Top Marketing Trends to look out for in 2021

The Marketing Level-up

Top marketing trends to look out for in 2021

With unfettered access to billions of people across the world, the focus of internet marketing will be a brand’s ability to evolve their influence to a limitless audience base.

Since the pandemic, older ways of doing business are being phased back out, and the overall marketing landscape is shifting with tectonic proportions.

What matters most? Feeling connected.

Zoom announces record profits.

Facebook and other social media sees massive upticks in daily usage.

Understanding the trends being forecasted today is the difference between a year of thriving or another year of simply surviving.

As we head towards the second decade of the 21st century, internet marketing continues to be as important as ever.

The rise of cause marketing

People want to feel connected to the brands they support. They’re now looking for businesses to hold the same values as they do, and support the changes they want to see.

For many years, it was a guaranteed death sentence for a company to speak out about certain polarizing topics or events.

In 2021, it’s nearly a requirement to do so.

The ever-increasing purchasing power of younger generations like Millennials and Gen Z’ers are prompting companies to evolve their marketing strategies to become more focused on the triple bottom line and less on simply shareholder profit.

You will see an uptick in cause marketing trends as more issues with the “status quo” are revealed and adopted. Consumers, who themselves, are becoming smarter, more aware, and more connected, will begin to expect more from the brands they choose to support.

The reemergence of online marketing

The past several years have been dominated by digital marketing strategies that included email campaigns, targeted social media ads, PPC advertising, and brand ambassadorships. With this increase, offline marketing became a way of the past.

This trend will continue in 2021.

Consumers want 24/7 access and want a brand to flirt with them like a salesperson would do. They don’t want to pick up the phone and talk to you. They would like to chat about it in a messenger or chatbot.  digital marketing as they once have. The increasing savviness of target audiences are leading marketers back to the drawing board, as they attempt to subvert the changing marketing landscape, and make a splash in 2021.

Companies like Hubspot have begun employing new school, direct marketing techniques such as social media following and engaging with prospects and clients for their marketing strategies.

The focus of relevancy and personal touch have invokes trust in their consumers, allowing for them to foster relationships more intimately, while differentiating themselves from competition. This has provided them with some substantial results early-on.

Voice-activated searches – a new marketing frontier

2021 saw an massive billion dollar demand for AI Virtual Assistants such as the Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa. These devices are a part of an emerging industry called the “Internet of Things” or IoT, which includes all devices that are wirelessly connected to the internet through a cloud based system.

By 2025, it’s estimated that all devices will be connected via the cloud. A good percentage of these devices will have voice-activation capabilities, which is demonstrated by massive year-over-year growth.

Companies have to adjust their content to be more voice-search friendly by focusing on natural speech patterns, long-tail keywords, and an even bigger investment into mobile friendly platforms.

With the new frontier of search coming by way of voice, the design of a company’s digital marketing content, including the focus of their SEO, will have to evolve.

Staying ahead of the curve

One of the best ways to thrive in business and in life, is to stay ahead of the trends that evolve over time, which puts businesses and marketers in a special circumstance that only comes around once every 5-10 years.

As we look towards 2022, companies will differentiate themselves by leveraging their values, authenticity, and agility. And with the emerging frontiers of marketing leveling the playing field for smaller companies, the landscape will once again shift with tectonic proportion.

4 Brilliant Ways to Build Your Brand

The Longevity Theory

The word promotion was first used in the English language in the 14th century. It’s derived from the French word promocion which means to move forward, push onward, or advance in rank.

It wasn’t until 1925 that promotion was used in advertising and publicity. Since then, promotion has stood firmly as a low cost, highly effective marketing strategy still used today.

Four out of five people in the United States own some sort of promotional product: t-shirt, cup, glass, calendar, pen, etc. Of that 80 percent, 53 percent use a promotional product every day.

2019 is seeing the reemergence of strategic promotional marketing. Promotional products, when leveraged correctly, are a game changer for brands trying to gain visibility in highly competitive markets.

Increasing your brand awareness
In brand promotion, the longevity theory involves focusing on giving customers something they’ll use in the everyday execution of their business for months or even years on end.

This gives a brand the opportunity to increase public visibility, especially when used by highly influential clients with large followings, or those who interact with many external companies on a daily basis.

With the advent of social media, finding ambassadors who promote brands has become a popular strategy. Having a social media influencer with a large audience wear your brand on a t-shirt can quickly drive more customers to your company.

Spurring curiosity is key for unknown brands trying to penetrate a new market for the first time. Repeated contact and connection with an unknown brand prompts people to learn more about it while developing the beginning stages of brand loyalty.

Influencing new business
Understanding your ideal customer is foundational in creating an effective promotional campaign. Learning their industry and understanding their needs provides key information on the promotional products they’ll use everyday.

Creating demographic and psychographic customer profiles is a great way of understanding where your customers come from, how they live, and how they think. This gives a brand the ability to provide potential customers with promotional products that improve the quality of their lives.

When attempting to attract new business through a promotional campaign, you want to focus on fulfilling an ongoing need with a utility-first approach.

If you’re attempting to provide wearable promotional products, ensure that they’re stylish and match the client’s business environment.

This increases daily use and, in-turn, daily exposure.

Landing high-value clients
Providing people with value is a guaranteed way to increase interest in new brands and products.

By adding value to a potential customer through different promotional strategies, you’ll demonstrate that you truly care about their success. This develops trust and loyalty with your brand.

Gratitude also goes a long way in enticing people to align with your brand. Providing useful, personalized, and high-end promotional products to high-value clients, demonstrates a high level of gratitude.

Attract highly niched people by tailoring promotions to their needs. This can instantly place your brand at the forefront of their minds, ensuring that they consider the products or services you provide, the next time they’re ready to buy.

Ideal outcomes
Promotional products boost outreach and recognition in a cost-effective way and creates a long-term sources of new business.

Before you use tightly budgeted marketing dollars, understanding your ideal outcome is imperative to getting the most return on investment for promotional campaigns.

Choosing useful products that fill a need of your target customer, and tailoring your promotion to a specific audience, can create enormous avenues of visibility which expose your brand to an even bigger market.

By differentiating yourself with new takes on old school promotional marketing strategies, 2019 can become the year you initiate that targeted, thoughtful, and cost-effective promotional campaign to finally solidify and grow your brand.

Go to Top