So many business people are struggling to choose their marketing trends these days. I’ve been there and if you’re stuck in shiny object syndrome you’re probably wondering what to do.
This article is for you if you’re trying to find the right marketing trend for your business. I know you want to try everything, and see what works, right? Well, that is the worst way to build a business.
If you see marketing trends that fit you and your company then those that will work work for you. For me, cold emailing and focusing on job boards has been the best in recent years. Before that, it was cold-calling and direct mail. It’s not that those strategies don’t work anymore, they will work fine, but I just felt like email and job boards was less time consuming.
If you’re a student of marketing trends, think about where you like to spend your time. Is it on Twitter or Instagram? What about Facebook? Maybe you just like surfing webpages?
The answers to those questions lies the marketing trends that you need to harness.
The Best Marketing Trends
Back to Direct Mail
Of all these marketing trends, Direct Mail is the longest-standing one of them all. It’s been going on for over 100 years and still going strong.
Sure, there are people that will tell you that direct mail is one of the dead marketing trends and blah, blah, blah. However, direct mail really doesn’t get talked about as much and it’s kind of tearing things up for people that are in the know.
All you have to do is write a sales letter, which is one of the marketing trends that never goes out of style, and research your audience. It does take some time to get it right, but it’s far cheaper than doing a print ad and is much more persuasive than offering a discount.
Pushing Original Content
Original content is really the only way to go when you’re looking to push a product with marketing trends. Remember, when you’re using a marketing trend you need to realize that the content will be somewhat similar. This means you need to make sure your content is different in almost every way.
Is it better to follow what is working or be trendsetter within marketing trends? Trendsetters go for it all. If you’re in a competitive market you need to be a trendsetter. Following the crowd is an impossible strategy in competitive markets.
Following the crowd will work for the time being, because that marketing trend just happens to be hot at the moment. However, if your business is struggling to get off the ground with marketing trends you’re utilizing then you should switch it up and create more original content.
Video
Video is easily one of the best marketing trends of 2018. It works so well with the mobile-first initiative of Google and all the social networks out there. Networks like Snapchat and Instagram are built almost exclusively for videos.
Facebook and YouTube are part of the old-guard when it comes to this marketing trend, but there are of course heavy video oriented.
Think about your brand and try to see it as a visual brand for a moment. What kind of videos do you think you could make for your business? What kind of videos do you think your customers would enjoy? If you have get a few ideas for both of these questions, you know that you can scale this powerful marketing trend.
Video is one of the best marketing trends for making relationships with your customers. If you post a video on YouTube and allow comments. You can answer those questions in your next video. YouTube also has an option to start a community on your homepage. This is a very underutilized tool these days. Don’t every discredit the power of building a community.
Hiring Copywriters
All online companies are creating sales funnels these days. The only way to ensure you get the most out of this marketing trend is to ensure that you’re using a copywriter to strike the right emotions when your customers read the material.
A copywriter makes sure that everything your customers see if aligned with the messages that you want to send. Without this vital component to your business, I’m afraid your funnels will not do as well.
Good Old-Fashioned Cold Email and DMs
Copywriters also are great for crafting cold emails and direct messages for lead generation. If you’re not utilizing social media and good old fashioned email you’re missing out.
It doesn’t take much to get the attention of someone with a direct message or a cold email. Make sure your subject headings are interesting for email and your direct messages hook your customer within the first few words. The idea is to get them to open the message when they see subject or a mobile notification.
These marketing trends are numbers games. That means you have to do a ton of them to see good results. It’s not very fun, but it does work. The key is to create a system that is repeatable and doesn’t take a lot of time to repeat.
Influencer Marketing
In the world of business, influencer marketing is the hottest marketing trend there is. Everybody wants Lebron James to wear their shoes, but only Nike gets him. For everyone else, there are plenty of ways to get influencers to market your products. All you have to do is reach out to them and offer something in exchange for a few kind words on their videos.
If you search your industry on each social network, you’ll find people with large followings and tons of engagement that might endorse your product. Every time they make a video your product gets a boost. Think about it. It’s worth it.
The Worst Marketing Trends
Creating Medium-Sized Blogs
Why would people jump on marketing trends that go backwards in thoroughness. This one I really don’t understand.
The argument is people don’t want read and article that is too long. My theory is that people don’t want to read blogs that stink.
I mean, I’ve clicked away from 300 word articles or 100 word emails that bored me to death. If the blog is worth it, I’ll read 30,000 words of it. I’ve done it many times and still wanted more. Focus on your writing and you’ll see an improvement.
Don’t forget the average word count for web pages on the first page of Google is over 1,700 words.
Copying Off of Everyone Else
Marketers always want to know what is the strategy that works, instead of being someone that thinks outside the box. Maybe it’s because they are too worried about proving their worth to the CEO, but many companies these days are starting marketing trends instead of doing them.
One of these trends is how Mint.com created their audience 1 year before they launched their product. They created blogs and collected emails for a straight year telling people about their awesome product and when the product finally dropped they made a killing.
Becoming a Motivational Speaker to Enhance Marketing Tactics
How many times have you wanted to watch a video that turns out to be some kind of motivational waste of time. You thought this would be a video or article about something that would help your business, but you found nothing but fluff.
This is a message to all you content creators that have writers block or can’t think of a good idea every day. Just take a break instead of creating something that already exists. That next video will come to you eventually.
Try making a list of all the ideas you can think of and then start mixing them together. That will help you get off the writer’s block.
Not Utilizing Freelancers
Too many companies are not utilizing freelancers. Freelancing is one of the biggest marketing trends in human history. There are more people looking to freelance these days, because of the freedom of creating your own schedule and the ability to work on multiple projects at once.
If you’ve worked in a job before, you know there is plenty of downtime. Why should you keep the lights on for your employees to watch YouTube or talk about their weekends. You want them there so you can make sure you’re getting your money’s worth, right? However, you know that they aren’t really working a full day.
Most employees squeeze in a few hours of work when they are being watched after they are done talking about the big game. Check out Upwork to at least see what you’re missing.
Picking The Best Marketing Trends
Picking the best marketing trends is not easy, but if you stay away from the bottom ones, you’ll increase your chances of finding a winner. Don’t fret too much about it, if you stick to two or three and forget the rest, you’ll do very well.
Building a business is not about finding the best strategy. It’s more about putting your content out there for people to consume. Of course there are better places to put it than others, but just being out there is half the battle.
If you’re looking for more information about how to market an online business, click the link for more.
