It seems like 2019 hit us without a warning. With the new year here and in full swing, it’s time to think about the future when laying out marketing campaigns and strategies.
Every year it’s the same thing for most people – they make resolutions that are typically based on fitness and financial goals. They want to lose weight and get into better shape, as well as improve their professional accomplishments.
If you are a business owner, then marketing is how you can reach those lofty goals you have set, and the internet is the gateway to unlimited potential. The key is to position your business is a way that it’s easily found online by those seeking to purchase whatever products you sell or services you provide.
What works when it comes to marketing constantly changes and evolves, so it’s important to stay up to date on the latest trends and technology. What you did last year might not necessarily be the best approach in 2019.
You don’t have to wipe the board clean and start over from scratch, but you should always be tweaking and testing new opportunities.
I want to help you make 2019 your best and most successful year yet, so I put together a list of ten marketing strategies that have the potential to deliver the best results online for your business. These are all worth looking into and putting some effort in — your competition is likely to partake in the same, so getting a head start can prove to be highly beneficial.
These are 10 of the hottest marketing strategies of 2019..
1. Instagram and Facebook Double-Team Ad Strategy
Over the past year I have heard a lot of business owners talk about how they are all-in on Facebook ads (and seeing a nice return) but they have not jumped on Instagram ads. This needs to change, as there is so much potential on Instagram and their ad platform is the perfect combo for a total one-two punch when combined with Facebook.
Instagram is more popular than Facebook now with the Millennial and baby boomer crowds, as Facebook grows in popularity with the older demographic. You can use the same targeting and pixel data to really scale quickly if you set up a nice funnel and remarketing strategy.
When you are able to “follow” past website visitors — those who abandoned your shopping cart for example — you can put a highly targeted offer in front of them on both Facebook and Instagram. These days you have to touch a potential customer several times before they convert. Tag teaming using the two most popular social media platforms is the easiest way to stay in front of your targets.
2. Location-Based Offers (In-Store)
More and more advertising and marketing platforms now offer some sort of location-based targeting options. For brick and mortar businesses, this is a strategy that can build brand awareness and also drive foot traffic with creative offers.
For example, a retail store can run offers within a 20-mile radius offering a discount, requiring customers to show the post at the register. A woman’s clothing boutique, for example, could target females aged 25 – 40 that have liked the clothing brands they carry. There are endless targeting options.
A local sports bar can run promotions on game nights, targeting people that have connections to the teams playing and who live within 10-miles of the establishment. Offers like free appetizers or two-for-one specials perform very well.
The ability to get in from of potential customers that are local, down to specific miles away from your business exists — it just comes down to creative content and offers to get them through the door.
3. Live Streaming and Broadcasting
Video content is so effective these days because consumers cannot get enough of it. Look at how popular some YouTube personalities are – they have millions of subscribers that watch their daily lives. Consumers are fascinated with the ability to take an inside look at the lives and activities of others.
It’s the same reason that reality TV basically killed traditional sitcoms — consumers love it, and that is why live streaming and live broadcasting is such a hot marketing strategy right now. It’s also one that everyone can take advantage of with no cost, as it just requires your mobile phone.
This works for every business type and every niche.
A consultant or digital marketer can live broadcast and do Q&A sessions or just discuss random topics and provide value to their audience. A retail store can live broadcast to show new arrival items before they are placed on the shelf, giving viewers an inside look (and getting them to the store to buy) and a bar can live broadcast the excitement to attract more people through the door that want to be part of the action.
4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning
As AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning become more readily available, more advertising platforms and marketing tools are rolling it out in an effort to provide better results. Those that aren’t up to speed on how far AI and ML have come in recent years should really take some time to read into the latest advances.
Just take local search as an example. Just a few years ago local SEO involved ranking in the top of the “local pack” and today that has been replaced with an interactive map, but on mobile devices voice search now is the main focus.
AI has completely changed local SEO almost overnight, and those that were up to speed on the latest changes were able to maintain their rankings and even surpass competition, improving their results.
A lot of the apps, software, platforms and tools you use in your marketing campaigns will continue to use AI and machine learning, so understanding it will give you an advantage. I would suggest following some of the more popular tech websites, like Tech Crunch, to consume AI news or even set up Google alerts with some AI terms related to your industry or general marketing.
5. Personalized Shopping Cart Upsells
For those of you running successful Shopify stores, you more than likely have some sort of upsell built in. If not, you are missing out on easy additional revenue on every purchase. Shopify has several different app options for this, while other platforms like WooCommerce, are more limited.
While all of the apps let you select the products to offer as an upsell, more advanced applications are coming to market that use artificial intelligence and the historical data of your store to offer upsells that have the highest probability of converting based on the customer’s location, purchases and history with your store. This ultimately results in higher upsell conversion rates.
If you are currently using an upsell option consider looking into one of the new advanced options that takes advantage of machine learning. Over time the increased revenue, especially for a website that is scaling rapidly, can be huge.
When you are able to generate additional revenue without additional advertising and marketing expenses it allows you to explore more ways to drive traffic and sales.
When you have multiple sources for your sales it not only creates a healthy online business but gives you the opportunity to grow much faster than you would with limited customer acquisition resources.
6. Chatbots On-Site and on Facebook Messenger
Facebook messenger chatbots are advancing every day and there are more companies bringing this technology to you, allowing you to create a bot with zero technical knowledge. Ehen you have a well-designed chatbot on your website it becomes an employee that works 24/7 and can answer questions and guide website visitors.
They don’t require time off and they can handle any volume of visitors. So, if you are running a special promotion and have 2,000 visitors on your website you can have your bot working to convert every single one of them.
You can use bots on your website even if you aren’t an e-commerce shop. Use them to provide information on your services, direct them to pages of content or use them to help generate leads. There are endless possibilities.
If you want a solid free solution, look into ManyChat. They offer a free option and you can test different scenarios. Then if you see amazing results you can upgrade to a paid plan and create a more extensive chatbot.
7. Highly Segmented Email Marketing
Email marketing still works, but if you are just sending the same message to your entire list you are definitely missing out on sales and conversions. These days, you need to segment your list into as many categories as possible, allowing you to send very specific email offers and messages to recipients at different stages.
Someone who just joins your list after making a purchase needs to receive a different offer than someone that joined as they abandoned your shopping cart without completing his or her purchase.
Most of the popular email clients, like Mailchimp and Constant Contact have built in segmenting features that you can take advantage of. It takes a little bit of a learning curve, but the time spent learning how to master this will improve your email results.
There are no email templates, as you need to really put yourself in the recipients shoes at each stage of the customer journey to craft messages that will trigger reactions and conversions. More generic information-style emails to those just learning about your brand at the early stages, and then more offer-specific emails to those that abandoned with specific products in the cart.
8. Alternative E-Commerce Checkout Payment Options (Mobile)
These days virtually all websites accept major credit cards and PayPal. But, as technology advances more payment options are becoming available and the Millennial generation specifically, prefers these new options.
Advertising that your website accepts alternative payment options is an easy way to appeal to a new crowd and pull in buyers that prefer these new options. Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay and Bitcoin are just some of the options that you can easily integrate with your shopping cart. Some e-commerce solutions like Shopify are now coming with all of them built in, making it even easier.
You can also explore financial options, like BillMeLater, which essentially allows your customers to buy from you and finance their purchases through a third-party lender. If you sell products in the $100+ range this is a great payment option to use in your marketing to attract more sales.
9. Hyper-Niche Video Content
In the past when we spoke about video content it usually involved YouTube, but now every marketing channel allows you to leverage the popularity and effectiveness of video content. The trick is to create hyper-niche content rather than just generic content without a specific conversion goal based on the video’s call-to-action.
If you are just creating video content for the sake of making videos you are wasting your time. Now everyone is posting video on social media and sending videos in their emails, so you need to really have a strong strategy if you expect results.
Social media videos can be broad, as you want to answer consumer questions or help introduce your company to an audience. Video content on your website can be more specific, as you try to convert leads or sales, and if you are sending video in your emails, you need to really focus on creating specific video content around each segment in your list.
10. Voice Search on Google
Google’s voice is dominating local search, and while there isn’t a concrete checklist of what you need to do, there are a few things that will help you attract organic exposure when someone searches for what you offer.
First, continue to build high quality links. This is something that continues to help all aspects of SEO and it’s not going away anytime soon. Focus on quality over quantity of course. Then, make sure your schema markup is present on all pages (footer is usually the ideal spot) and features your phone number, address and all contact information related to the physical location of your business.
If you are a national brand with locations in different cities then you need to create hyper-optimized pages for each location, complete with an embedded Google map, as well as detailed schema markup.
The more information you can provide on these pages the better Google will understand your business. Remember, when providing results to its users, whether a manual search or a voice search, they want to provide the best result. Don’t cut any corners when optimizing for search and you will be in a position to attract voice-based search traffic when it’s relevant to your business.
Conclusion
Just like in years past, this one is full of opportunities for those that take advantage of the many marketing platforms available. There is now more competition because the barrier of entry is so low.
Think about it for a minute. Anyone can start an online business with little to no money and immediately start running Facebook ads. Technology and the internet has almost completely removed the barriers that once limited who could start a business.
Competition is at an all-time high across all industries and it’s not going to let up. It will only become more crowded and competitive.
These are the hottest marketing strategies for 2019, so map out your plan to include the ones that make sense for both your budget and goals.
Are there any specific strategies that you are excited to implement this year? Let me know what you have planned for this year in the comments below. I’d love to hear what everyone is focused on in terms of strategy and execution.
