding online, and the working conditions are changing rapidly.

Most importantly, here are a few digital marketing trends that you can discover in 2021 to stay on top of these trends.

Artificial Intelligence

Data is all around in our space, and in 2021 the globe is getting digitized and hitting the industry needs. That is to say, this digital marketing trend is not new but is increasing its space in the eCommerce industries repeatedly. That is to say, with Artificial intelligence technology, companies are getting smarter and creating a virtual shift in the tech industry.

Moreover, International Data Corp states that AI technologies will hit $110 billion in 2024.

This particular data proves that AI is a flourishing digital marketing trend and why businesses need it to create a better workflow.

Apple, the world’s largest technology company, uses AI technology in all its products. In short, the features like Siri, FaceID feature, navigating meetings using Maps, finding your photo in iCloud, etc are easy examples. Consequently, these features use artificial intelligence and machine learning for delivering the best results to their users.

Therefore in 2021, AI must be in the chart list of your companies as a popular digital marketing trend. This will increase global GDP and reduce staffing costs to boost business growth.

Chatbots

After that, in 2021, the chatbot will continue to rule over the e-commerce industry as one of the top digital marketing trends. To be clear, a chatbot is a computer program using artificial intelligence to interact through instant messaging and artificially replicating human interaction patterns.

Benefits of having chatbots to e-commerce companies

• Firstly, 24hrs availability since 35% of consumers wants to see more companies using the chatbot.
• Secondly, it provides instant answers to thousands of questions simultaneously and gives a speedy response that would be impossible for a human machine.
• Thirdly, automates repetitive tasks and helps increase productivity and save time.
• Fourthly, never loses patience
• Finally, chatbots monitor customer data and give a better understanding to companies regarding the consumer behavioral pattern and help influence marketing decisions.

That is to say, the above-mentioned are the most prominent advantage of having chatbots in 2021 as one of the most active digital marketing trends.

Most brands have already started using chatbot technology. Moreover, 64% of companies think chatbots would allow them to offer more customized services to their customers. That is to say, the reason for chatbots being the most prominent digital marketing trend in 2021 is the rise in willingness to use chatbots for purchases. Besides this rise is from 17.1% to 41.3% between 2019 to 2020.

Video Marketing

In the United States, digital video marketing is a $135 billion industry. Subsequently, this signifies that brands are understanding the importance of video marketing. Moreover, they are investing in its creation and distribution.

Now, why should video marketing in 2021 be seen as a digital marketing trend? So, here are a few video marketing statistics to show the importance of incorporating video marketing strategy in 2021.

Is your business using video as a marketing strategy? If not, then it’s still not late. You can use video as an essential part of your marketing strategy as the importance of video as a marketing medium has increased to 93% in 2021.

Visual Search

Visual search is rising as a digital marketing trend, and in 2021 both small and big organizations are looking forward to taking advantage of visual search.

Examples of visual search engines and apps are

• Google lens visual search
• CamFind visual search mobile app
• Bing visual search
• Pinterest Lens and others

According to Invespcro, more than 36% of online shoppers say they have used visual search. Consequently, more than half of them claim visual information is more beneficial to them than text information.

Visual search uses real-world images to help users resolve their search queries, replacing text search.

Therefore, in 2021, as a digital marketing expert, you can get on to your competitors’ edge. And use visual search as the rising digital marketing trend to gain customers and deliver them the ideal product.

Voice Search

According to Digital Marketing Institute,

Adopting a voice search strategy isn’t just about remaining relevant – it’s also about creating a unique and optimized customer experience that will foster relationships and build brand loyalty.

This fact targets the point that in 2021, you can use voice search as a tool to take advantage over your competitors and boost user experience. By optimizing voice search with increased sales. Voice search will produce exceptional results in the long run and build the user experience.

Therefore, voice search as a digital marketing trend is a unique way for consumer interaction, and you should give it a thought in 2021 and beyond.

With little effort than text optimization, companies can use voice queries to rank on a search engine result page. Ranking for voice searches is easier because there is only one result for a voice query.

The most famous voice search examples are

• Amazon’s Alexa,
• Apple’s Siri,
• Microsoft’s Cortana.

Social Media Stories

The idea of “My Post” was first launched by Snapchat, followed by Instagram and Facebook posts, and then YouTube’s story format: Reels. Now you can take advantage of the Instagram Reels Ads and grow your customers with the new format of the ad and expand your global reach.

This significant shift of the stories from one platform to another is an opportunity for businesses in 2021.

The advantage of using social media stories are

• Increased brand awareness
• Increasing organic traffic
• Gather data from the audience research
• Opportunity to reach millennials

These are the most potent benefits. In, 2021 you can cover this aspect of the digital marketing trend and win over your customers.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing continues to keep pace with the trends and technologies and top the digital marketers’ chart list.

In 2021 content marketing will continue to favor brands as 88% of B2B content marketers believe that producing content helps their audience see their company as a reliable and trustworthy platform. Moreover, this digital marketing trend will cost 62% less than outbound marketing and generate 3x time leads.

Thus market to your audience with the ongoing digital marketing trend to alter your success rate.

Interactive Content

Interactive content is the fastest growing digital marketing trend. In 2021, nothing can stop you from creating engaging content that offers an interactive, dynamic and immersive experience. Moreover, 91% of buyers are actively searching for more interactive content. With interactive content, you provide rich data that the prospect can effectively use and deliver the outcomes your company demands.

Automated Bidding in Google Ads

Automated bidding allows Google to automate prior moves to adjust the bid in real-time. It is not new now, having made its debut way back in 2010. Google explains automated bidding as

Automated bidding takes the heavy lifting and guesswork out of setting bids to meet your performance goals. Each type of automated bid strategy is designed to help you achieve a specific goal for your business.

Under automated bidding

Marketers can hand over control of their pay per click (PPC) campaigns to Google’s AI system, which will optimize their bids to maximize return on investment. This works for any number of PPC goals, including:

Target Impression Share: Sets bids automatically to display your ad at the very top of the list, page, or anywhere on the Google search results page.

Maximize clicks: Sets your bids automatically to help you get as many clicks as possible while staying within your budget.

Target ROAS: Sets bids automatically to help you get the most conversion value at the target return on ad spend (ROAS) you specify.

Maximize Conversions: Sets bids automatically to help you get the most conversions for your campaign while staying within your budget.

Target CPA: Sets Search or Display bids automatically to help you get as many conversions as possible for the target cost-per-action (CPA) you specify.

Maximize Conversion Value: Sets bids automatically to help you get the most conversion value for your campaign while staying within your budget.

Automated Bidding allows you to achieve different goals. Below are a few goals

• Increase the number of visitors to your website
• Boost the visibility
• Get more conversions with your target CPA
• Meet a target return on ad spend (ROAS) when you value each conversion differently

The bottom line is that with increased dependence on automated bidding strategies you can invest your time to optimize other aspects of PPC performance, which ultimately delivers a good result at a lower cost to customers. As a digital marketer, we have skilled experts who expertise in their fields, delivering exceptional results with a deep knowledge of the technical aspects of paid advertising, solid communication skills, analytical capabilities, and experience. With such efficiency and marketing professionals, we deliver exceptional results and can help you in getting better results.

User Generated Content(UGC)

In 2021, user-generated content can be considered a digital marketing trend and a great customer research source. User-generated content refers to the content that is created by the customer or any person who is not involved with the brand. The person promotes the brand itself rather than the brand promoting itself.

John Doerr, Venture Capitalist, quoted that.

“The next wave of the Web is going to be user-generated content.”

Quora, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Vine, and Pinterest are the best sites to gain user-generated content and make the most out of it. The most significant advantage of UGC is that it serves as social proof. Seeing content from real customers increases the credibility of brands. It gives businesses a break from producing their content.

Moreover helps in acquiring an online society that strengthens the customer/brand association. And finally helps increase your customer, improve search engine optimization, expand your lead generation efforts, and be cost-effective. UGC marketing can be looked for as a digital marketing trend in 2021.

Mobile Search

Mobile devices generate Approx 50.81 percent of global website traffic with consistency since 2017. It will continue to account for web traffic in 2021, so if you want to increase opportunities for ranking high on search engine result pages, go for mobile-optimized websites. Start creating mobile-friendly content.

For 2021 businesses can make efforts to make their website mobile-friendly. You can consider specific points to make your site mobile-friendly.

• Boost page speed loading time by eliminating slow-loading page elements.
• Make use of large fonts.
• Avoid the use of flash.
• Keep your website design simple.
• Make your website responsive.
• The size of buttons should be large to allow work on mobile.

Make a note of what changes must be made to the website with Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool that will showcase how every page of your website looks on a mobile device screen. 

Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing is the process of marketing through multiple channels worldwide. With the changing scenarios, omnichannel allows businesses to connect with customers over more digital touchpoints and market them effectively with the best user experience online.

Here are some data to show the benefit of omnichannel marketing to e-commerce companies driving great results:

Engagement rate: 18.96% on omnichannel vs. 5.4% on single-channel

Purchase frequency: 250% higher on omnichannel vs. single-channel

Average order value: 13% more per order on omnichannel vs. single-channel

Customer retention rates: 90% higher for omnichannel vs. single-channel

Omnichannel is another field where AI and big data help marketers understand customer preferences and personalize at scale on an individual basis.

In 2021 this digital marketing trend builds a road map for buyers’ journey to enhance purchasing.

Personalization

You must personalize your marketing if you want to stand out in 2021. Personalization means creating personal content, emails, products, and more to increase loyalty and engagement with the customers and boost sales for more conversion.

Here are a few statistics to support personalization

• 63% of consumers are highly annoyed with generic advertising blasts
• 80% say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences
• 90% claim they find personalization appealing

Now, companies can consider this data and use personalization as an effective digital marketing trend in 2021.

Email Marketing

Emails are becoming an integral part of digital marketing and will continue to be in 2021. As a growing digital marketing trend and never-ending strategy, emails have always been an important marketing strategy.

“If you’re running a real business, email is still the most effective way to universally reach people who have expressed interest in your product or site. For that, it really can’t be beaten.” – Colin Nederkoorn (founder Customer.IO)

Reasons why email marketing is still a growing digital marketing trend

• Has a larger reach
• Delivers your message
• Drives conversion
• Has a higher ROI
• A preferred communication channel
• An open platform

These are the advantages of the most evolved digital marketing trend. So work with your emails in the most effective way to get the best results over time and again.

Learn: How To Create A Good Email Subject Line For Your Business Emails

Social Media To Retain & Engage

In this pandemic, social network use has increased naturally, changing social networks’ importance to raise awareness. Facebook is the most viewed and popular platform with 2.6 billion active users and 3.1 billion monthly core family product users, respectively. Meanwhile, it can be used by brands in 2021 to engage with their customers and retain them.

Customer retention has become the preference of marketers during the COVID-19 pandemic. And this will continue in 2021. Moreover, the time that people spend online has increased substantially during the pandemic. This creates new opportunities for marketers to increase their reach to new audiences and re-involve with long-time customers.

Companies are using social media to drive more traffic, create new audiences, convert the lead into customers, and increase brand awareness to a large audience in 2021.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with these digital marketing trends, you can plan for the 2021 marketing strategy. These marketing trends can help you increase your site traffic and generate more leads and grow sales. Moreover, focusing on these trends will help in delivering better digital marketing efforts. Businesses can correct the mistakes made in 2020, and focus on other important things. That is to say, gather more audiences, increase brand awareness, and convert leads into customers.