Online marketing in 2014 marked a monumental shift in the industry. From the growth of mobile optimization straight through to the domination of image heavy content, 2014 has been a year that really has redefined the sector.
This blog is going to take a look back over the year and explore these changes, why they occurred, and the effect they’ve had on this ever shifting market. Online marketing is a domain that is still continuing to grow and develop, yet 2014 has seen some of the biggest leaps taken in the industry to date.
Content
One such section of growth can be found in the realm of content. This refers to everything from onsite content straight through to blogs. Content is important in that it attracts customers through engagement, entertainment and the supply of relevant and exciting information, generating website views and, hopefully, high share-rates on social media.
Great content will really give an insight into what a company is actually all about. It brings about a level of personalisation that was previously harder to access in a world where the internet played a much lesser role in marketing, allowing companies the chance to demonstrate their thought leadership in whatever industry they inhabit.
Trends for 2014 included the rise of ‘How to’ content, which can vary from everything from how to ensure you’re home is greener to how to renovate your old clothes. It’s this educational element, the knowledge it allows a reader to access, that draws them into this type of content and keeps them there. By providing the reader with the problem and the solution, you’re creating an all encompassing piece of content that will entertain and inform in equal measure.
Another trend is ‘List content.’ Rarely a day goes by when we’re not subjected to ‘Top 10 things to do if you’re in Rome,’ or ‘Top 6 ways to ensure your car is ready for winter’ on social media, and it’s again this informative, engaging content that’s relevant to our everyday lives and experiences that keep people clicking on content and finding their way onto websites.
The audience that this content can reach can prove invaluable to the success of online marketing for a company, and can increase growth ten fold if it is written well and distributed properly via social media and other mediums.
Social Media
It’s this topic that leads us nicely onto Social Media and how this sector has affected Online Marketing. 2014 has seen a further rise in social media websites beyond Facebook and Twitter, and has given way to websites such as Pinterest and Google+.
This year also saw it become ever more important to really stand out to your potential customers in the online marketing arena through innovative content and info-graphics. It also became very important to ensure that there is ample customer interactions and updates to keep a social media page alive and well (no one wants to see a page that’s old and never actually used!). All of this is because a lot of businesses have switched towards this type of marketing during the year, so there’s a real need to go that that extra mile and be a little different.
This year also saw the rise of the hashtag, and how businesses use this device in order to generate a buzz on social media. The aim of the game is to get people talking about and communicating with your brand on Twitter, and if you can crack the domain of the hashtag, some might say you’ve cracked social media marketing.
Image Content
As well as regular content and social media updates, another trend in the online marketing domain is image heavy content, particularly that of the info-graphic.
Info-graphics provide a way to display content and stand out. If your content comes alongside striking images and intriguing layouts and designs, people are more likely to take notice. This is especially important in the current market, simply because there is a lot of content out there. You need to make yours stand out in order to attract potential customers and encourage users to actually view your content if you want to be a key player in any sector.
Images can also easily go viral thanks to the rise of websites like Pinterest, which once again makes image-based content the key to any online marketing success story. Other popular social media websites such as Facebook are also now placing a bigger focus on images when it comes to user’s timelines, which again is making image content even more relevant and vital in the current market.
Furthermore, incorporating pie charts and graphs to demonstrate data can have a much stronger influence and affect that it would be to simply just write down the statistics; it’s the visualization of these facts and stats that really hit home with target customers. And to further add fuel to the image content fire, MDG Marketing recently released an info-graphic that claimed ‘content featuring compelling images averages 94 percent more total views than those without’, once again proving that images can be a vital factor in clickability rate when it comes to successful online marketing campaigns.
Mobile
With smart phones continuing to grow in popularity, and internet on the move becoming more readily available alongside the introduction of quick accessibility in the form of 4G, mobile optimisation in online marketing has never been more important.
It was reported by emarketer.com that by the end of 2014, 1.75 billion people world-wide will be using a smartphone and the website also went on to claim that ‘48.9% of mobile phone users will go online via mobile at least monthly’. With these statistics in mind, it’s hard to deny the importance of mobile optimised websites when it comes to online marketing.
A more in-depth look on the topic can be found here in one of our previous posts, but the outlook remains the same. With internet access rates growing on mobile devices so quickly, taking a looking at mobile internet access in online marketing must become a main factor of your campaign. Otherwise a company risks losing business by not integrating this useful and effective medium into their marketing strategy.
Video
Social Media Business Academy.com recently created an info-graphic that stated that over 100 hours worth of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute. With this in mind, it’s clear to see that this is a popular avenue to explore on the internet, and that it is something online marketing should take into consideration if it wishes to make full use of its online work to create a presence and buzz surrounding it’s company.
Brightcove also reported that ‘Almost four in ten (39%) were more likely to research the brand or product further’ when they had a ‘good’ video experience. With this in mind, it’s arguably an unequivocal truth that creating video content and placing it on the internet will gain more of an interest around your brand than if you were simply to sit back and not consider this medium of marketing.
Room for improvement was also reported by Brightcove, who went on to claim that the main issues people wanted to see improved upon were, ‘better quality streaming (32%), faster launch times (31%) and less buffering (30%) – showcasing that consumers are really now focused on the experience that is being delivered to them, end-to-end.’ Brightcove proved that it’s about being there for the consumer, making them believe in your brand and ultimately caring about your customer as an individual as just opposed to a statistic that makes them want to do business with you, and that video is one avenue that perhaps may allow for such a relationship to occur.
The Overview
The marketing arena really has birthed even stronger routes in the online sector this year. Videos, info-graphics, social media, mobile optimisation and general content all have an incredibly strong influence, and have settled themselves on the ladder to online marketing success.
An online marketing campaign is one that has to be all inclusive. If you are going to launch your company into this domain it really is worth doing properly. Why focus on social media, which a large quantity of people will access on their mobiles, if your website won’t work on a smartphone? Or why create image content if you aren’t going to focus on encouraging it to go viral on social media?
It’s all interlinked, like a complicated puzzle that will, once slotted together in the right way, undoubtedly lead to online marketing success. And with the trends of 2014 still ringing fresh in our minds, it’s interesting to ponder what 2015 might bring in this sector. You may find some predictions here yourself in just a short while…