Digital marketing trends to watch in 2021

The year of Covid-19 is all but over, and thank goodness for that! 2021 offers all of us – across the planet – a second chance at life. We’ve realised that we have all been living dangerously and that close contact with one another can actually be a bad thing. Marketers are already seeing how the pandemic has shifted trends across the industry, as consumer behaviours and habits change. If you’re amped and ready to kick 2021’s butt in terms of your digital marketing, then this article is for you! Here are four digital marketing trends to take note of, as we leave 2020 behind and get the new decade going for real:

Short-form videos

Did you know that social media marketing now takes a full 25% of marketing budgets, a whole 13% more than it did in 2019? The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns spiked boredom levels, and this gave rise to a new form of entertainment: the TikTok video. Facebook has also joined the short-form video party, with the introduction of Instagram Reels.

Rethinking targeting

A full 86% of consumers are concerned about data privacy, with Generation X and the Baby Boomers being the most distrustful online. This will certainly influence how online advertisers go about handling responses to advertising in regions where there are growing regulations around data processing. Eventually, we’ll have a GDPR-like blanket covering much of the planet, so digital marketers should prepare now for strict data regulation compliance.

Marketing automation

Who still manages digital marketing projects using the whiteboard in the meeting room? The sound you hear is crickets chirping, and there’s a good reason for this. Marketing automation solutions, like SharpSpring, are revolutionising the way marketers work, with the ability to run target, automated, personalised marketing campaigns with very little human intervention required.

More personalisation

Ever received a promotional email addressed to you personally, and you wondered how they got your name? This is an example of message personalisation, where the marketer tries to tailor a message specifically for the recipient. There are simple personalisations, such as names in email subject lines, and then there are more sophisticated personalisations, like ultra-targeted social media advertising.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Are you a trend-watcher? Making sure that you keep up with the times has become a full-time job in marketing, with everything under the sun moving at such a rapid speed. Marketing trend-watching is a fundamental part of marketing success and is something we touch on in our Digital Marketing course. Make 2021 the year you kick-start your digital marketing career in style!