This is an article “The Latest Cheat Sheet for Agencies To Drive Growth” by Marc Primo
Digital marketing continues to evolve, and with challenges facing multi-sectoral industries today due to the pandemic, keeping up-to-date with the latest tactics that work is essential. From search engine optimization (SEO), customer retention, online merchandising to video marketing, changes frequently come along with the many updates in online marketing platforms.
Recently, Google released another core update that will optimize its user experience concerning how search intent works. Most social media platforms have revamped their respective ad policies and community guidelines, and even mobile service providers have tweaked their individual operating systems. Considering all of these changes, keeping up with the latest digital marketing can be daunting. Fortunately, several practical strategies still work today despite the health crisis and the internet being the preferred place for consumers to transact.
The objectives are still apparent today:
Build your brand reputation online
Engagingly perform marketing
Streamline how you do business
As every company still experiences the ripple effects of the pandemic, mainly on how consumer behavior drastically changed, here's a compilation of integral factors you'll have to look into to drive growth.
Optimizing Google's latest Core Web Vital update
The Core Web Vitals update released last May focuses on optimizing load time, interactivity, and content reliability to increase search rankings. These updates mean you have to overhaul your landing pages to a more mobile-friendly site that guarantees safer browsing and less intrusive elements, such as pop-up ads.
Always remember that Google and pretty much every other social media channel are all about user experience. Never mind the latest controversy surrounding Facebook's knowledge and dismissal of harmful algorithms. Websites that offer positive user experiences and don't annoy users get rewarded with a handsome ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) for digital marketing. Focus on Google's Core Web Vitals update first and start improving your landing pages so that it loads faster and eventually reduces your bounce rate.
Saying goodbye to 3rd-party cookies
Slated for a 2022 implementation, agencies will fare better if they start preparing for the end of 3rd-party cookies and updated privacy regulations as imposed by local laws in certain territories. The state of California, for one, is planning to change its privacy regulations when it comes to data collection practices with fines set from $2,500 and up.
Digital marketers may expect changes in the way digital ads target and track audiences but at this time, pinpointing what specific campaign elements can be affected is still premature. Right now, businesses should focus more on list-building strategies that will make enterprises rely on what data they have rather than what other data collectors can offer. What's certain is a cookie-less future in the pipeline with ample time to improve 1st-user data collection that will go along with their plans involving metrics and placements.
What agencies can do is establish direct customer relationships using 1st-party data and one-to-one methods to continue personalizing content and improving user experiences. One vital strategy to note for 1st-party cookies is that its data platform is more scalable with real-time insights and can process millions of data for better consumer insights.
Doing these 1st-party data collection upgrades now can boost your click-through rate, on and off-page SEO, traffic, and even conversions.
Improving customer retention
Most businesses suffered from the effects of the pandemic. Focusing their marketing strengths on retaining existing customers is a must for those who struggle the most. Business-to-customer (B2C) brands can do this by being mobile-friendly online and creating objectives towards the retention stage of the marketing funnel. Focusing on retention proves to be much cheaper than building new awareness and conversion campaigns, especially for niche brands.
Other tactics agencies can use for customer retention on social media are chat messages marketing, loyalty incentives, and push notifications. Of course, everything should always be in the line of offering a better user experience; even loyal customers get annoyed when you flood their inboxes. Review your existing data among customers with a high lifetime value and nurture one-to-one relationships with them while bypassing third-party cookies altogether.
Smaller niche brands have better chances owning their audiences and establishing their brand reputation in a smaller market than competing against more prominent brands online.
Boosting eCommerce on social
Last year, Facebook helped out smaller niche brands by launching Shops for Facebook and Instagram platforms. The new channel is aside from other existing eCommerce channels like business pages, marketplace, and Stories for digital marketing.
This year, more agencies focus on social commerce as the available channels significantly shorten the customer by leaving out the consideration phase. Most online consumers today are likely to search for what they need and purchase the products on their shopping carts.
Capitalizing on this opportunity and other in-app features on social media can further help agencies get the word out for their brands online. In other words, selling directly on social media streamlines the conversion process so that all you have to do is focus on customer retention marketing.
Being trustworthy
The most important thing is how you build trust online and establish a good rapport with your customers, especially in these uncertain times. Today's consumers are looking at brands that share their values and keep their interests in mind. This strategy won't require you to allocate any of your marketing budgets. Still, the way to approach this is to develop high-quality content on your website and social media feeds to show your brand integrity.
If you promise your customers, be sure to make good on it and follow up for feedback. Again, it all boils down to providing the best user experience you can give, and for sure, this particular marketing strategy will continue even after the pandemic is long gone. As the effects of COVID-19 forcefully changed customer behavior, customers will remember how brands have impacted their way of life. Every brand that makes its message of support to its customers clearer will do better on social media channels than those solely focused on profiting from moment marketing strategies.