Top Five Digital Marketing Trends of 2021

No doubt, digital marketing faced many changes in recent times. Many of these changes came because of the restrictions of the worldwide covid-19 pandemic. Digital marketers learned to be innovative and to think outside the box to stay in business. Reducing costs and marketing better were some of the innovations that kept marketers in business. It now appears that many businesses have survived the worst of the pandemic restrictions. But, going forward, what next? This is 2021 and it looks like some trends will keep soaring to enhance better business. Even with the rapid changes in digital marketing and tech trends that many marketers appear to be hugely excited about, here are five we consider as tops.

1. Increased Digital Collaboration

Business collaboration really helped many marketers through the worst of the pandemic. Since nearly everyone was forced to work remotely during pandemic shutdowns across the globe, many learned to survive by collaborative efforts. They learned how much easier it is to collaborate through chats, video, and voice calls. That helped to keep productivity up despite the restrictions. Many businesses took a huge advantage of video conferencing software like Zoom to cut down on the need for long meetings and even reduce overhead costs for physical meetings. That trend is likely to continue through 2021.

2. Deepening Digital Services

Business owners learned to find effective ways to do things they earlier did physically. That came about by deepening digital services. From small businesses like car repair shops, restaurants, gyms, small retail shops and even big businesses, practically every business quickly learned how to offer their products/services digitally to remain in business. By incorporating an online order system, eCommerce integration, chatbots, or zoom meetings, businesses realized that their customers have enjoyed and benefited from these digital add-ons. These digital changes are likely to continue and may even become more permanent. These effective digital services are likely to deepen further to make businesses more competitive going forward.

3. Decreased Dependence on Traditional A/B Testing

Yes, with digital marketers, traditional A/B testing has been hugely popular in the past but not anymore. Enhanced technology and increased creativity have managed to improve productivity for digital marketers. Machine learning and intelligence are the in-things now. Welcome to the new world of Artificial Intelligence, AI. A/B testing relies much on humans handling and managing generated data with attendant errors and shortcomings. Marketers now rely on new technologies of advanced AI to do A/B testing for them. These AI technologies deliver results with fewer visitors or traffic than traditional A/B testing solutions. In addition, they help to cut down “testing” ad spend, and reduce human hours that marketers had to expend on analyzing and optimizing during a traditional A/B testing period. This trend will continue through 2021.

4. Increased Live Video Streaming

The use of live video streaming is increasing in popularity due to widespread shutdowns. This trend is likely to continue through 2021. Many digital marketers have realized that video streaming simplifies how their teams communicate. Video streaming also helps digital marketers and content creators to enrich their content strategy in many beneficial ways. Forced pandemic shutdowns pushed brands to create virtual events, and conferences, and seminars. This they pivoted quickly to streaming live on YouTube and other live streaming platforms. Many small businesses have been testing out live streaming on their marketing channels and the results are very encouraging. No matter the brand they are marketing, marketers are likely to incorporate more of video content into their marketing strategies along with blogs in 2021 and beyond.  

5. More Restrictions on Online Privacy

Of course, restrictions on privacy online always hinder many digital ads. This is what causes some kind of conflicts between apps makers and digital advertising platforms like Google and Facebook. Privacy demands stem from what is free to track and what info is free to share without permission. With increasing litigation, most parties are now keen on safeguarding their businesses. Presently, applications like Facebook use a tracking pixel that collects users’ data, helping businesses learn more about their audience for marketing purposes. Some IOS compliant devices now have options to opt out of such tracking. Naturally, advertising platforms like Facebook won’t be too happy with that. This restrictive trend is likely to continue in 2021 by way of more privacy updates. Meaning, there will be more privacy restrictions going forward.