Any industry that operates entirely online is going to change quickly, and often. As the ultimate online industry, digital marketing is no different; people’s habits and interests are constantly evolving online and any business looking to stay relevant in this fast moving environment needs to stay one step ahead of these evolutions.
While some of these changes are difficult to predict or even quantify, there are some overall trends that are beginning to drastically change the world of digital marketing. Here are just a few of them.
Individualisation & Localisation
This trend is one we’ve been banging on about for some time. As this article explains, once upon a time global brands thought that a single, centralised content marketing strategy could be exported all across the world. That time is over.
A content marketing strategy that works here in the UK has no guarantee of working even in similar markets like France, Germany and the US. As companies increasingly look to emerging global markets like China, India and Brazil, a drastic rethink is needed.
Customers need to feel like brands are speaking to them in their own language, both literally and figuratively. A single, roughly translated marketing line transmitted around the world just simply isn’t going to cut it from now on.
Written content is out
Okay, okay, we get the irony of writing a blog about the trends in digital marketing by signalling the end of blogs. It’s not quite true to say written content is history – but there is a general tendency towards visual and interactive, rather than written content.
Content marketers are seeing the benefit of all kinds of different, clever and innovative ways of grabbing people’s attention. Whether that’s sharing images, making videos, or even just embellishing the blogs and copy you do have with more images.
We can get snobby about it and decry the end of literacy all we like, but those who want to market successfully in this brave new world will want to get well ahead of the curve.
Content-first marketing
Over the past few months, we’ve been looking in detail at brands that are particularly nailing their international marketing strategy. And there’s a theme running through all of them: the idea behind the brand’s content comes first.
That remains the case, whether it’s Bentley sharing wonderfully aesthetic pictures of their cars on Instagram, General Electric’s incredibly successful recruitment campaign or Tesla’s dedication to the cars of the future. Content that is informative and interesting on its own terms works.
Content marketing has risen over the last few years because it’s identified and tapped into a trend in consumer marketing. After years of being absolutely saturated with advertising shouting at them from television, billboards and online, consumers have simply become a little immune to it – that is, until content marketing came along and started talking to them
To speak to your customers in their language, you need the help of expert, native-level translators. Luckily, the language translation services from Bubbles are here to help.
