Digital Marketing Tricks That Could Improve Your Brand Growth

We are almost midway since the New Year was ushered in and are going to enter the sleepy summer lull.  Majorly, all digital marketing strategies are made at the beginning of the year, but with still six more months to go, we need to gear up for the other half of the year.

Take a look at these ideas that are innovative of digital marketing that can help to improve and reinvigorate your brand.  While some ideas are quite simple, the others require a bit more planning and implementation; but all of them are sure to liven up your plan and give your brand a competitive advantage going forward.

Over the past few years email newsletters have seen a comeback of sorts.  Different kinds of brands from retailers to publishers have all recognized the advantages of an email newsletter: it’s easy to share, personal, but also social; it sits neatly between content and email marketing; and it has the additional bonus of helping you to collect consumers’ contact information.  The email newsletter revival may be fulled by the increasing flexibility of email templates to mobile devices with 92% of email marketers using either a responsive or mobile-aware design in their broadcast and segmented emails.

Augmented reality is the next big thing in social media providing brands with opportunities to experiment with combining it into their internet marketing.  It is first introduced by Snapchat with its interactive Lenses.  This was followed by Facebook who introduced Camera Effects Platform and Instagram’s face filters.  In the interim, a new variety of AR apps are being introduced onto mobile, opening up a whole new avenue for brands to create augmented reality experiences inside a user’s Smartphone and be present in their surroundings in an entirely different way.

Digital advertising services should make 360 degree video and image content, which is still relatively uncommon in brand marketing.  If done in the right way, then unique content can be made, which is beneficial for the success of the brand.  The difficulty and cost of producing 360 degree content has reduced drastically over the past year or so.  Nowadays, most smartphones come with a built-in ability to create 360 degree images.  This 360 degree imagery can be embedded into Facebook posts, WordPress sites, websites or even mobile apps even if you do not have too much technical know-how.  360 degree content will especially be worthwhile for brands in the design and travel industries to immerse the viewer in the travel destination or concept that they are trying to sell.  Nevertheless, they can be used creatively in many ways.

The explosion of popular gaming has brought with it a list of various skills typically associated with gaming, such as creative storytelling, leveling up, and puzzle-solving.  These have impacted the development of numerous technologies that we now take for granted.  Online marketing must take advantage of these skills and ‘gamify’ their marketing campaigns and branding strategy by combining features such as competitive and social elements, progress tracking, and puzzle challenges into their content marketing.  A good example for this is M&Ms USA who created an ‘eye-spy’ puzzle challenge on Facebook to increase sales of its pretzel-flavored confectionery.  Another example of a successful gamified social media content marketing idea is Heineken’s ‘Crack the US Open’ campaign on Instagram.

The year 2017 was said to be the year of the video, with all kinds of brands turning to video content to leave a visual impression with their marketing campaigns and capture their audience’s attention.  Out of the various types of video, the popularity of live streaming has attracted the most attention by far.  Brands can get on board with live video by using the wide array of live video platforms available.  Facebook Live is the most popular one followed by YouTube, which also supports live video, Instagram Stories, Tumblr, and Twitter-owned Periscope.  Brands can use live video for anything from interviews, to streaming events, to broadcast a campaign launch.

Chatbot technology has come a very long way in the past couple of years.  They have gone from being a gimmicky novelty to being a valid means of acquiring information and engaging with customers.  The availability of chatbots 24/7 is a huge advantage for customer service.  Chatbots inside mobile apps are present where consumers generally spend most of their time: their smartphones.  They are able to give personalized responses and attention to consumers.  They act as sales representatives and brand advocates and, allowing people the much needed access to information about your brand at any time from any part of the world.  They remove the barriers to entry for your brand by well-organized process of making a purchase.  User experience is enhanced due to engagement and valuable consumer insights are gathered through these interactions.

In conclusion, from a digital marketing standpoint, there is much to look forward to in the coming years.  The recently added functionalities, features, and services have opened new doors for digital marketers who are looking to engage with users and influence them.