The world of digital marketing is constantly evolving with new trends emerging all the time. The challenges are forever stacking up. Certainly, you can choose the glass-half-empty approach, and focus on how moving goalposts are making your digital marketing efforts almost impossible.

Consumers are savvier than ever before, and move from brand to brand or provider to provider with a fluidity that makes it nigh on impossible to foster long-term relationships.

Or, there is the other viewpoint.

Digital marketing trends in the sector do make it a challenging environment, but they allow innovators to reach out to their target audience in ever more ingenious ways, allowing you to forge bonds with your end-users that marketers of a bygone age could only have dreamed of.

Top digital marketing trends to watch

Here are five digital marketing trends that will allow you to further enhance and focus your efforts, or will further disrupt your business. What side of the fence you position yourself is entirely your decision.

1. Advanced automation

More than two-thirds of businesses now use advanced automation systems in their marketing approach. If you are one of that remaining one third, then you cannot use cost or disruption as your barriers to adoption.

Not so long ago, automation was exclusive to large enterprises. Agile customer relationship management (CRM) has changed the game, and extensive onboarding means adoption is easier than ever. These need not be issues holding you back any longer.

And think of the benefits.

Automated segmenting of your content, big-data capture, social media trends, responsive posting schedules: everything is now available at the simple click of a button.

The result is a more focused marketing approach, and an abundance of increased capacity for those human endeavors of creativity. Let technology be your helping hand, not a monster under the bed.

2. The mobile revolution

As of 2019, digital marketers in the United States invest twice as much on mobile advertising as they do on traditional desktop advertising.

What does that tell you?

The small screen has become the dominant force for the web in general. This means your mobile web marketing approach must now be your core focus. Is it? And if it isn’t, then this is going to disrupt your approach like almost never before. Why? Mobile is no longer a niche: one glance around you in a public space can tell you that.

Focusing on mobile will require a major shift in resources, and in expertise too, because clearly mobile doesn’t operate in the same way that desktop does. Your content will have to be tailored for a start. Mobile compatibility will become a core consideration, never an afterthought.

If your business geared up for a full mobile advertising assault?

3. Big data

It all boils down to data. We are well and truly living in an age of data-driven practices, and everything is measured in real-time. Are you driving and assessing your digital marketing efforts based on big data?

Because data science has become the key principle by which digital marketing approaches are laid out. Nothing is performed as a result of a hunch. Instead backed up by hardcore data that rationalizes everything that you do from a marketing perspective.

The first consideration is are you capturing the data that is available to your business. The second is whether you are then using this data to target, segment and market to a scientific degree.

“Marketing has always been about knowing and understanding your customer, it’s just that in the past we didn’t really have the means to measure what this really meant. Now there are no excuses as we have the digital data at our fingertips. It’s then just a case of how effectively you use it to achieve what you want to achieve”

Barbara Frostrup, a marketing blogger

4. Influencers

Influencers are not a new concept, but their reach is ever expanding. And the fact is, they get serious results.

“Once you have segmented your users, utilizing the right influencer is the number one way to appeal to that specific demographic. The challenge is building trust in your brand, so if you can do that by using an influencer whose opinion is highly valued by your users, then that is the quickest way in”

Brady Cupchick, a business writer

Influencers really are just the modern celebrity selling your brand. That is an old concept that marketers have known about since time immemorial. What is holding you back from using influencers?

They are your George Clooney to Nespresso. Just perform extensive research first to ensure that you get the right influencer on board. When you have, your brand never need look back.

5. Eclectic content

What content should you be using for your digital marketing approach?

That is one of the first questions you must ask yourself once you have identified your target audience, and of course you must let the audience decide. And the trend here can be incredibly disruptive to your business because the solution is no longer a simple question of images and words. It is a real smorgasbord of eclectic content ranging from video and infographics, to audio, responsive streaming and beyond.

Content has never been so varied, and that’s what your audience expects. Do you have the skill and means to create a diverse array of content? Do you even have the motivation to do so? These are serious questions that you must ask yourself, because, quite simply, your audience demands it.

In summary

And there we have it: the five digital marketing trends causing the biggest amount of disruption to businesses today. The five digital marketing trends which are allowing even SMEs to target and reach out to their audience more effectively than ever before. Because these are not threats, but very real opportunities for you to grow your brand more effectively than ever before.

Cost need not be a barrier, nor a lack of expertise, because the greatest thing about these innovations is that they are accessible to everybody. It’s not quite digital marketing utopia, but it’s getting there.

This guest blog article was written by Beatrice Cruz, who a copywriter at OriginWritings and AcademicBrits, where she has become specialized in a number of disciplines. In particular she is passionate about sharing her experiences with new writers and helping to uncover all the peculiarities of creating content that sells.