Few tome ranges have seen such dizzying changes in the way you do marketing as the last 10 years.
Smartphones were just entering the market. The iPhone only had one year to launch and Android was consolidating as an operating system. The print media still had a sizable audience and streaming platforms did not exist.
Mass internet penetration has resulted in a noticeable change in consumer behaviors. If you used to prefer to buy in physical stores now you spend more on e-commerce.
It still happens in other areas like television where there are now more ways to consume content.
This, at the same time has brought new ways to do marketing so you can get to the places where your target audience lives.
It has also allowed niche or specialized companies to have the tools to communicate with their audience at their fingertips.
The evolution from traditional marketing to digital marketing goes beyond changing communication techniques or channels. It is a new paradigm in the way of conceiving the relationship between the customer and the brand, as well as in the way of interacting between the two.
This new way of understanding the customer and their behavior translates into the creation of messages or content specially designed for your ideal consumer.
Digital marketing tools allow customers and their relationship with the brand to know in depth to provide a better service to meet their expectations.
The 3 trends that changed marketing
Although much has changed from 2009 to today in terms of marketing, there are three major trends that we have identified as the most important: social media, the impact of new tools and smartphones.
Now, we’ll be explaining each of them.
The growth of social media
In 2009 the use of platforms like Facebook or Twitter was just becoming popular, other networks like Instagram or Snapchat had not even been released.
Since then, social media has been growing exponentially and its use has been spread worldwide.
Currently, on social networks users search for and receive information, ask for recommendations, complain about bad experiences or comment on good ones.
This represents a unique opportunity for brands to listen and understand customer perception. That’s why a digital marketing strategy that doesn’t contemplate social media is incomplete.
Depending on the product, content disclosure actions, promotions and customer service may be included. It can also be part of the strategy, the monitoring of competition and mentions of the brand.
In any case, brands need to be in the same place as the customer. At the beginning, the press, radio and television were the main media and that is why most of the advertising budget of the big brands was used for those spaces.
That little place has been covered by social media.
The goal of each company’s marketing managers should be to understand how to use social media within the digital marketing strategy and how they fit into their growth projects.
The idea is to capitalize on the opportunities offered by social networks to connect with the ideal customer.
New tools, new marketing techniques
The rise of digital media and marketing is largely due to the new analytics and automation tools available to brands.
Before, a market study and a campaign monitor required a high budget, and often the data went out of time.
Currently there are analytics and ad tools integrated directly into digital platforms or that can be connected to third-party applications.
This way you will get a wealth of important data to get to know the target audience in depth and how it reacts to the brand. One of the best examples of this is search engine or social media advertising.
The ads are directly contracted with the chosen platform and in both cases you can choose in detail what type of audience you are looking for, from demographic and geographic data to lifestyle details or purchasing preferences.
In addition, there are tools designed to keep track of the customer database and interactions with them from the web or social networks. This will enable you to create personalized campaigns and ads for each consumer. Maintaining and improving customer relationships has never been easier.
Digital marketing has also changed the way you manage business budgets. New jobs have been created and have been investing in digital tools.
The return on investment in this area is higher than that of traditional marketing, at the same time allowing greater control over expenses.
Automation is one of the strongest trends in digital marketing in recent years.
The tools to send follow-up and customer support emails, for example, are based on user interactions to provide you with content you are interested in about your products and services.
The mobile market
These last ten years have also seen the growth of smartphones in the market.
As production costs and consumer prices have been lowered, more and more users are joining this trend. In some developed countries penetration is almost 100.
That’s why it’s important that all content generated from your website to promotional emails can be read from your phone without any trouble. Many of the activities that used to be done from the computer are now done from the phone.
Brands have gradually understood the need to adjust the digital strategy to serve that part of the public. The idea is to facilitate customer interactions and find a way to fidelize them.
The mobile market continues to grow and it is a good time to attack it as competition is not so tough today.
Perhaps the most important lesson of the last ten years is to learn how to identify and adapt to consumer behavior trends.
This post is also available in: Español
