7 Marketing Strategies of Attracting Customers Which Wouldn't Work in 2017
Marketing is evolving from year to year. Both small and big businesses develop strategies to attract new customers and stand out from the competitive offerings. To prefer you among other companies, the client has to notice your brand essence not only in products or services but also in marketing activities. Certainly, establishing brand differentiation calls for careful thought, which based on thorough analysis of current strategies.
Over the past few years, many different social media platforms and new digital marketing channels were developed. Thus, to stay ahead of the curve, everyone from experienced marketers to entrepreneurs has to create new branding strategies and rethink their tactics.
Last year was a year of innovations and changes. For marketers, 2016 was also a year of challenges related to data, content marketing, diversity of technology platforms, and a lot of noise on social media. In such circumstances, brands found themselves struggling to stand out.
Surely, 2017 will bring new marketing challenges as well as opportunities. Therefore, businesses should stay in sync with changes to keep on going. Let’s see some marketing strategies that will not attract customers anymore. Outlining your marketing strategy for 2017, keep these trends in mind. If you were planning to use some of them, it is a sure time to change your plan.
1. Traditional channels
Last year was marked by the grand launching of the Pokemon Go. The game made a splash and caught more than 55 million users in its first month. Despite the fact that now its popularity is fading down, the Pokemon Go shows one thing very clear. Want to engage clients in a more personalized way? Make the most of the channels diversity!
Nowadays, mobile devices become a dominant channel of communication between brands and consumers. Thus, geospatial data can not be ignored by the marketers. It is a fundamental point of understanding customers and crucial for the future of advertising. Usage of traditional channels will not work anymore. Only in combination with cutting-edge technologies like virtual and augmented reality or 360-degree video, it will help you attract more clients in 2017. So, entrepreneurs, marketers, and advertisers have to challenge themselves to think of alternatives if they still want to be a part of the recent marketing race.
2. Twitter
Is it time to say goodbye? Perhaps not yet. But while Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest continue to grow, the Twitter seems to be losing its positions. For example, within the past year, Instagram expanded to 600 million users. Significantly, 100 million of them were added in the last six months.
With only 23.3% of all social media users, Twitter shows the decline of engagement compared to previous years. In 2016, the company made some small changes like not counting videos and images toward the standard 140 characters limit. This tactic was not successful. In fact, it will take more than a little bit of flexibility to attract new users.
3. Fake reviews
The study made by Mintel shows that almost 70% of Americans check online reviews before making an order. Besides, more than 80% of customers consider them as real personal recommendations. As a result, such a blind confidence has been the cause of companies that produce fake reviews. Two years ago, Amazon started a campaign against services publishing fakes. Buyers are also becoming more well-informed. When fake reviews stop being effective, businesses will not buy them anymore.
4. Big banners on the websites
Only a few years ago, big banner ads on every site were the extremely popular trend. Luckily, now it is fading away. Marketers are constantly developing more useful and visually engaging tools. One of these innovations is native ads. The research shows that users look at native advertising 53% more frequently than banners. Besides, it is related to higher mobile usage, where clicks on banner ads are still failing.
5. Stock photos
Personalization is the key to creating strong connections between brands and customers. As this trend is escalating, the use of stock images and videos is decreasing at an exponential rate. In fact, personalized images improve content effectiveness by adding likes, shares, and clicks. At the same time, stock images create an obstacle in the connection between users and businesses that still apply to them.
6. “Epic” blog posts
No doubt, content marketing will continue to be a trend in 2017, expanding beyond traditional blog posts. Every startup is trying to amaze their target audience with blog posts. Some of them even hire the expert to build their blog strategy. But they should not forget about others form of content such as images, video, podcasts, emails, etc. That is why finding one perfect writer to be your content strategist will not be effective.
Instead of focusing on attention grabbing content, do your best to compose high-quality content that potential buyers will actually want to read. This strategy will help to stand out from the crowd of noisy posts and tweets. Creating marketing strategy, remember that modern consumers want to see more practical and accessible content. Perhaps, it is your time to put quality above quantity. Create content that answers search requests and is still strong enough to engage the visitors.
What about a video, this trend will become even more popular than in 2016. Last year, all major brands and influences used videos on social media. Of course, YouTube established itself as a leading platform for sharing video content and teaching users how to leverage it.
7. Pop-up advertising and interstitials
In 2016, Google started to fight for the improvement of the mobile search experience. To help users find what they are looking for more quickly, Google decided to direct measures against sites that use pop-up ads and interstitials. It was found that people do not like visit websites with annoying pop-up advertising. Therefore, Google will not boost the ranking of sites that still have them.