Brainstorming, planning out and implementing a fresh new (or revised) marketing plan ranks at the top of our list of priorities and fun. This is what we live for – continuing what works well, refreshing what’s not, and always moving forward at an agile and cautiously optimistic pace.
Do you have changes or improvements to make to your 2016 marketing plan, or feel like there’s something missing from your existing plan?
We’ve gathered the top five digital marketing trends our team of experts at WindFarm think you should know about, test and potentially add to your marketing strategy.
Reach More Prospects with Instagram Advertisements
“If you are a brand with a strong visual component, it’s a great time to jump on board with Instagram ads, before the market gets more competitive. Advertising on Instagram should not be ignored – there are more than 400 million users, almost half of them female, and a large percentage fall into the Millennial age range, which is a key group of prospects for many companies.
Since Facebook owns Instagram, you get the advantage of the well-developed Facebook advertising targeting to set up and run Instagram ads. By building an audience through your Instagram ads, you can find new target audiences to reach in your Facebook ads, as well. Test it out, and be sure to try video ads in addition to images.” – Ashley Jorz, Marketing Manager
Capture Leads on Facebook with Lead Ads
"I am really impressed by Facebook's rollout of their Lead Generation Ads. We've already seen great results, even with limited budgets. They've been able to help eliminate the 'leaky' part of the funnel in the buyer's journey when users leave Facebook and go to a website or landing page which are sometimes slow to load or not mobile friendly.
Lead Gen Ads are optimized for mobile, which is where we are seeing the highest percentage of traffic for most clients … and super easy for the people to fill out. They do take a little more work and strategy initially to set up compared to the ads marketers are used to working with, so I'll be glad to see how testing and tweaking over the next few months can help us refine the process." – Tessa Bicard, Marketing Consultant
Retarget Prospects Who Visit Your Website on Facebook
“Facebook advertising has a number of advanced targeting options – one of the most powerful is the ability to retarget your website visitors. By installing a Facebook tracking pixel on your website, you can build an audience of people who have visited your website recently and then retarget them with a Facebook ad. This allows your business to stay in front of potential customers even after they leave your site.
You can even take it a step further and tailor the ads to the specific pages they visited. Or create a ‘lookalike’ audience of people similar to those who have already visited your site. This offers a great opportunity to put the right message in front of the right people!” – Devon Zimny, Marketing Director
Look Beyond “Mobile-Friendly” to “Mobile-First” for Websites
“Despite the overwhelming increase in mobile traffic to websites, most companies are still designing their site to be viewed on a laptop or desktop computer. ‘Responsive design’ ensures that your website can be viewed well from any device: mobile, tablet and desktop is today’s modern design standard. This eliminated the need for companies to build a separate ‘mobile-friendly’ version of their website which was a big and important leap. Nearly all, new websites are now built to be responsive, but they are still designed primarily to be viewed from a desktop.
The rapid adoption of mobile devices and mobile traffic to websites (which now outdoes desktop traffic) has resulted in a new trend that is quickly becoming a ‘thing’: mobile-first design. ‘Mobile first’ means designing an online experience for mobile before designing it for the desktop. Although mobile first is a strategy we cannot ignore, it’s still early, and we aren't recommending it for everyone. However, if your mobile traffic to your website drastically outweighs desktop traffic, it may be time for a brand spankin’ new mobile-first site to support your digital strategy in 2016.” – Josh Unfried, CEO/Marketing Exec
Increase ROI of Marketing Campaigns with New Data from State of Inbound 2015 Report
Some of the most important best-in-class practices to include in your marketing plan are: checking analytics frequently, tracking your ROI, increasing the amount of budget devoted to inbound efforts, understanding that inbound is a ‘long game’ in marketing, increasing budgets now for inbound efforts can mean increased results and greater impact down the road.
Get all the inbound stats you could possibly need within this State of Inbound 2017 Report.
What digital marketing trends worked for you in 2015? Which trends are you going to add to your 2016 marketing plan? Share with us!
