2020 has been one crazy year. The chaos brought on significant shifts in consumer shopping behavior and has changed the importance of marketing channels.
Take a look at the marketing channels you should pay the most attention to and those you need to press the brake on.
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Marketing Channels That Need the Most Attention
Social Media
Consumers are spending more time using social media for engaging with brands and making buying decisions. 22% of consumers said social media had influenced them to make a purchase since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
When it comes to choosing social marketing channels, looking to the latest social media statistics, YouTube and Facebook have the potential to be worth-considering in 2020. Facebook has 2.7 billion
monthly active users, and YouTube has 2 billion monthly active users, according to Statista.
This means that marketing your brands on the platform has the potential to boost your brand’s online visibility. Smart marketers are redoubling their efforts on these platforms as 74% of social marketers plan to use Facebook and YouTube (52%) more in the coming year.
Here are the most important things to keep in mind when marketing on social media. Demonstrate your values and showcase how you’re contributing to change. Dig into your social data to find out when your target audiences are most likely to be on social media and what types of content are likely to resonate.
Leverage your social following to help spread the word of new product launches through user-generated content and make it easy for your audience to share your brand content on their social feeds.
If you’re looking to free yourself from paid Facebook and Google ads, invest in email marketing. With an ROI of 36:1, email is one of the highest performing marketing channels.
The importance of email continues to go up year-over-year as 4 out of 5 respondents said they’d rather give up social media than email marketing in the same report mentioned above.
To reap the rewards of email marketing, you need to abandon the batch and blast approach. Your email strategy should be targeted towards engaging and retaining shoppers throughout the customer journey, with personalized all email communications that reflect their interests.
How do you achieve this?
Leverage customer data to create a unified customer profile and use tools powered by artificial intelligence to send targeted and triggered messaging to consumers based on their interests, behavior, and profiles.
Design emails to include interactive elements such as gifts and videos to make campaigns more engaging and efficient. Ensure your messaging is authentic to maintain customer-brand relationships and to build long-term brand loyalty.
Marketing Channels That Need Less Attention
Banner Ads
Back in 1994, banner ads had a 44% click through rate. Fast forward to 2020; banner ads aren’t the most welcomed form of advertisement. Consumers have grown tired of online advertising and are turning to adblockers to improve their browsing experience. 527M people use mobile browsers that block ads by default, and 236M people were blocking ads on desktop.
Since consumers don’t see banner ads, thanks to adblockers, display advertising’s effectiveness is rapidly declining. The average click rate on a traditional display ad in the U.S. is 0.8%.
Based on the above, it’s best to allocate your marketing dollars towards personalized, targeted advertising on permission-based channels. This will make your customers more receptive to your marketing messages.
Television
A twenty-second television ad used to be the most coveted product in advertising. TV ads are becoming less relevant as viewing continues to move away from traditional networks. In fact, many US adults say they will spend less time watching pay-TV programs (41%) after COVID-19.
At least three large U.S. media companies expect about 25 million U.S. households to cancel their pay-TV subscriptions over the next five years. This is on top of the 25 million homes that have already cut the cord since 2012.
Although television ads won’t disappear overnight, it’s best to shift your ad budget from traditional linear television to digital advertising.
Marketing Channels that Stay the Same
eCommerce Ads
E-commerce channel ads are gaining popularity as brands realize targeting shoppers exhibiting purchase intent with ads relevant is a no-brainer. Comprised of ads on Amazon.com and Walmart.com, this channel has been a solid performer during the pandemic. However, the growth rate for ad spending in the e-commerce channel is expected to max out in 2020, with growth slowing to 29.8% in 2021.
Now is the time to make the most of the advertising opportunities offered by marketplaces to attract consumers at various stages of the buying journey.
Price remains the most significant factor of influence for shoppers. Automatically reprice your products to suit market demand and stay competitive and participate in marketplace promotions to increase sales. Give your campaigns some time to build traction and gauge your ROI before increasing your advertising spend.
Paid Search
As consumers continue to flock online to make purchases, it’s imperative that you maintain your paid search presence to stay relevant. Digital online advertisements had about the same level of influence on purchases, at 22%.
Leverage paid search data to gain a granular view of consumer activity levels and see if there has been a change in on site behavior and sales. Use the insight you get to make decisions regarding your paid search strategy.
Reinvent your messages to be helpful, informative, and add value. Use Responsive Search Ads that adapt to show more relevant messages to customers. Update the advertising language in your campaigns to embrace authenticity and emotional decency. Think- “we’re in this together” instead of “buy our product now.”
Optimize your paid search ads and landing pages for both desktop and mobile experiences. If your customer journey has lengthened, re-evaluate your attribution model.
Watch conversion, click-through rates, and levels of engagement, so you can track the ROI of the campaign and determine how to adjust.
While there are several marketing channels to focus on during this period, it’s best to direct your marketing resources on channels where your customers spend time and search for products.
As you evolve your marketing strategies, understand nuances in consumer patterns, and channel investments against customer journeys.