Five tactics to boost your digital marketing strategy in 2018

Every year the world of digital marketing keeps advancing and what worked well for you last year isn’t necessarily going to provide the same results this year. With this, if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you need to pay attention to the newest digital marketing tactics and make use of them in your own digital marketing strategy.

In this article, we will take a look at some of this year’s newest digital marketing tactics and explore how you can use them to boost your own digital marketing strategy this year.

Enhance customer experience

User experience (or UX) is a term you will already be familiar with. UX is often used in regard to web design, in that features should always be designed always with the end user in mind. Customer experience (or CX) includes UX but also encompasses every point of contact that customers have with your business.

There are many ways that you can enhance CX, including:

• Ensuring that your team are trained to put the customer first. This can include adopting a friendly and considerate attitude when talking to clients, in addition to conveying useful information to solve the customer’s issues.
• Using chatbots on your website to guide visitors to the right place and answer FAQs. While chatbots are very useful for helping to solve common problems, remember that automated tools will never replace helpful live customer support.
• Requesting feedback. It is always important to know if your customers are satisfied with the service you have provided, and customer surveys are an efficient way of tracking this. Use customer surveys regularly and update them with new questions, such as how people feel about any of your new products, features and policies.
• Engaging in social media. By now your business should have at least one social media account, such as Facebook or Twitter. Monitoring your accounts and communicating with your followers goes a long way when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Utilise location-based marketing

Simply speaking, location-based (or geolocation) marketing allows you to target customers based on their current location using GPS tracking. This allows you to send people relevant marketing messages when they are both close to your business or that of one of your competitors. Using location-based marketing, you can also perform other marketing activities, such as alerting people about a special sale or promotion when they are in your store or business premises. As mobile technology continues to grow in popularity, location-based marketing will become an increasingly powerful tool in your digital marketing strategy.

Add live stream video

While it’s no secret that video has been getting bigger as a digital marketing tool for a while now, the big thing right now is live streaming. Facebook Live and other services such as Twitter Live, Youtube Live, and Instagram Live are revolutionising the way that people watch videos. Live videos generate a certain excitement, and you can take advantage of this for your digital marketing strategy. You can use live streaming to generate a buzz around your organisation’s new services and promotions as well as interacting with your audience in real time and answering their questions there and then. Livestreaming is a powerful branding tool that you can use in your digital marketing strategy to boost audience engagement.

Adopt micro-marketing

As digital marketing gets more expensive and more competitive, it’s increasingly important to target your audience and identify your customer’s unique needs. With this, it is also essential to segment your customers into appropriate categories. If you have your clients saved in an email list, you can separate it into several lists based on preferences and buying patterns.

You can also use a similar approach to paid advertising. Don’t advertise to large groups (macro) but to specific audiences (micro). For example, rather than having a special promotion on all of your services, focus on a specific line or product and target those customers who are most likely to be interested in them.

Collect “big data”

“Big data” has been a marketing buzzword for a long time now. While there are many uses for data, its most useful purpose is for compiling data about your customers. Whether your business is web-based or bricks and mortar, there are now more ways than ever to learn all about your customers: who they are, where they live, and what they need – and the best way to get this information is to ask them for it using customer surveys. While not everyone will fill out your surveys you will find that many customers will, especially if you offer them an interesting incentive.

All of these trends are very likely to become big in 2018, and you can use them to boost your digital marketing strategy both in 2018 and beyond.

If you need to generate more leads with digital marketing or want to generate more traffic to your website, take a look at our digital marketing services or get in touch today to find out how we can help you make the most out of your digital marketing strategy.