The way people use the internet continues to evolve every other day and digital marketing evolves with it. There are new marketing trends that constantly come up every other day, forcing marketing professionals to be on the watch out for the trends that might come up soon, or what they need to try out next. Marketers use a lot of time, trying to chase every trend that comes up, which might be exhausting at times. The hustle also comes in identifying the trends that are worth pursuing, but the five digital marketing trends listed below are here to stay:

i. Personalized Marketing

The greatest goal of any form of marketing, not just digital marketing is to reach the right person, with the right message and at the right time. The changing technology has made this goal to be reachable and bring in more results! It is a fact that most consumers will buy a product when they have a personalized experience with a brand. A marketer should therefore, ensure that they create a personalized message in order to reach the exact prospects, who are relevant, based on their interests and needs, and/or demographic data, age range, gender and to some extent their job title or industry, especially for B2B type of marketing. It is also possible to deliver your message(s) to people who have recently visited your website by using the metrics provided by Google.

ii. Account Based Marketing (ABM)

Instead of casting a wide net and hoping someone out there sees it, you can take advantage of account based marketing and instead, focus your energy and budget on a shortlist of businesses that fit right with the product/service you are offering. Mostly used in B2B setups, the idea of account based marketing is to simply identify companies that are a perfect target for the type of product or service, and focus your marketing efforts on them only. This form of marketing actually pays; 2017 research on ABM results state that 97% of marketers have a higher ROI with ABM than other marketing activities. ABM is known to help marketing and sales to jointly obsess over how to pursue, establish and grow long term relationships with selected clientele.

iii. Influencer Marketing

The major challenge that most marketers face is how to package their product and put it out to people and have them translate the message as intended. The good news however, is that you can use some content promotion strategies to expand the reach of your marketing and one way, which has proven to be effective over time is use of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is slowly growing in popularity and a high percentage of marketers who do it say that it works. By partnering with relevant influencers, you get a chance to reach a new audience - that is the audience of the individual you choose to work with. Chances are, a consumer will always trust a thrid party's opinion about a brand and you also benefit from the trust that infuencer has built with their audience. If you haven't tried influencer marketing, this could be the right time to plunge in, albeit with thought and strategy.

iv. Voice Search SEO

Marketing trends are hugely dependent on how people make use of search engines. In the digital marketing world, SEO has become a huge part of it and with the advent of mobile phones and other smart home devices, one of the biggest trends is voice search. Voice search is a speech recognition technology that allows users to search by saying terms aloud instead of typing them into the search field. ComScore estimates that 50 percent of all online searches will be performed by voice search by 2020. Voice search is a game changer for SEO since it only displays the top search result, unlike the usual search results that display items on the first page. In the recent past, getting on the first page was the big goal, but now for many reasons, only the number one slot matters. For this reason, voice search should now be part of every content strategy.

v. Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing should come as no surprise to anyone who has been keen on the changing trends. A lot of people spend hours a day on their mobile devices, and browsing from these devices has become the norm. At this point, it’s a given that mobile matters, yet prioritizing mobile in your digital marketing strategy is still a good way to get a competitive advantage. For this reason too, it is important to have a responsive website - one that can be viewed from any device, whether a desktop or a mobile device. Ensuring that your website is mobile friendly is one way to increase website conversions, since consumers can reach you from any device they choose to use. Once you have a responsive website, you can now incorporate other mobile marketing techniques like mobile friendly ads, location based ads and mobile apps. Treat the mobile experience as just as important as desktop, or even more so.

Granted, certain digital marketing trends are easy to adopt than others, but that should not stop a marketer from adopting what woud add value to their marketing efforts. Carefully consider which digital marketing trends are suitable for your business and adopt them as soon as you can. Incorporate them into your marketing plan because knowing about them won't help until you put that knowledge to work.