The best digital marketers are the ones who can keep up with the latest trends. Not only technology evolves rapidly these days, but trends in marketing, consumer opinions, and ways of consuming media shift so quickly in these turbulent times, that any digital marketer worth her or his salt needs to keep on their toes. Adjusting strategies and maintaining flexible approaches to marketing is what has kept some of the world’s biggest brands at the top of their game. Without further ado, here are our top tips for digital marketers in 2019.
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Use a VPN
If your brand is going places, consider purchasing a VPN. If you don’t have one already, a VPN is software which simultaneously encrypts and redirects your internet traffic through a secure server, masking your IP address and making it look like you’re browsing from the server location you have chosen. There are possibly hundreds of VPN services available for the masses, independently verified and ranked by users.
Whilst this technology was initially developed in the mid-1990s for military and business use in the mid-1990s, VPN usage is now more popular than ever, thanks to its myriad uses. Digital marketers, in particular, should be privy to the convenience of VPN’s, particularly if you’re interested in what performs in SEO rankings abroad, allowing you to get inside the head of your potential foreign market and allowing you to optimize your own processes to grab their attention.
How is it useful?
For example, if you’re an American digital marketer trying to market your product or business to the European market, you could simply download a trusted VPN and choose from up to 200 different VPN locations across the globe. The UK, Germany and France are all popular and high performing VPN locations that can give you the exact same browsing experience as someone from one of those countries.
On top of this, if you’re one of the huge numbers of digital marketers who regularly work or travel abroad, having a VPN means that you will still be able to access the same products and services that you would be able to access back home. For example, if you’re used to accessing the BBC and you travel to China, using a VPN means that you will be able to get hold of all of your native content despite geo-blocking restrictions. And, your VPN will allow you to use public Wi-Fi’s without fear of a hack, as you will be bypassing open network insecurities. What’s not to love?
Identify the most useful marketing channels for you
It can be overwhelming to spread your time between the scores of social media and available. In 2019, there is predicted to be more options for digital marketers than ever before – but is this a good thing or a bad thing? Obviously, at first glance, this is great. More channels mean more ways to target your customer, and as the market for marketing channels gets bigger, competition means that they will become more sophisticated, more prevalent, and ultimately, more useful.
However, this also means that digital marketers divide their time, energy, content and resources across more channels than ever before. This makes it harder for you to keep tabs on what’s working, and less likely that you’re going to tailor content for our audience. That’s why one of the biggest trends for digital marketers for smaller companies in 2019 is to focus your marketing.
What’s best for my product?
Instead of lacklustre campaigns on various marketing channels, focusing your energy onto the channels that make the most sense for your business can drive results rapidly. For example, a start-up B2B service provider could choose LinkedIn as their primary marketing channel, which is a great platform for connecting with customers, as well as promoting articles and company news.
However, if you were trying to promote your new clothing store, would focusing your resources on LinkedIn be the best use of your time? Probably not. Instead, local SEO and Instagram might be the best way for you to target potential customers. Using offline marketing such as cute business cards, flyers, and word of mouth can be a great way to increase traffic to your online marketing platforms, and vice versa. In 2019 – less is definitely more.
Live Video is going to be big
Live video has been a thing for a few years now, but only recently have digital marketer been harnessing it as a viable digital marketing channel. Live video is potentially a dynamic and exciting way to connect with your consumer base, however, it certainly takes guts – talking into a camera, live, is not for everyone. As Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton famously said:
“The scarcest resource of the 21st century is human attention.”
Live video can help you speak directly to your customer and can be a real game-changer However, done badly; it can be a total disaster. Here is some top advice for digital marketers trying their hand at the live video in 2019:
- First and foremost, if it’s not special content, don’t bother. People aren’t going to sit for a whole ten minutes watching you talk about something boring or insignificant, and they certainly won’t be inclined to tune in again if the content is bad. Make sure that if you’re going to go live, that’s it’s for something ‘special’ that’s related to your product, and that will keep people’s attention.
- Introduce yourself, explain what you’re doing, what you’re going to show and why. Assume that you’re talking to old customers as well as new.
- Planning your live video is essential – make sure that you have both the content side of things sorted; what are you going to say, what are you going to show and for how long, why are you showing it, and what will you do if something doesn’t plan out? The “only me” feature on Facebook is ideal for this.
- You should also plan the technical side of the video, such as ensuring that your device is fully charged/that you have access to a power bank, and that you have a connection back-up if the stream dies.
- Interact and respond to comments and views – that’s one of the central purposes of live video and shouldn’t be ignored!
That’s it from us for now, watch this space for more tech tips and tricks for being on top of your game in 2019.
Image by muneebfarman