By their very nature trends can be transient, coming and going and not necessarily making much of an impact even when they do persist for a while. But when it comes to marketing there are definitely trends that can be pinpointed as continually influencing a lot of e-commerce. Here are some of the trends you can expect to come across as 2018 progresses.
Content management
While hardly being a recent trend, content remains the key aspect of Internet marketing looking forward, just as it has been for previous years. Content management will always be the fuel driving the web and allowing customers to engage with sites. It is crucial to digital communication, covering everything from searching for subjects to e-mail marketing, and is also the foundation of social media.
There will always be different ways to look at content, from using content marketing tooltips to employing professional writers to supply articles. Whichever content applies – text, images or video files embedded in a website – the common denominator is that the content has to grasp the attention of an Internet audience that often has a fairly limited attention span.
Mobile marketing
More and more people are using smart devices where computers were once the ubiquitous business tool of choice. It is now estimated that over 50% of the total Internet traffic across the globe is now being driven by mobile devices, and while this may be the situation in 2018 any extrapolation of market statistics shows that by next year this figure is likely to increase to over 70%.
Companies are having to make changes to their marketing budgets in order to take into account this shift in strategies. Mobile advertising is now a vast business, figures from US market surveyors eMarketer revealing the total spend on mobile ads has risen from $10.67 billion in 2013 to $58 billion this year.
Obviously a key skill that digital marketers are now having to grasp is how to harness mobile marketing campaigns that will really engage audiences. This will lead to the evolution of ever more sophisticated apps.
Affiliate marketing
This is the trend that will continue to impact e-commerce. Websites like TopOffers.com will become even more popular and widely used. Affiliate marketing is growing in popularity because it is such a straightforward and cheap way for small scale businesses to latch onto the marketing streams of much larger organisations.
Anyone wishing to branch out into a solid marketing must first consider the types of products they can sign up to promote. If they already have a significant web presence then this will be a much more straightforward activity. When it comes to generating income from affiliate marketing the idea is to encourage customers to click on the links on your own pages that will drive them to the sales zone of the retail company you are affiliated to. Ideally you never want to be seen blatantly plugging items, but rather placing your product centremost within your existing web presence.
This strategy is ideal for an entrepreneur because it encourages you to tap into your own social media in order to promote products and earn commission. For an affiliate marketer, success comes when you regard your potential audience in terms of being part of an integrated online community rather than simply anonymous customers who are enticed towards click-throughs.
The key to making the success of your e-business is to become an authority on your niche. You should demonstrate enthusiasm and impart valued knowledge about your topic at all times, and you can do this most effectively through your social media outlets. It is possible to craft reviews in a way that do not come across as simply inviting people to buy the product. Instead, references to your product should sit organically within your overall web presence. In this way you encourage proactive discussion among your customers. Rather than simply clicking the links and then buying units, their opinions should be sought in order that they feel valued. Engaged customers will continue to come back for more rather than simply dropping by your site on a one-off basis.
Of all the trends it is this social media marketing that has the most traction, due to it being so inexpensive but potentially wide-reaching.