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The year 2015 has been started and businesses must be planning their promotions and marketing for the current year. Hence it is very important for them to go through the upcoming digital marketing trends for 2015 for aligning their marketing plan accordingly. In this post, we would be talking of upcoming internet marketing trends which businesses should watch.
1.  Changing SEO Scenario
Till now, Google has announced 13 algorithm updates in 2014 which has impacted the overall SEO environment. In past few years, SEO has been changing constantly; all thanks to Google Updates which can bring massive changes in your website’s keywords rankings. Believe it or not, but Google may de-list your website if you are not following its guidelines.
If you are not aware of Google Webmaster Guidelines yet, please read them now at- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en
Recently Mozilla announced that Yahoo will be the default search engine of Firefox in the U.S. This might help Yahoo to do a comeback in year 2015. Google and Apple Safari deal is also expiring in 2015 and as per the reports both Yahoo and Bing are competing with each other to get Safari business. In that case webmasters will again start optimizing their websites for these search engines and not just Google.
If you think SEO is about conning the algorithm, then you are definitely going into some wrong direction. Time and again, Google has mentioned that they focus primarily on user experience. So, if you really want to get the desired results via SEO, just focus on your users’ experience and make sure they find your product/service interesting and useful.
2.  Local SEO Continues to Grow
The number of small businesses is growing day by day. As a result of it, Local marketing is becoming important on part of owners to promote their businesses online. Long tail & location specific search terms are in trend and if you are not following this trend, then you are certainly missing out valuable customers.
If you are thinking that local marketing is confined to your NAP (Name, Address and Phone) data consistency only, then this is the time to wake up as local marketing is much more than that. It includes:
a) Maintaining NAP data consistency
b) Earning Backlinks
c) Building Local Citations
d) Obtaining reviews
Creating and managing business profiles such as Google Places, Apple Maps Connect, Bing Places, Yelp etc.
3.  The Rise of Content Marketing
In 2015, content marketing will continue to grow. Webmasters will be shifting from traditional internet marketing to content marketing. Now, companies will be focusing on customer oriented content aiming improved user experience.
With content marketing, businesses will be able to build better relationships and trust with their target users. Informative and entertaining content shared via social media, company newsletters, videos, blogs/vlogs can help you building a strong base of loyal customers.
Hence, having high quality and information rich content will be a major trend of digital marketing this year.
4. IoT Will Benefit Marketers
Internet of Things is another concept which gained huge popularity in 2014. This year we can expect more benefits coming marketers’ way from IoT. With Internet of Things, you can widen your social media reach and improve CTR rate. Though IoT is already optimized for social media users by providing them an option of automated posts in their devices, however in 2015 marketers will be able to reach more potential audience with the help of IoT.
5. Rise of Marketing Analytics Tools
Marketing analytics tools have always been in use to get useful information to check user behavior and interactions with company’s products/services. In 2015, the importance of marketing analytics is expected to rise by 60%. Hence companies would be spending more on such tools to gather useful marketing data which will act as basis for future marketing strategies and improvements. Some of the powerful analytics tools for webmasters are:
• Google Analytics– Free + Premium
• Crazy Egg– Premium
• Compete– Premium
• HubSpot Analytics
• ClickTale
• Facebook Insights– Free
6. Video Marketing Will Bloom
In past few years, video marketing has grown steadily. Today where competition is increasing day by day and people are running short of time because of their busy lifestyle, it becomes important for every marketer to promote the product/service in a way which is more powerful, to the point; saving the time of target audiences.
7. More Personalized Approach
Merely focusing on creating quality content will let help you much. You need to give attention to user engagement as well. This can be achieved by following more personalized approach in the content creation process. Hence, we can expect companies writing personalized content in year 2015.
8. Visual Storytelling
With the increasing marketing noise, it will become a little difficult for businesses to stand out from the crowd and market their products/services. This can be solved with visual storytelling. You can use videos, info-graphics to deliver a clear message about your brand to the prospects.
We all know, people get attracted towards visual content as compared to text based content. Hence, visual storytelling is one more concept which prevail in next year.
Need more reasons why you should use visual content? Read HubSpot’s interesting post on- 19 Reasons You Should Include Visual Content in Your Marketing [Data]
9. More Online Advertisements
Now people will be spending more on online advertisements over traditional offline advertisements. In 2015, we can expect 10% rise in internet ads while 48% rise in mobile ads. It’s all because of the worldwide growth in internet and mobile users.
10. Mobile Marketing
Mobile Marketing is another growing marketing concept which marketers are adapting. As per Statista Forecast, the worldwide mobile users are expected to be around 4.88 billion in 2015. Marketers would be working aligning their strategies according to this increasing mobile population.
Take a look at some of the interesting facts about mobile population and its growth:
When we say mobile marketing, it covers several points such as:
a) Mobile Optimization: It’s about optimizing your website for mobile users and targeting the mobile users for your products or services. In short in includes mobile usability, mobile optimized content, responsiveness of website etc.
b) Mobile App Marketing: It is also seen that businesses, especially eCommerce businesses are launching their mobile apps to make it easy for their smartphone audience. At the same time some apps with new concepts are also coming in the market. Here Mobile App Marketing comes into the picture which helps you reaching your prospects with a set of marketing activities aiming more app downloads.
c) App Store Optimization: It is a part of Mobile App Marketing only and includes the basic optimization techniques like App title, description, tags, keywords, categorization etc. This is must if you want your app to rank well in App Store or Google Play.
11. Link Earning
Link earning concept is evolving since Google released Google Penguin update. As per Matt Cutts, best links are not paid or exchanged one; best links are earned and given by choice. In 2015, this will be a trending concept as still marketers not following this concept and involved in paid links/link exchange which is certainly lead to nothing but a Google PENALTY!
Hence, efforts should be directed towards creating such a compelling content that others would like to link it.
12. Branding and Citations
Now with the recent changes in Internet Marketing industry, people are not just focusing on SEO to get the desired results. There are several other techniques that webmasters are concentrating on long term practices such as Branding and Citations. Branding can be done in many ways, however here are some widely applicable ways:
a) Making a noise about your brand by doing something new, unique or creative. Use Press Releases, Social Media, and Blogs to announce about it.
b) Help the community with technical expertise
c) List your business on maximum channels
Citations are a kind of brand mentions which play a vital role in evaluating your brand authority. The more citations your business has, the more branding you will do for your business.
13. Reviews will Become More Powerful
Getting online reviews will be a priority for all the small businesses in year 2015. As per BrightLocal’s Consumer Review Survey 2014, 88% consumers consider online reviews to determine the quality of any local business.
14. Re-marketing and Retargeting will grow
These are two concepts that have arrived to marketers in recent times. Re-marketing helps you targeting those users who have visited your website, store or mobile app. It uses browser cookies to track such users and once they leave your website, the products/services that they viewed will be shown to them on different websites via text, banner, video or product listing ads.
Re-targeting is a broader concept which includes re-marketing also. Retargeting is all about targeting users based on their prior engagement.
Some of the popular forms of retargeting are:
a) Site-based retargeting: This is re-marketing only which is explained above.
b) Search Retargeting: It targets users based on their previous keyword searches they have made on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.
c) Email Retargeting: This is associated with form or shopping cart abandonment. It helps you targeting users based on their actions they have taken on your website through email. This is mostly used by eCommerce Stores to target those users who might have gone through few steps of checkout, but didn’t but the product for any reason.
Some useful tools/plugins for eCommerce based Email Retargeting:
A. Magento
• Rejoiner Cart Abandonment Email Remarketing– Free
• Abandoned Carts Alerts Pro– Premium
• Abandoned cart– Free
You can find more Magento extensions at MagentoConnect.
B. Prestashop:
• Follow-up & Abandoned Cart Reminder Module– Premium
• ShopyMind – Abandoned cart reminder Module– Free
• VePlatform: Abandoned carts Module- Free
You can find more add-ons at Prestashop Marketplace.
C. Shopify
• Remarkety– Premium with 30 days trial
• Klaviyo– Freemium
• AbandonApp by MoonMail– Freemium
D. WooCommerce
• Woocommerce Abandoned Cart Lite– Free
• WooCommerce Rejoiner– Free
• Basket Recovery– Free
15. Â Marketing Memes
As mentioned in point #3, sharing entertaining content can prove to be very useful for your business. Memes are the best ways to entertain your target audience and if used correctly, they can give you high rate of user engagement. You can use social media portals and blogs to promote your memes.
16. UX Optimization
In 2015, marketers would be focusing on UX optimization along with conversion optimization. A/B and multivariate testing would be widely used to analyze customer’s experience on website. There are several tools which can be used for this purpose. Here are some popular ones:
• Unbounce
• Taplytics
• Visual Website Optimizer
• Optimizely
• Qualaroo
• Adobe Target
• Woopra
17. Marketing Automation
This year we can expect more companies using Marketing Automation integrated with CRM. This will help them refining their sales influencer reporting, hence driving more revenue. Businesses need to consider marketing influence along with the buying behavior and journey of their customers.
18. Renewed Focus on Email Marketing
In 2015, email marketing will be back. So all those who might have lost interest in list building will need to re-focus on email marketing and list building. Marketers will be combining content marketing and email marketing to target the prospects. Email Marketing will become more important due to remarketing and retargeting popularity.
19. Â Augmented Reality & Wearable Technology
Marketers will also be focusing on augmented reality and wearable technology to target users of this latest technology. With IoT, more and more objects are getting connected to internet based devices and systems. To stay ahead in the market, marketers will have to keep themselves updated with the rapid growth of IoT in order to meet the changing requirements of consumers.
20. User Engagement is Important to Track
User engagement is an important parameter which decided the success of your website. Tracking the user behavior and the value each visitor is generating for your website is quite useful to make improvements. There are multiple tools available in the market which can be used to track how visitors interacting with your website and from which pages they are bouncing back. So, this year marketers need to pay more attention towards user engagement.
21. Combine Paid Advertising with SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing
If you are still thinking that SEO will give the desired result, then this is the time to wake up. The whole internet marketing scenario has been changed now. You cannot just focus on one thing to get the expected outcomes. Widen the reach of you brand by opting SEO, Social Media, Content Marketing and Paid Marketing strategies like PPC, Facebook and LinkedIn Ads, PR etc.
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