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Digital Marketing News Roundup: 9 Headlines You Don’t Want to Miss
Both email and digital marketing are constantly changing and evolving. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming staying on top of industry trends. Other times it’s refreshing to know you’re a part of such a dynamic industry. However, if you want to succeed in this industry—both email and digital marketing in general—you need to stay up to date on the latest digital marketing news, algorithm changes, and general standards.
To help make your life a little easier, we’ve brought you some of the latest cutting-edge industry headlines.
Below, we’ll provide you with the top nine stories we found along with a summary and what the news means for email marketing.
Roundup: The top digital marketing news
The headlines we’ve gathered below focus on a broad range of topics relevant to your digital marketing strategy that can help you develop valuable relationships with your audiences.
Although the articles aren’t necessarily email-centric, you can directly apply the information in most of the articles to your email marketing strategy. Other articles are still important reads for digital marketers.
1. Marketers “are underestimating customer brand loyalty.”
This important piece highlights a shocking disconnect between marketers and their audiences. According to the latest research, only 22% of marketers believe customer loyalty has increased since 2017. However, 38% of consumers consider themselves loyal customers. This displays a clear disconnect in the relationship.
Furthermore, over half of marketers believed that social media influencers are a successful means to build brand loyalty but less than a third of consumers agreed.
Consumers say they back up their loyalty by recommending brands they love to family members and friends, participating in loyalty cards and reward systems, and sharing information about brands on social media.
Although it’s difficult to track certain brand loyalty factors, you can continue researching the data you have and producing high-quality relevant content for your subscribers.
2. Facebook to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.
Although YouTube is creeping up from behind, Facebook remains the most popular social media platform worldwide with 1.6 billion daily active users, according to this article.
However, I’m sure you know the problems Facebook has had recently. Nearly 15 years of social networking has also made Facebook one of the largest data collectors on the planet thanks to the large amount of personal information people share. We’re all in unchartered territory when it comes to personal data, but changes are afoot.
This pertinent piece of digital marketing news highlights a major integration between Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The latter of which has left many users questioning their future on the popular encrypted messaging platform. Much is left to question but here are a few ways the integration could affect digital marketers.
- Cross-platform messaging between brands and consumers
- Data sharing across platforms for targeted advertising
Keep in mind that your WhatsApp users value their privacy. Marketers should tread lightly before taking full advantage of this integration.
3. Google organic search CTRs decline on desktop and see big drop on phones.
This article reports bad news for SEO fanatics: organic search click-through rates are declining on both desktop and mobile devices. Ouch.
Experts believe this is largely due to the fact that users can easily find the answers to their questions through Google snippets and other features directly on the search engine.
This makes it more important than ever for marketers to
- Develop high-quality long-form blog posts that people feel compelled to actually read.
- Focus on email marketing efforts to reach customers.
DuckDuckGo’s traffic has steadily increased over the past four years. If your audience values uncensored results and data security, consider checking your stats on this search engine.
4. LinkedIn rolls out interest targeting for advertisers.
Did you know that only 15% of people love their job? The vast majority either hate their job or feel indifferent about it. Unfortunately, until now, LinkedIn would only allow marketers to target people based on their careers, regardless of how those people actually felt about their careers.
If your prospects really hate their jobs, this type of targeting can severely backfire. Plus, humans are so much more than their day jobs, meaning you might people who have an interest in your industry even if they don’t work in it.
Well, LinkedIn has adapted. Businesses can now target highly-relevant relevant audiences. To learn more, check out the article.
5. Why your business needs to invest in Arabic digital marketing.
We work in a global economy. According to research from leading Middle East digital marketing agency RBBi, most users prefer to conduct Google searches in their native tongue and 88% of people prefer to shop online in their first language.
Access to the internet and smartphones has drastically increased across the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region—especially among younger generations. In fact, over 90% of the population in the Gulf kingdoms and Lebanon have internet access and the rest of the Levant is catching up fast.
Unfortunately, digital marketing agencies aren’t keeping up.
While Arabic ranks number four on the list of most-used languages online, less than 1% of online content is written in Arabic. This means there are a lot of high-volume, low-competition keywords floating around out there.
It’s so important to understand where your target audience lives and attempt to provide them with at least some content in their native tongue. Even making a small effort could drastically increase your brand loyalty if nothing else.
6. How AI is driving marketing automation.
Experts predict the marketing automation industry will skyrocket in 2019 with a hefty 8.55% growth. This is largely due to more accessible forms of artificial intelligence. Marketers who don’t adapt to AI and automation integration will quickly fall behind their competitors within the year.
A few things to consider include:
- Improved chatbot efficiency and function
- A quick rise in voice and visual searches
- High expectations from customers regarding personalization
- Omnichannel integration
AI won’t take your job away anytime soon. In fact, it would be very foolish for brands to rely solely on AI for their marketing efforts. It can, however, help you learn more about your audience and connect with them on a personal level.
7. How to be charismatic: Marketing with charm, heart and personality.
Email is an intensely personal method of contacting someone. That’s why it’s so important for marketers to write conversational content for their subscribers—talk with people, not at them.
This piece of digital marketing news discusses how to bring personality and charm into your digital marketing strategy. With people spending the equivalent of an entire day on their smartphones each week, it’s crucial for brands to develop a voice that resonates with their audience.
This article recommends that marketers focus on honing a few key personality traits if they want to form a valuable connection with their audiences, such as:
- Empathy
- Ability to express emotions tactfully
- Quick wit
- Joy
The digital world is disconnected and cold enough already—charm and charisma are extremely refreshing. Develop an online personality that fits with your brand voice and relates to your audience on a personal level.
8. Why the DNC is embracing personalization in its email marketing strategy.
If you subscribe to both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) emails, you’ll notice a stark difference (and no, it’s not their politics).
The Trump team’s emails are engaging, use emojis in subject lines, have a conversational tone, and demonstrate urgency—all before asking for donations. They certainly know their audience and how to connect on a personal level.
The DNC emails, on the other hand, don’t really compete.
However, the DNC has adapted one competitive edge that the RNC has failed to employ: personalization. According to this piece of digital marketing news, overhauling their email marketing strategy in favor of personalization has helped the DNC produce real-world results both in terms of donations and HoR seats.
This demonstrates just how important it is for marketers to segment their audience and use different personalization tactics to deliver relevant content to subscribers.
9. Why anti-customer sales funnels are dying (featuring the Ad Strategist’s latest report).
This piece backs up a lot of the other points made on this list: People don’t want to feel like just another number. Your customers are smart. They know when you’re trying to swindle them and they don’t appreciate it. Even using the “you can achieve these results, too” line reeks of insincerity and screams scam.
That’s why the traditional sales funnel has all but died.
What’s the bottom line? Treat people with respect. Use your handy data to gain a thorough understanding of your audience and the problems they face. From there, you can develop content like blogs and email newsletters that inform readers how you can help them solve their problems.
People want brands to understand that customers are much more than just wallets. Speak to your customers like human beings and brand loyalty will follow.
Wrap up
Digital marketing is a dynamic industry.
Standards, trends, and algorithms change on nearly a daily basis. This digital marketing news roundup goes over a slew of industry changes. WhatsApp integrating with Facebook Messenger is huge, for instance. It’s crucial in 2019 for marketers to adapt to AI automation and form a brand personality that resonates with readers.
Saying updated on these changes will ensure that you stay ahead of the competition and get the results you want.
Want to improve your email marketing strategy and connect with your audience? Take our Email Marketing Scorecard Quiz to see how you stack up.
