Online Marketing Trends

Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012

Online Marketing Trends: What You Should Be Doing Now

With the current pace of changing technology, it’s easy to find yourself working on yesterday’s next big thing while your competition is racing ahead to take advantage of what’s hot today. Each new must-have marketing tool, technique, or tactic roars onto the scene leaving marketing teams and small businesses scrambling to keep up so they don’t miss out. Unfortunately, by the time you figure out that there’s something new to learn, there’s something else already on the horizon.

To help you stay ahead of this curve, we’ve put together a quick list of online marketing trends.

  1. Mobile Marketing

This is still a hot button for companies of all shapes and sizes. More and more people are settling into the Smartphone lifestyle where everything you want to know is available everywhere you go, meaning that businesses must find authentic, user friendly ways of marketing to and interacting with customers through a mobile interface. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just having a mobile friendly website and an app that does something will be enough. In order to make the most of this trend, your business needs to determine what those customers are trying to do and create innovative ways to meet those needs through their mobile interface.

  1. Device Indifference

Think of this as an expansion of the mobile marketing trend above. As more tablets come on the market and the available functions and apps increase across the various platforms, businesses need to be ready to provide a consistent experience for their prospects and customers regardless of which device a customer might be using to interact. This means that customers will expect to be able to do, see, and access the same things from their laptop, Smartphone, game console, eReader, and tablet. Consistency of experience, messaging, and laser-tight targeting will be the key components of marketing successful in a device indifferent world.

  1. Deals, Rewards, and Discounts

Although the fervor created last year about sites like Groupon and Living Social has died down, the ongoing economic turmoil has altered how Americans look at spending their money. The day of the deal is still upon us and online marketing strategies must take this mindset into account. Businesses should be looking for opportunities to use these types of promotions – be it discounts, coupons or freebies – to build their fan and follower base, increase their mailing lists, and broaden their reach. This makes this kind of online marketing a win-win for both the business and those that get the deals and discounts.

  1. Local Marketing

Regardless of how large your geographical reach is or how many different countries you are looking to sell in, one of the biggest trends in online marketing is going local and targeting by proximity. These two trends are tied to the increase in the use of Smartphones. They use people’s locations, based on their phone, to target marketing messages, alert them of deals and discounts, and make recommendations about nearby businesses that might meet their needs. This type of targeting brings the marketing message closer to the point of purchase and can turn prospects into buyers simply out of convenience.

  1. Membership Programs

Membership programs have become quite popular as more and more companies look for ways to connect with specific segments of their audience and it’s easy to see why: membership programs can be offline, online or both. They can be tailored to promote a variety of services and products and they can contain multiple membership tiers to suit a variety of different needs. Most importantly, membership fees can be set up as a one-time purchase or as an only monthly fee, creating a semi-passive income.

  1. Video Marketing

YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the web for good reason – internet users watch millions of videos every day and that number continues to grow. Smart marketers take advantage of that popularity by using videos to deliver content, promote products and drive traffic to a website or landing page.

  1. Social Media Marketing

There’s definitely no doubt that social media is a must in any good marketing strategy – the only question is, how will you implement it? The strength of social media sites is that they put you in front of your target audience – not as a salesperson or vendor, but as a consultant… an expert. This allows you to focus more on building a relationship with your audience and establishing your own credentials and expertise, rather than just counting the number of sales that come through you store. This “relationship-marketing” is at the heart of social media and should also be at the heart of your marketing campaigns.

How you utilize these tools then, will depend upon what kind of relationship you want to build with your audience. But make no mistake – social media is here to stay, so if you haven’t already launched that aspect of your marketing campaign, you’re losing customers.