Over the course of the year, businesses will implement various marketing tactics, some of which are hot, new marketing trends, others that have already been proven to be effective. However, Some marketing tactics that began in 2020 will still work in 2021. Here are new marketing trends that will a good idea for 2021. 

1. Keep Producing Video Content

At this point in time, video content should be a major component of your content marketing strategy. According to recent studies, half of all American Internet users watch video content online every day, whether it’s on their computers or on their phones. Invest in pre-recorded videos as well as live videos that are mobile-friendly to continue reaching a larger audience.

2. Add Chatbots To Your Website

Getting your visitors to engage and interact with your website is vital to maintaining their interest (and keeping that bounce rate low). Chatbots have become an incredibly helpful feature for visitors over the past few years. The presence of a chatbot allows a visitor to ask questions or for assistance in real time instead of having to email a company and wait for who knows how long to hear back. Implementing a chatbot will make your website experience much more convenient for your visitors and will prevent them from getting frustrated.

Why Your Website Redesign Would Benefit From An Inbound Marketing Strategy

3. Curate User-Generated Content

One of the most important elements of brand perception is authenticity. If your brand doesn’t feel authentic, it will hurt your reputation. One way to build your authenticity is to leverage user-generated content. There’s nobody that consumers trusts more than other consumers, after all. Produce video testimonials and set up contests to promote the creation of user-generated content (such as Instagram photo contests) that you can use to build your authenticity.

4. Focus On Personalization

Personalization has been important to customers for years now, and this won’t change in 2019. Personalizing your marketing will help you stand out and will make it easier for your audience to engage with you on a more personal level. It’s also become much easier to personalize your marketing than it’s ever been due to the ability to collect and analyze purchase history data, consumer behavior data, and more. At this point, there’s simply no excuse not to leverage personalization.

5. Employ Best Data Privacy Practices

The GDPR passed in Europe in 2018, which put into place numerous regulations regarding the collection of private user data. While such regulations aren’t yet in place in the U.S., it’s only a matter of time before they will be. As a result, you should begin taking steps to ensure that the data you’re collecting is secure and that you’ll be able to follow any new data privacy regulations that may pass.

Not all established marketing tactics or current marketing trends will be useful next year. However, some certainly will be. These are some of the marketing tactics that you should implement into your 2019 marketing strategy.

The success of some of the newest brands on the market is due to marketing technology. Brands like Uber, Air BnB, Lyft, Grub Hub and Seamless have managed to leverage marketing technology to paint the perfect picture of their ideal customer. All these brands are itching to reach the same costumer base. The companies mentioned above are looking at city-dwelling millennials who love to travel and value convenience. Through MarTech, the above brands have been able to use the data they’ve collected to tailor the user experience specifically to their customers.

While new brands seem to have marketing technology down to a science, older brands are lagging behind. Unable to invest in a marketing agency to collect and decipher data, small and mid-size businesses are lagging even further behind.

What is marketing technology?

Back in the golden age of marketing, there were four things that most companies focused on; price, product, placement, and promotion. Placing a product in the direct line of sight for consumers, and promoting that product through TV, magazine, sales, and adverts was the core foundation of marketing. Today, things are different. New School marketers focus on The 6 Cs; Making contact, connecting with the userbase, monitoring consumption, considering consumer needs, starting a conversation, and building a community and monitoring consumption.

New school marketing presents its challenges. It isn’t enough to collect the data from consumers; a company must be ready to utilize that data. In most cases, the job is easier said than done. This is where marketing technology comes in. High-end marketing software makes it easier to collect data, follow trends, and, perhaps most importantly, pinpoint patterns within the consumer lifecycle. These patterns allow a marketing professional to make educated guesses about product performance. It also allows professionals to tweak campaigns to fit current trends based on the date they’ve collected.

[Read about Effective Marketing Strategies for a Changing Economy]

The new school of marketing

Martech has changed the landscape. Besides data, it has changed how companies are reaching their preferred clientele. Influencer marketing is a relatively new concept, mostly born out of the Martech space. Influencer marketing entails identifying influential individuals in a space. For example, a makeup company may send over free samples to a YouTube beauty guru. Another may offer their fitness tea to an Instagram model. These paid influencers have built a wide fanbase through social media. Influencer marketing allows marketers to leverage an influencer’s following to reach a particular demographic. It can be considered word of mouth marketing for the new age.

The push of outbound marketing and the pull of inbound marketing is another difference between the old school and the new school. The pull of inbound, however, needs to be measured uniquely through the use of marketing software and technology. Through the creation of more data, we must move into a space that best utilizes that data to create a harmonious user experience. All the data in the world won’t matter if it isn’t being used to harness a complete and clear picture of the target demographic.

The economy is changing. We are in the midst of new frontiers in so many areas without effective marketing strategies in place. The way people shop, engage with brands and enjoy their time is markedly different than it was 15 years ago. Brands that don’t change, and use new marketing strategies are likely to falter and fail. The changing economy is the reason why 68 Macy’s stores are closing their doors, and The Limited is shuttering its doors. The evolution of the economy is forcing the scaling back of Sears and Kmart, and even luxury food retailer Whole Foods.

In this ever-changing World, stores, and companies that fail to adapt, also cease to exist. It seems the Borders and Blockbuster Videos just didn’t anticipate the climate was evolving. Think about this, the largest transportation provider in the United States doesn’t own a single car. Uber has shifted thoughts and succeeded. The newest largest hotel company in the World doesn’t own a single hotel. Airbnb has made it more convenient to book a stay. And lastly, Amazon just passed Wal-Mart as the nation’s biggest retailer, but they don’t own a single retail store.

Here are four effective marketing strategies to making your company bulletproof:

1) CEO has to be willing to change.

Modify the culture, the approach and forecast the possibilities. Employees then must relish in the change and execute. This thought can’t be on one person. It takes an army to change. When is the last time you stepped outside of your world and looked down at it? Employing marketing strategies for a changing economy can do just that.

2) Follow Trends.

Staying current on technology could give you an edge of coming up with something revolutionary. Your company just needs to be open for the opportunity when it becomes available. I guess, recognizing the shift when its in front of you, is equally important as implementing it. The strategies that worked two decades ago, simply don’t work now. The economy changed, and thus marketing strategies must change, too.

3) Emulate Shark Tank.

Strange one right? Individuals are always coming up with new ways to market or solve an issue. Your culture needs to be just that. Foster the growth of your employees by listening and having a forum for ideas like Shark Tank. Ideas can come from anyone, and today this needs to be embraced more than ever. Be ready to invest when the right opportunity presents itself. The execution comes later. Crowdsourcing has become a major marketing strategy in the changing economy because it works.

4) Never be complacent.

Once you stop pushing forward, your competition has the advantage. The drive will certainly win out in the long run. Did you know 72% of bosses would rather have passion over education or knowledge? Passion has more ability to make money. The problem-solving skills increase as intensity increases. Some individuals may call it enthusiasm. Our job market today has many dissatisfied individuals that don’t feel they are contributing to making a difference. Their interest seems to be low. Don’t believe me? Here are some facts that give you the state of employment.

• 88% of employees don’t have passion for their work
• 80% of senior managers are not passionate about their work
• Employees working in government reported the lowest rate of engagement
• 86% of businesses and HR leaders believe they don’t have a good leadership development path
• 79% feel they have a significant retention and engagement problem
• 75% are struggling to attract and recruit the top people they need
• 83% feel they don’t have a compelling and engaging brand
• Only 6% believe their current process for managing performance is worth the time
• 2/3 of today’s employees feel overwhelmed

Giving access to the decision makers for your staff could truly change these stats by leaps and bounds. But typically, our model in America is to push leadership down. Today, it should be reversed. Can you imagine Netflix today, if they didn’t think of ways to deliver movies without a disc? What if the Nest had a bunch of guys that only believed that the thermostat was and always will be the same tool for turning on your air conditioning and heat? What if Dyson didn’t believe a vacuum could suck dirt up any better? And if Peapod believed everyone would get their groceries? I am a believer that everything can keep getting better. It does not matter what you sell or how you sell it; it can be improved upon. Be in a position to win, be in a position to be open and throw out your old thought process of “that’s how it’s always been.” This is the reason agencies and marketing firms exist. They should help propel you to new thoughts, and serve as a vehicle to get those thoughts out into the world.

Make yourself bulletproof and take on the change. Rework your marketing strategies to include new and innovative ideas. You’d be surprised just how much a different approach can surpass the field of fierce competition, and help you shine, even in a changing economy.