The 14 top rated digital marketing techniques for 2017 according to Smart Insights readers
In this article, I'll take an in-depth look at what I see as the most significant trends in digital marketing for the year ahead. But, it's not only my view, since I have 'crowdsourced' the importance of the different trends rated by the popularity of each trend.
For all members of Smart Insights, we also have a more detailed free download of the marketing megatrends for 2017, which are 9 digital marketing and martech megatrends will help give you an edge in 2017. In the download we discuss machine learning and artificial intelligence, which for me is the biggest trend in marketing right now.Machine learning techniques apply across many of the techniques we discuss in this post including Big Data, Marketing Automation, Organic Search and Social media marketing. If you want to know more about the defition of digital marketing before starting on trends, see our post on What is Digital Marketing?
To get our readers' views on the most important trends at a top-level, we asked Smart Insights readers to give their opinion on the most important trends. We asked:
While this doesn't have a controlled sample of our free research reports like Managing Digital Marketing, it does canvas opinion widely. Note that these trends aren't necessarily the most important channel by volume of leads or sales, rather it is the tactic which will give the biggest increase in the year ahead, so it shows what is becoming more important. By asking for just one tactic, this helps shows the the top 3, 5 or 10 top-level trends.
To help the decision on which technique to choose, we expanded upon the short labels you see in the graph to help scope the response more carefully. For example, 'Big Data' is a nebulous term, but when we expanded the definition to include insight and predictive analytics, it shows the value of the specific marketing techniques for Big Data and this help explains why this is in position number two. Here is the full listing of digital marketing techniques:
- Big Data (including market and customer insight and predictive analytics)
- Content marketing Communities (Branded niche or vertical communities)
- Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) / improving website experiences
- Display (Banners on publishers, ad networks social media including retargeting and programmatic)
- Internet of Things (IoT) marketing applications
- Marketing Automation (incl CRM, behavioural Email marketing and web personalisation)
- Mobile marketing (Mobile advertising, site development and apps)
- Paid search marketing, e.g. Google AdWords Pay Per Click
- Online PR (including influencer outreach)
- Partnerships including affiliate and co-marketing
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO or organic search)
- Social media marketing including Social CRM and Social Customer Care
- Wearables (e.g. Apple Watch, activity trackers, augmented reality)
In our Digital Channel Essentials Toolkits within our members' area and our Digital Marketing Skills report we simplify digital marketing down to just 8 key techniques which are essential for businesses to manage today AND for individual marketers to develop skills. This visual shows the core techniques which will drive more leads and sales for you, but within some sectors, techniques like using AI, IoT, Wearables will be more important.
Full source > http://tinyurl.com/jqv6eng
