Running an online business requires investing a lot of time and effort. While a lot of people put most of their focus into developing the perfect product, experienced business owners know that the most important part of success is a great marketing campaign.

With all the different types of marketing to choose from, it’s hard to pick the right one. However, more and more people are taking advantage of digital marketing and all the benefits it offers.

Global digital ad spend will reach $389 billion in 2021 and if you invest money in digital marketing, it will certainly pay off. But first, you need to know the best strategies to apply.

Email marketing

Email marketing is by no means a new strategy, as digital marketers have used it for decades now. However, as time goes on, email marketing strategies change, and the most important thing to remember now is that personalization is key.

For a while, it meant including the recipient’s first name, but that doesn’t work anymore. In 2021, customers expect hyper-personalized messages, while only 4% of marketers use highly-personalized targeting. To achieve this level of personalization, you need to use artificial intelligence.

Through AI input, you will be able to make effective and efficient data analyses, select the perfect template for each email, and create content that fits the needs of every individual on your email list. But before you can do that, you need to build your email list first.

If you don’t know how to build an email list, let’s go through some basics:

• Choose a platform. Find the right platform for you that can meet your demands but also one that is within your price range, easy to use, offers great customer support and comes with email automation.
• Give people a reason to sign up. Your website visitors need a good reason to sign up to an email list, which is why most companies use incentives. If you offer a free eBook, coupon, webinar registration, or something else your customers enjoy, it will be much easier to collect emails.
• Create a signup form. Give people an easy way to sign up. A signup form can come in many different forms, such as is a timed popup, a click-triggered popup, a simple form located at the end of every blog post, and much more. Use a combination of multiple types to acquire as many emails as possible.

We can’t talk about digital marketing without mentioning social media. Nowadays, every marketer knows that if you want to succeed in business, no matter the niche you’re in, you need to build a presence on social media.

With over 3.6 billion social media users globally, you can be sure that no matter who you’re trying to target with your ads, they have a profile on at least one social media platform. As the number of users keeps rising, more and more marketers are keeping an eye on the best social media trends.

Here are some tips if you want to create the perfect social media marketing campaign:

• Use stories. Every popular social media platform allows its users to create stories that disappear after a set period of time. Marketers use these stories to increase brand awareness, engage with followers, connect to younger audiences, and take advantage of FOMO (fear of missing out).
• Create shoppable posts. Instagram is a great platform for online businesses because it provides its users with the ability to create shoppable posts. You can post pictures of your products and add this simple function that will lead your followers to your website when they click on the post.
• Keep an eye on new trends. Social media is constantly changing and growing, so you need to keep up with the trends. Do research on Facebook’s VR technology Oculus, the removal of likes on Instagram, and a new live-streaming feature of Twitter to see how your business can take advantage of them.

But the most important tip we can give you when it comes to social media marketing is to use social media management tools that will allow you to optimize your digital strategy. They will help with publishing your posts and automating various processes that come with social media marketing.

Search engine optimization

Every once in a while, the claim that SEO is dead comes up, but that’s far from the truth. Search engine optimization and various SEO strategies have been integral to the success of websites for years, but the strategies you need to use to get a high-ranking position change from time to time.

In other words, SEO is a shapeshifter, and those who want to stay on top need to follow the many changes it goes through. When it comes to search engine optimization in 2021, there are a few things you need to pay close attention to:

• Structured data. Organize all of your content neatly with labeled rows and columns or through your website’s back-end code to make it easy for search engines to crawl and categorize. Structured data delivers a big SEO boost and also increases the chances of generating Rich Snippet results.
• Video optimization. Video is becoming more popular every year and customers want to see videos on business websites. However, it’s not enough just to post a video for it to be recognized by search engines. You also need to include a description, title and file names, closed captions, and text overlays.
• E.A.T. Google’s E.A.T. ranking factor, which stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness is another very important factor. Google uses it to determine which content is perfect for its users by making sure it’s well-researched and accurate, so make sure all of your content reflects E.A.T.
• Voice search. Google doesn’t include voice search in its algorithm, but it already dictates search results in a way. Many customers like to use voice-based personal assistants such as Amazon Alexa to find products online, so optimizing your website for voice search can be extremely beneficial.

Interactive content

Marketers use interactive content to keep audiences engaged with the business and it’s mostly used to educate buyers about the product or service before they purchase it. Interactive content usually comes in the form of interactive infographics, videos, calculators, polls, and quizzes just to name a few.

This type of content is marketing gold because not only is it interesting for your customers, but it also gives you an insight into how your customers think by capturing data. Customers aren’t willing to just hand out data, but if you ask for it through a personalized and fun experience, it’s a completely different story.

When you gather data through interactive content and learn more about your audience, it will be much easier to create content and marketing strategies that appeal to your ideal customers. And when you create a highly targeted marketing strategy, you will also establish trust.

Final thoughts

Even though 2021 hasn’t been here for long, smart marketers are already developing the perfect strategies that will bring their businesses more success this year. It’s clear to everyone that digital marketing is the best marketing trend you need to follow this year.

Of course, this type of marketing has a lot of different strategies, not all of which will work out for you. But if you apply the ones you just read about, you will be a few steps closer to your goal.