Our top digital marketing trends for 2021

A new year on the horizon represents an opportunity for a fresh start, an evolution or upping your game. This hasn’t been the best year for many people and businesses but 2021 could not only be easier but filled with opportunity too. If you’re looking to improve your digital marketing next year – whether that’s the customer facing side or mechanical and technical optimisation – these are the trends to follow.

• Environmentalism. The pandemic hasn’t quite managed to sweep eco issues under the carpet and 81% of consumers feel strongly that businesses should be doing their bit to help the environment. People want to make sure that the brands they give their money to are as passionate about this cause as they are. This is not a topic that you can pay lip service to and expect to be rewarded. It requires integration across your marketing collateral, from sustainable packaging to a banner on your website.
• Interactive content. From quizzes to polls, giveaways to surveys consumers increasingly want to take part and this is a simple way to build brand closer relationships and capture data.
• The quest for Position Zero. This is the “featured snippet” on Google, which sits separately from other search results at the top of the page. Rather than going for the top of the rankings, 2021 is going to be all about getting into Position Zero. This requires longtail keyword phrases like questions – lists are one of the simplest ways to target this position.
• A more diverse and inclusive approach. 2020 was the year people officially became fed up with homogenous marketing focused on a narrow perspective of race, gender, sexuality and religion. Next year one of the biggest themes for content is going to be the thirst for diversity and inclusivity – a recent Accenture report showed that this is already happening, finding that 41% of shoppers have moved away from brands that don’t reflect how they feel on this key issue.
• The issue of ad-blockers. 27% of online users intend to use ad-blockers next year and this could cause serious issues for marketers. Check your analytics to see if this is likely to be an issue for your marketing – if it is then, rather than trying to convince users to change their preferences, divert your marketing budget away from ads and into somewhere that you have easier access, such as sponsored social content.
• An increase in visual searches. Images are increasingly being used for search, instead of keywords, and next year this is likely to become even more of a trend. You can ensure that you’re ready to take advantage of this by adding images to your sitemap, including alt text with your images and ensuring all the visuals you have are high quality.
• Customer segmentation. It’s not a new trend but becoming hugely popular once again as it really works. This is a simple process of grouping customers by traits, behaviours, demographics etc and using this to better target consumers with smaller advertising campaigns.

2021 holds a huge amount of promise for businesses large and small – these digital marketing trends can help you to make the most of all that potential.

To find out how Iconic Digital can help you improve your business’ digital marketing, get in touch today and call us on 020 7100 0726. You can also explore our digital marketing services online today.