on today's episode we're talking all about the top digital marketing trends
for 2019 so you can get more leads customers and sales for your business
we're also going to take a look at my predictions from 2018 how many I got
right how many I got wrong and which are still
relevant today let's get to it hey there my name is Adam Earhart modern
marketing strategist and welcome to the modern marketing show but we help you
generate more leads customers and sales for your business by making way better
marketing all right let's talk digital marketing trends especially here kind of
midway through 2019 what have we seen that's been effective up till now what
do we see as going to be effective moving into the end of 2019 and into
2020 we're also going to take a real quick look at what my predictions were
in 2018 because after kind of reviewing the video which I'm going to make sure
to link up in the descriptions below as well as at the end of this video
well after reviewing that one turns out that many of my predictions were pretty
much spot-on in fact a lot of them are still just as valuable today if not more
valuable so gonna make sure to highlight all of those so you don't miss the boat
again in 2019 just in case you haven't hopped on board after all just like the
analogy I used in the 2018 video you don't want to be blockbuster when you
could have been Netflix just by staying ahead of trends and keeping pace with
the fast changing environment we now live in alright so when it comes to
digital marketing there is probably no more trend that's important to talk
about than that of Facebook advertising now here's the kicker I talked about
this back in 2018 as kind of the first thing that we covered in that video but
it's just as relevant today if not more relevant because Facebook advertising
still tends to be the dominant player in the space now there are some shifts
obviously in facebook ads and how competitive they are and what strategies
are working best but overall just looking at them kind of holistically
from that 30,000 foot overview there's still an absolute powerhouse and
Dominator when it comes to online advertising and digital marketing in
general and yes well ad costs have risen and Facebook ads but also across pretty
much every other advertising network well even though the ad costs have risen
they're still really pennies on the dollar when compared to traditional
advertising like TV or radio or newspaper even Direct Mail but just
suggesting you use Facebook ads really is
enough so let's dive into just a few specifics on how to get the absolute
most from Facebook Ads in 2019 probably the most important point to mention when
it comes to Facebook Ads is that yes costs have risen things are now way more
competitive and they're gonna be a lot more competitive in 2020 doesn't mean
it's too late to start it just means that when you do start now you need to
be a whole lot more strategic about it yeah I remember the good old days back
when we first started Facebook advertising and all we had to do is
chuck up an ad and we could put that really ugly red box around it create all
kinds of really ugly and not that great ads and they would still convert because
the competition was so low those times are gone we're now living in a new era
where the customer and consumer is a lot more savvy they know what ads look like
and they're not likely to click on any of those click baby type ads even if
they did Facebook's gonna punish you anyways so
let's not even go there the alternative and the strategy that's working best
today in 2019 is to really look at your campaign holistically meaning you're
gonna be strategic about the entire funnel from ad landing page to Thank You
page where they're going after that and thinking about the entire customer
journey and this is how you make Facebook has work for you in 2019
thinking about them strategically and as part of the overall funnel and not just
kind of the one-stop shop for getting a click and getting a call and getting a
sale and trying to get your ad to do all the heavy lifting for you rather you
need to look at it as a part of the puzzle everything needs to be in place
all right so the next digital marketing trend in 2019 you need to be aware of is
none other than content marketing now back in 2018 I called this content and
context marketing essentially meaning that you need to make sure that your
market aligns with your message which aligns with the media choice that you're
using meaning whichever social media platform or whatnot and really all of
those need to be congruent this is still very true today but it's kind of more of
a given now I think we all pretty much understand that where people today are
still dropping the ball or missing the boat or any other cliched statement I
can think of well where they're missing it is still not creating enough content
for their businesses maybe because everybody's been talking about content
marketing for so long maybe because it's kind of boring at the end of the day and
nobody really wants to sit down and write a blog post or record a podcast or
make a video because of how much work goes into it whatever the case
people are still not creating enough content this could possibly mean you too
now a slight update to my 2018 prediction is that today we need to be a
lot more multi-channel with our content marketing meaning we can create that one
piece of content and then syndicate it out meaning let's say we make a video
and then we break out different video chunks for different social media
platforms we get the text transcribed used as a blog post we strip the audio
away for a podcast well although that still just is valuable but we need to
make sure that we are accurately kind of distributing it across all of the
different channels that our target market is likely to use this is a lot
more important today as people continue to kind of diversify their media choices
and the channels they spend the most time on so yes
content marketing is still incredibly valuable not new not flashy not that
sexy but make sure you're creating enough content and then distributing it
across the right social media channels and other media platforms where your
target market is active on all right the next point we need to cover again same
as 2018 there is video now obviously you know I'm gonna be a big supporter of
video after all what are we doing right here it's video you see next to
face-to-face or in-person communication video really is the next best thing when
it comes to communicating your message and getting the word out there about
what you do and who you help and how you help them also I'm not gonna bore you
with all the statistics but mobile usage is up video consumption is up and
therefore video consumption on mobile devices is up meaning the way that
people are engaging with their devices and we all know we're all spending a lot
more time on our devices well the media that people are tending to prefer to
consume is video doesn't mean that audio doesn't have a place because it does
doesn't mean that text doesn't have a place because it does it just means that
video is a really important priority here and one that is not getting enough
attention now I fully appreciate you may not want to be on camera I get it fully
appreciate also that creating a video can be time-consuming a little bit
awkward and a little bit painful especially in those early stages bottom
gonna try to ask you to get over it as best you can because the rewards are
well worth the effort and that initial discomfort and sacrifice you're gonna
have to put into to really go out there and create a video well it's gonna be
well worth it and as you create more videos they're gonna snowball and you
gonna continue to build your brand and your authority and your business all
right and that leads us nicely into the next trend for 2019 but first let's talk
about a trend that I predicted in 2018 was going to be very important that I
may have overestimated just how valuable it was and that was personalization you
see back in the good old days of 2018 I firmly believe that personalization was
gonna take a lot more of a center stage position in the marketing world
basically custom tailoring messages and the text that people would see and the
experience that someone would have going through your funnel well I really
believe that company is we're going to spend a lot more focus kind of really
trying to custom tailor this unique user experience for each and every user now
well this certainly did happen and we do see a lot more segmentation and a lot
more personalization it's happened nowhere near to the level that I thought
it would and I've also come to think that maybe it's not as important as I
initially thought yes we're all special and we're all
unique and we all like our own user experiences however
for most businesses simply not cost-effective or time effective or
energy effective to go out there and try to create personalized and custom
experiences for everyone rather the alternative is to really niche down
figure out exactly who is your ideal customer avatar that one person that
loves you loves what you do loves everything about you and wants to tell
all their friends and family because that's the person that you want to go
after that person that type of person that's how you want to build your
marketing and your messaging making sure that you're picking the right channels
so that you can connect with them and that leads us nicely into our next point
which my prediction back in 2018 was the end of internet marketing douchiness I'm
quite happy to say that fortunately we've seen this one fall off a cliff yes
you still see people taking selfies in front of their Lambos and their giant
rented mansions and things like that however they're a lot quicker to get
called out and after seeing a lot of fake income reports and fake reports
about just how well people are really doing and all the studies that show that
people are really putting forward kind of a fake facade or fake personality on
social media well a lot of those kind of houses of cards have really fallen down
and this is a great thing because it's enabled that authentic and true and
and vulnerable type of entrepreneur and business to go out there and thrive and
shine and really connect with the people they seek to serve now I know there's
like a million exceptions to this rule you don't need to send me all of them
I've seen all the pictures I get it but what you're gonna find is that this
strategy is significantly less effective today in 2019 and it's going to be even
less effective in 2020 so if your marketing contains any hyped up claims
any hyperbole any Lamborghinis or Ferraris you couldn't want to be careful
slowly start to drift those out maybe replace it with like a Jetta or a Honda
Civic or a Tesla even even though Tesla's are like a hundred grand I don't
get that somehow that's okay though branding now the next trend we need to
be aware of and talk about here in 2019 is community now I did talk about this
back in 2018 but I want to change just the way that we structure this and
phrase it you can really wrap your head around what I'm trying to get across
here essentially the businesses and entrepreneurs that are building the
strongest and most viable and engaging businesses today in 2019 are ones that
are really focusing on building a strong community or tribe or group of people
all centered around a core cause and therein lies the key what they're doing
is they're building up these communities or these groups or these tribes around
these core causes rather than around their businesses themselves because
marketing a cause or a mission or a vision or an objective is a whole lot
easier than marketing a business which we all know exists really just to make
money sure you might have some underlying cause like serving the
greater good and helping people but at the end of the day if the business
doesn't make money it's not really a business even not-for-profit businesses
make money they just don't profit but I digress basically when you've got a
community of people all working towards some kind of goal some kind of objective
and your company can be the ambassador for this well it makes it a lot easier
to build a really strong community of loyal and engaged followers that are
ultimately going to end up becoming lifelong loyal customers for your
business I'm not sure I was accurate when I labeled it a trend back in 2018
because it's been around pretty much forever but still just as relevant today
alright and the next digital marketing trend we need to talk about for 2019 is
voice search basically when it comes to voice search all we have to do is think
about how we engage our devices and it becomes really clear
that this is gonna be something you're gonna want to get in front of as quickly
as possible if you haven't already the reason this is so important is because
the way the consumers are engaging with their devices has changed from rather
than just always typing in questions they're not asking them directly like
where is the closest bakery or where is the nearest gym or I guess those two
don't really go together or where can I go to get an oil change or who has the
best restaurant in town or whatever it is basically people are asking their
devices and their devices are giving them the answers back this is why it's
key that you're optimizing your business for voice search so that when you ask
your device this question your business is the one that gets recommended in
return which leads us perfectly into our next point having a mobile social
dominant strategy what this basically means is that as I predicted back in
2018 the importance of having your social strategy focused first on the
mobile users was going to become increasingly important we've definitely
seen this and it's only going to continue to rise in 2019 and moving into
2020 now some platforms naturally already
lend themselves pretty much exclusively to this strategy Instagram being the
main one which is pretty much mainly if not only a mobile device platform I mean
sure you can check it on a desktop browser but you're kind of limited and
pretty much all the features but where this becomes a little less obvious is in
other social media channels like YouTube for example well what we're seeing a lot
is that you know those little thumbnails that you click most people are still
designing them for desktop users but the problem is is that a lot of people are
using YouTube on their mobile devices so if you've got small text or small images
or it's hard to read on a desktop well you're gonna be missing out on the bulk
of your traffic now depending on your demographic in your target market it's
going to be a little bit different depending on how much of your search is
coming from mobile and how much is coming from desktop but one thing is
absolutely clear and that is that mobile use is up desktop use is down and we're
pretty much only gonna see this trend continue to widen the gap this is why
really focusing on mobile first whether we're talking about social media or your
website even but really designing for that mobile experience first is going to
be the absolute best return on your marketing budget rather than the other
way around all right so I'm gonna link up to videos here you're gonna want to
go check out right now the first is digital
marketing trends 2018 so you can see how many parallels there were between this
year and last year the second is Facebook Ads tips and tricks 2019 which
is going to give you some of my best tips and tricks to really take advantage
of what I believe is the most valuable digital marketing strategy you should be
using in your business in 2019 all right so thanks so much for watching I hope
you enjoyed the episode and I'll catch you next time on the modern marketing
show