5 Reasons Why You Need a New Digital Marketing Strategy in 2021

A new year means new opportunities to optimize your digital marketing strategy for maximum effectiveness. The fast-paced field of marketing is an ever-evolving practice that requires a trained eye that is on top of the myriad changes occurring on a day-to-day basis. Smart businesses stay ahead of digital marketing trends in order to ensure that the business reaches its full potential and performs accordingly. We’ve put together a list of the top five reasons why you likely need a new digital marketing strategy in 2021.

1. Get with the times or get left behind.

This means embracing new and popular digital platforms in order to maximize your customer base and communicate with them in the most efficient manner. Last year, TikTok emerged as the reigning champion in its ability to command the attention of the younger generation as social media users the world over spent more time online in light of COVID-19. Brands who recognized this shift early on were quick to reap the benefits of the platform’s exponential international growth.

As such, staying on top of the platforms most engaged with, new or old, will provide substantial opportunities for your business to optimize its reach. Set aside sometime each week to review current events and digital marketing trends so that your business is one of the first to jump on and utilize the innovative tools at these platforms’ disposal.

2. Maximize sales through social media and sales overlap.

While new platforms continue to arise, social media giants like Facebook and Instagram continue to lead by example on the front of revitalizing their digital marketing strategies as a means of keeping users engaged. In 2016, Facebook incorporated sales into its business model with Facebook Marketplace, allowing users to buy and sell items from other users. Though slow to gain traction at first, it has evolved into one of the platform’s most interactive features.

In the last year, Instagram has followed suit with the introduction of its shopping feature, which largely entails B2C sales for users through brands they already follow or those they stumble upon through the discovery page. As social media and sales increasingly overlap, users are more likely to execute in-app purchases which fast track sales processes and converts them from followers into customers. For businesses who choose to open themselves up to this line of efficiency, sales turnover will be sure to expand substantially in 2021.

3. Less is, as always, more.

While it is important to stay active on up-and-coming marketing platforms, it is worth ensuring that your business isn’t spreading itself too thin, or else you risk wasting valuable resources on fruitless tasks. Your new digital marketing strategy should include setting aside time to regularly review the tangible outcomes of where your business’ time and energy is best spent. Do not be afraid to cull efforts with your least effective digital marketing platforms. Doing so will reallocate the same resources to more result-prone tasks, and ensure no effort goes unnecessarily wasted.

For instance, imagine your business utilizes LinkedIn, podcast advertisements, email campaigns and Facebook as its primary means of generating sales. If, as of late, the latter two methods are providing little to no overall improvement, consider cutting them from your digital marketing strategy and instead reallocate resources to the most effective platforms of sales generation. Not only will this ensure the time spent on reliable sources of engagement and income, but it will also improve the overall quality of your messages to your customer base.

4. The average human attention span continues to shorten.

Unsurprising yet certainly frightening is the fact that, as of 2020, the average attention span is, at most, eight seconds. Yes, you read that correctly: that is less than the average attention span of a goldfish. Rather than be put off, embrace this new reality and adapt accordingly by adjusting your digital marketing strategy to best compete for your audience’s attention.

Increasingly, audiences are drawn to personalized, video and image-based content. Your next advertising campaign should, quite simply, give the people what they want. As a starting point, we recommend curating a list of high-performing brands whose business aligns with your own and highlighting their most engaged with content. This will provide you with relevant inspiration for your own advertising campaigns to ensure that your target audience is most likely to respond positively to content as well as encourage click-throughs.

5. If it isn’t mobile-friendly, don’t bother.

If you haven’t already optimized your website for mobile viewing, now is the time to do so. The significant growth of the mobile market in recent years has necessitated that businesses have mobile-friendly interfaces, given that consumers understandably opt for the most accessible and efficient means of interaction. Without it, businesses run the immediate risk of losing customers as a result of outdated website designs.

Some of the obvious benefits of mobile-friendly interfaces involve the capacity for location-based marketing as well as its cost-effectiveness. This means your business is able to curate tailored content for your audience, which also improves the intricacy and relevancy of your customer profiles. As such, your business is able to do more with less by selectively targeting consumers who are most likely to engage with your content and avoiding wasting resources on less probable leads.