Is your company ready for these 2016 digital trends?

IT’S that time of year again when articles about digital trends abound, and it is also a good time of year to digest and reflect on those trends and what relevance they might have for you and your business.

Whether you are starting with a blank sheet this January, have tried things that haven’t worked entirely to plan, or are keen to expand the things that have worked well for you , taking to time to step back and get an overview can be a refreshing and vital step, especially in the digital arena where change is pretty much the only constant you can rely on.

Here I look at five key digital trends for 2016, how they are driving the digital agenda, and how marketingondemand ltd are able to support your needs in planning and executing these digital trends in ways that will have the most positive impact on your 2016 results.

1. Think mobile

Whereas many companies have moved in the last couple of years to ensure their websites are readable on mobile devices, surprisingly few have gone much further than this and effectively explored the dominance of mobile in a world where for many people, mobile is the only way they access the digital world.

From considering your content messaging and length to optimising your messages for notifications, putting mobile at the forefront of your efforts makes sense as mobile strength and traffic continues to grow. Thinking needs to shift from mobile as a channel to placing mobile at the starting point and heart of what you do. Mobile commerce, dissemination of information, capturing decreasing attention spans by providing compelling reasons for your audience to look and to listen – all of these areas will continue to grow and dominate the digital landscape.

2. Customer experience

Customers want to be online, to interact and to do and to be entertained online. Instead of thinking of different channels and different ways of speaking to customers, now is the time to think of the customer first, of their needs, wants and aspirations across the variety of touchpoints where they will come into contact with your brand. By working always from the customer’s viewpoint, it becomes possible to us the customer experience as a driver of differentiation and a reflection of the quality and strength of your brand.

As well as attracting and selling to new customers, concentrating on providing value for the customer right through the lifecycle yields opportunities for turning your loyal customers into advocates, allowing you to turn clients into ongoing supporters who will add value to your business with referrals, loyalty over time and increased engagement.

And improved customer experience in consumer areas means that when it comes to your business customers, their expectations have been raised and higher standards for customer experience will apply in business to business areas as well.

3. Digital becomes mainstream

It is well past time to stop talking about digital marketing, when marketing has really become digital. Instead think about one marketing strategy then look at what tools, tactics and channels will help to deliver this strategy. Within organisations there is a shift from digital silos towards integrated teams, with aspirations to embed digital across the whole business and effect digital transformation.

There are benefits and risks associated with silos and with integrated teams, and if you are struggling to make changes in your organisation to support your digital needs, marketingondemand ltd can help you to establish and effective organisational framework with suitable governance, processes and communication channels to make a success of your plans.

Content marketing and social media and increasingly being tied directly to lead generation and sales, and digital can now be described as the context for all marketing.

4. Value and variety of content

With the sheer volume of content now available, and content shock now commonplace for many, it is more important than ever to focus on the quality, value and relevance of any content you are creating, along with considerations of the format of that content and its potential for re-use and amplification.

Planning out an editorial calendar tied back to your business objectives is a critical stage that we can help you with, along with identification of opportunities to gain most resonance for the valuable content that you do create. Whether it is short- or long-form content, written, audio or video, having a solid plan tied back to your goals will mean that you can implement, measure and learn from your activities, maximising your effectiveness and efficiency.

5. Humanity in technology

With all technology as things become automated there is a risk that you lose the human touch that remains critical to interactions and that is often the reason for initial contact through to deeper engagement. But there is also a risk that in scaling your business or online activities you will lose the humanity that should always be present in online communications. Let us help you find the balance between being always available to manually respond online, and being able to automate certain processes and activities so that you can spend your available time well in getting most impact and return from your activities. Let us support you in establishing time-saving ways to promote and develop your business online while ensuring the you that is doing business doesn’t become lost behind the efficiency of the new technologies. Continuing to speak directly with an authentic voice is critical to your business success, and we can help you retain the human touch in your communications without it taking up all of your time and efforts.

If any of these digital trends have fired your imagination, or left you wondering how you can implement them for your business, get in touch today and see how we can support you from planning through to execution. Call us on 01491 614404 or email us at info@marketingondemand.co.uk and let’s get started!