What to expect for Digital Marketing in 2021? | Where to keep your eyes on?
By: Özgün Sert
Tags: Marketing, Digital Marketing, Digital, Performance Marketing, Digital Marketing Trends

Inhale…Exhale…

We are getting ready to leave behind the year of full of surprises(not the good ones), uncertainities, anxieties, breaking news and chaos … Who would have thought 2020 would do this to us when we were in December 2019? Almost no one. Do you remember how busy we were with planning our holiday trips for the upcoming year, events, running one occasion to another and so on. And of course, we were planning something totally different for our businesses and our carreer as well. Look, where we ended up.

If this drama is enough for you, I’d love to talk about business and sectors news. Let’s get started! In today’s writing, we are focusing on emerging trends to be more prepared than the last year in the days of Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the businesses and all industriers are facing the painful consequences of this pandemic. Although, we already live in it for 8 months, it still hards to keep up with. I sum up some of the trends and expectations for the year 2021 in digital marketing. Here we are…

E-commerce, e-com, EC

The corona pandemic was a breakthrough moment for all businesses. For some time, they didn’t know how to react or they weren’t even sure if they are able to react. Even if the digitilaziton is an increasing trend in all sectors and any type of businesses, there were still some companies or people who were way too behind of it. The pandemic was more challengenic for them than for the rest of the businesses who were aware of the digitalization and taking some actions towards to trends.

While people cannot go out, there are still some needs for them to be satisfied. E-commerce plays a major role here. Someone has to take care of people’s problems who cannot go out at that moment. Altought, consumers were getting used to shopping online from grocery to clothes, cosmetics to home supplies. There were some traditional consumers who still like to buy their needs from phsyical store with touching, trying and experiencing these products. During the lockdowns, they were even ready to try online shopping by leaving their prejudgements regarding this type of shopping behind.

This was a moment, where businesses could actually survive and avoid the negative effects of Covid-19. Even the traditional, local and small businesses had decided to take some actions towards digitilization. E-commerce is going to be an increasing trend in 2021 as the investments will increase in it. From small ones to business giants, they will develop strategies on e-commerce in order to beat their competitors and get a higher portion in e-com cake. If you are still no thinking about e-commerce for your business for the new year, you would regret easily soon. It is better to develop some strategies, make some infrastructure and technological investments for your business’ e-commerce site.

2. Social Media Marketing

Undoubtly, social media marketing keeps its place in emerging trends lists of digital marketing. Before the pandemic, social media platfroms were growing day by day. The number daily users, the hours spent on platforms and the amount users engaged with contents have been increasing every single day. During the lockdowns, where we spend a lot of time at our houses and stay away from our social gatherings, friends and events, social media platforms became more important than ever to be in touch either with your friends or the world. It means that potential of getting more customers, selling more products and expanding brand awareness increases through these platforms.

On the other hand, the battle to been seen, to get more place in digital and to get more engagement is getting harder. Businesses have to try their best to be the more creative in order to get the customers’ attention in this crowded, loudy and colorful world. The cost of creating ads increases as the battle gets tougher. It requires good planning to get the highest Return-on-Investmet(ROI). In order to be sure you make a wise investment, you need to know your potential customers, analyze their behaviours and find in which platfrom to attrac them. When you find the right platfrom to attract your customers, you should decide on the performance of the campaign. It’s important to know what is the purpose of your campaign. In my previous writing, I explanied the fundamentals of performance marketing. You may go and check.

3) User Experience

From first touch to the check out, you need to take care of the experience of your customer. You should make sure that everything works smoothly. While people are spending more time on the internet, social media platforms and mobile applications, they know better what they should expect from a website or the application. There are some aspects you should check on your website/application to be sure your customers will have good user experience. These are ease of use, spead , colors, layout, process and so on. While people have to buy online during these days, they prefer to buy it from the one who is the fastest and easiest for them. You can run A/B Testings to understand which one works the best for your business and customers.

4) Influencer Marketing

Influencers…You either like or don’t, they are a part of digital marketing system. The brands and companies are more willing to spend their money on influencer marketing as well cause they trust the relationship they built with their audiences. There is small trick here that may make your investment more valuable. Instead of partnering with global influencers who has more than 1M followers, you may look for smaller ones. Why? The sincerity, intimacy and the loyalty of the relationship between the micro-influencers and their followers. This is the one aspect why you should give it a chance to micro-influencers. Additionally, since they are expert in one sector or one content, their followers care about influencers’ words more than someone else’s word. They have an experience, knowledge and capability to show the product/service to their audiences. They know how to sell it. Although there is a small audience out for them, they have a chance to observe their reactions, interests and desires. They can create more specialized contents with your product or service. While you are selling more of your product/service, you will pay less than you would pay for bigger influencers. Sounds cool ha? This is the year to try it in your campaings!

You may like: Is micro-influencer a thing?

5) Communication

The last trend we will be watching during 2021 is communication. The way your brand/business communicate matters for customers. Their numbers are higher than you think. In any style, channel or platform, you should care about your language. Communication doesn’t need to be verbal. The place, the people, the colors, the designs, and so on. Everything matters for your potential customers. Businesses/brands need to be more inclusive than ever. Not only to attract new customers also to keep the existing ones. They need to show that they care about any gender, any nationality, any religion, any race, any living being. Customers want to see more activism in digital marketing but the real one, not only few ads to attract more customers or shaping their package.

The pandemic we are going through had a major changes across the sectors and businesses. It plays an important role in digital marketing as well. With these emerging trends, you can update your strategies and win the game in 2021. It seems like we will be dealing with the consequences of the pandemic in the first half of the year so that it is important to empower your digital presence. I am done for today, wish you a great year with your loved ones.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!