Mobile, social, video and content marketing are dominating the 2016 marketing trends landscape – and the rise of digital does not stop there. In fact, early adopters of trending strategies, like search engine optimization, are now seeking ways to leverage the benefits of data-driven tactics across multiple marketing channels. We refer to this evolution as Integrated Optimization Marketing (IOM) – the practice of promoting consistent content and continuously improving performance through monitoring, testing and measuring across all marketing channels via closed-loop analytics. Simply put, data-driven marketing is here and it’s what IOM is all about.
Find out which marketing channels your company must power-on in 2016 and how the success of these tactics is contingent on Integrated Optimization Marketing.
1. Brand Strategy
For IOM to work, it’s critical that your brand identity, positioning and messaging permeate cross-channel. Argued to be elusive tactics, these elements are critical to driving marketing performance. Review your marketing channels that are under-performing via views and conversion metrics – chances are they are platforms with an inconsistent look and feel. Before you spend time and resources optimizing other channels, ensure your brand is consistent across every platform.
2. Social Media
Companies are shifting their social media priorities from counting the number of followers per channel to harnessing syndication opportunities, such as building lists of email subscribers1. However, email marketing is not the only tactic buddying up to social media. Paid advertising is improving on channels like Facebook by introducing keyword optimization into its targeted ads. Next time you review your social media strategy, ensure that email marketing, paid and organic search are an integral part of it and measure your leads with tools like Adwords, social media metrics and email subscribers, open and click-through rates.
3. Content Marketing
Content is the hub for which all of your other marketing channels will thrive. Today, content marketing includes consistent multimedia that saturates your website, social media channels, blogs, marketing collateral and image strategy. Yes, “image strategy” is now a thing7 and it involves choosing art that’s in-line with your brand’s personality. Content marketing is also optimized for organic and paid search and lends itself to improving your overall customer experience (see strategy #7). As you set out to join the content marketing movement, review website analytics to see which pages and topics are gaining the most traction and start there. Then, plan to align your content activities with your brand strategy, video marketing, paid and organic search and your overall customer experience.
4. User Experience & Mobile Design
By 2016, mobile search will generate 27.8 billion more queries than desktop search2. This movement makes it absolutely critical to optimize your website, social media channels, email and video marketing efforts for mobile devices. This includes enhancing the user experience with minimalistic designs and functional navigation. To get started, leverage data to see how your audiences are interacting with your website and begin to transform pages that offer conversion opportunities (i.e. forms) and those that have the highest views. Please, don’t wait until you’re the last company on earth without a responsive site.
5. Video Marketing
Widespread mobile use is spurring the increase of video views1 and as such, video marketers are tasked with optimizing their media for multichannel use. This includes reshaping the file format, embedding immediate playback functionality and structuring videos as “how-to” responses (the search for this type of video has increased by 70% in 20152). Platforms like Vimeo and YouTube offer excellent analytics on the videos that are gaining the most views and shares. If a particular topic is skyrocketing, consider how you can repurpose it across other channels.
6. Marketing Automation
Automation software and platforms allow for cross-channel efficiencies in digital and email marketing, social media and website development. Integrate these platforms with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to track leads. Since automation allows you to manage multiple channels at once, review the dashboard analytics for high-performance and improvement areas and optimize your marketing plans by zoning in on the tactics that are working well.
7. Customer Experience
By 2020, the customer experience will surpass price and product as a key brand differentiator3. This means that the customer experience will expand to include your website’s UX, client services, consistent branding across all channels and offering valuable information with content marketing. Ask the next client you land which elements of your existing customer experience helped close the deal – then, improve those areas. Don’t rest on your laurels – instead strive for continuous improvement.
8. Marketing Collateral
Traditional marketing materials, such as brochures and sell sheets, are taking on a new form, both in style and format. Consider Google’s latest identity upgrade which incorporates simplistic and flat elements that are scalable across multiple platforms, devices and media. Marketing collateral can also be repurposed for content marketing, so making sure that all materials are scalable is critical. Analyze the success of your materials with social sharing, download metrics and search engine pickup rates.
9. Website Development
It’s no secret that SEO will continue to play a major role in your site’s rankings, but paid search (search engine marketing), content marketing, email marketing and mobile design are also favored by Google’s latest algorithm. Today, all other marketing tactics lead to your website, so once a prospect lands on your site, make sure you have savvy copy and a functional design that inspires them to take action. Close the loop by asking leads how they found you. If one area, like paid search for example is dominating, do more of it and seek ways to integrate it with your other channels.
10. Search Engine Optimization
The wild-west days of SEO – when pages were riddled with terms to foil Google’s ranking strategy — have evolved, and now PR and content marketing are now taking precedent in Google searches4. The latest Google update, Panda 4.0, is intensely moving away from keyword-stuffed websites to favoring sites with rich, unique and newsworthy content. Do research to develop a strategic keyword list and develop content around the most relevant, attainable words. Evaluate your keyword list consistently by viewing website traffic analytics and keyword benchmarking stats – hopefully you see an arrow pointing up and to the right.
11. Paid Search
Commonly referred to as search engine marketing, the success of today’s paid search is contingent upon the development of a savvy landing page. Paid ads previously converted users by directing them to a website’s home or contact page. Now, as consumers are inundated with more and more data, they are demanding immediate action. This means that simple landing pages with strong call-to-actions are the key to success. Use A/B testing methods to try two or more controlled designs and review the click-through and conversion analytics to see what worked best.
12. Email Marketing
Today, 66% of all emails in the United States are read on a smartphone5. This mobile movement means that both your email and the included call-to-action links must be responsively designed. Make data-driven decisions by analyzing the buttons that gained the highest click-through rates and conversions. Furthermore, automation tools can help you develop responsive emails and landing pages to increase results – they’ve done the research for you, so what are you waiting for?
13. Public Relations
It’s increasingly important to leverage the power of digital tactics with traditional PR strategies, like press releases, articles, speaking engagements, surveys and awards. In fact, social media is playing a large role in gaining the attention of news outlets and therefore making it important for these tactics to work in tandem. Moreover, thought leadership and smart storytelling are growing priorities for PR professionals as well – so it’s time to get your best content marketers on board and start analyzing success metrics like search engine pickups and social media retweets and shares.
14. Event Marketing
When done properly, pre-, during- and post-show marketing spans all channels. Take the design of your event theme for example: it will be replicated in direct and email marketing, videos, advertisements, website and landing pages, traditional print materials, collateral and social media. As you prep for your next conference, run through your list of marketing tactics to make sure every strategy is powered-on and working together. After the event, analyze which channels received the most engagement via form submissions, click-through rates and shares – and next year, start there.
15. Advertising
An art and a science, traditional print advertising is now tightly integrated with digital channels. Creative departments are tasked with producing print ads that are scalable across paid search, social media, video marketing, and of course, ads that align with your brand messaging and identity. Don’t miss out on data-driven insights like impressions, clicks and views. Instead, develop a tightly integrated advertising campaign that drives brand cohesion and a superior customer experience.
16. Direct Marketing
Saved for the highly targeted lists, direct marketing is a result of obtaining qualified leads through email marketing, paid search, landing pages and social media. It’s driven by analytics, even automation, and lends itself to close-looped analytics when utilizing a customized URL. Revive the power of direct marketing by capitalizing on its digital legs and data-driven benefits.
Starting today, harness the power of as Integrated Optimization Marketing (IOM) until your program’s performance achieves marketing precision. Then, do it all over again – because IOM is the never-ending quest for optimal results and return-on-investment.
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Are you interested in Integrated Optimization Marketing or other B2B marketing services? Contact Sagefrog Marketing Group at 215.230.9024 or visit sagefrog.com.
References:
1 – Smart Insights, 4 Trends that Will Change Your Marketing Communication in 2016
2 – ComScore, The U.S. Mobile App Report
3 – Walker Info, The Future of B-to-B Customer Experience
4 – PR Daily, Goodbye, SEO: PR is the New King
5 – Search Engine Journal, 4 Email Marketing Trends We’ll See as We Gear Up for 2016
6 – Forbes, PR Trends You Need to Know in 2016
7 – Social Media Examiner, 2016 Social Media Predictions from the Experts
