Hot Digital Marketing Trends in 2013
When the dust settles from the holiday buzz, attention usually shifts to the New Year and what the previous year held. Looking back at 2013, there were several digital marketing trends that dominated marketing – some of them will continue into 2014, while others were short lived.
Digital Wallets: One trend that started the year with a lot of attention was Digital Wallets. Digital Wallets are mobile apps that store readable card information in the phone, eliminating the need to carry the physical card. Apple’s Passbook and Google Wallet are two of the most well known examples.
The idea is popular for consumers, eliminating crowded wallets and the need to carry a different card for virtually everywhere you go these days, but the concept holds added value for business. Digital Wallet apps potentially allow merchants to track analytics on usage of their rewards cards and can market to their “best” customers accordingly. Starbucks may be the best example of this. Unfortunately, the technology has its limitations, most notably, the absence of their ability to hold actual credit cards due to security concerns.
Social Media: Another big digital marketing player in 2013. This year saw the rise of some new players, such as Pinterest and Snapchat. It also saw giants Facebook, which topped a billion users and Twitter and LinkedIn, with over 200 million users has become mainstream (if not mandatory) marketing channels.
Social Media’s popularity is due in part to its ultra low cost of entry and relatively high ROI with regular use and tracking. With the trends set in 2013, it is clear that Social Media will remain a key component to marketing and necessary for search engine optimization (SEO) for the foreseeable future.
Mobile: The biggest trend in digital marketing in 2013 may have been Mobile. Mobile advertising and website optimization was everywhere in 2013. This is due in large part to the abundance of mobile devices on the market now and the explosion of apps for mobile devices. According to Marketing Land 34 percent of Americans owned tablets in 2013 and nearly 40 percent of all internet usage was on mobile devices. As a result, if your business was only viewable on desktop based computers, you were missing almost half of your potential market.
If 2013 was the rise of mobile, then 2014 will be the dominance of mobile, with some analysts predicting that mobile internet usage will surpass desktop internet usage in 2014.
Video: Video content was another popular trend in 2013 digital marketing strategy. According to StarupNation.com, 4 billion online videos are watched every day. Social networking and mobile devices have helped the visibility of video content and added fuel to the trend.
Each of these digital marketing trends are tools for a well balanced digital marketing campaign for small to medium sized business to grow in 2014 and beyond. Contact Caliber Media Group now for help with your 2014 strategic marketing and business growth.