Running an ad campaign to gain an audience for a business is no longer enough. There has to be something more to it. Brands are, therefore, working harder to connect to their customers. However, sustainable brands have outgrown every category of brand promotion. Established brands are also gearing up and creating sustainable alternatives as sustainable marketing is the need of the hour.

Sustainable alternatives offer several advantages like winning customer loyalty, honing marketing play, promoting serious entrepreneurship, etc. And these things can be done right only through digital marketing. Below mentioned are the methods to market your sustainable brand.

Similar vision Brand Influencers

Partnership with influencers sharing the same business strategies as yours is highly recommended as they promote business to a large audience. They spread your brand message which you should ensure is strong enough to influence people. This will keep your business in good light.

SEO is Mandatory

Search Engine Optimisation is beneficial for your business as it highlights your business on the top of the Search Engine Result Page. The use of the right keywords attracts more visitors. Your rate of conversion will increase and your business will improve highly.  Your business will stay on the top of Google search with relevant search.

Make your Customers Your Business Advocate

You can ask for feedback from your customers and tell them to display the benefits of your services to the world. Brands are now focusing highly on user-generated content which enables you to sit back and let the consumers run the show. Make personal content for the users as they like to know that they matter.

Develop Campaigns with Issues

Users come across issues and problems everywhere. This can be your marketing campaign. Making a video on a specific cause revolving around your product and then getting it shared widely through your customers will also promote sustainable marketing branding. Informing people about the need for such services and the solutions they offer would be great. This increases the demand, creates more opportunities and customer purchases. 

Targeting the Correct Demographic

It is not a huge task to grab the attention of the audience for your services and products with the right available assistance. Google will provide relevant information to target your audience. People also use Facebook groups to portray their business to aim at the targeted audience. Although the process is time-consuming but it will be pocket-friendly. Delivering content with good entertainment to your loyal customers is necessary to sustain market branding.

Loyalty to your Brand

The brand message should be consistent on every channel and convey your story in a language that your audience understands. Nobody knows your brand better than you do. So, convince your customers by staying true to what you have advertised.

Conclusion- The scope of sustainable brands is wide as people are getting aware and concerned about ecology and the environment. The use of the best marketing strategies has helped in the marketing of sustainable brands and made business accessible to the audience.

The pandemic situation has made everyone realize the value of digital marketing. The traditional marketing methods and the businesses run without online support were the worst affected, and on the other hand, you could have noticed that Digital marketing exploded in dominating ways. Now we are moving on to the new normal, adapting to different things in our life.

Coming to the topic, in this fast-paced world, it is crucial to predict the trendsetter that is going to rule this year, 2021. In this article, I have done some research and have predicted five things that digital marketers must know to win the horse race.

1. More dependability on AI and Machine Learning

It’s not a new story that AI and machine learning have taken over the traditional marketing ways and will have a dominating hand in the future. In fact, these technologies have made it possible to dive deep into the customer’s insights and have a better understanding of their niche audiences.

Already some software like Albert, Datarama has started grooming digital marketing into better shape. This year, we can expect some AI and ML features to influence Voice & visual search, Audience Hyper-segmentation, Email marketing optimization, content recommendations, etc., in digital marketing. If you haven’t started implementing these big techies yet, it is high time now. 

2. Video Marketing is expected to dominate as usual.

People couldn’t have survived locked up in their house without Youtube. This gives us a major lesson that video marketing is another influential component that can largely grab customers’ attention. All major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn are upgrading themselves into video feeds. An insane report/statistics show people worldwide have watched around 1.1 billion hours of live videos. So now our question is, don’t you think you must tip your toe into this new digital marketing fashion?

3. Voice search will bloom more.

We, humans, have become so lazy.. wait let me put it in this way, we have found voice search more convenient than typing. It also saves our time and we must thank Amazon Alexa and Google Home speakers for bringing this revolution. 

We think it’s crucial to mention the positive influence of voice search in content writing here, the use of long-tail keywords is growing only because of voice search, and this trend will continue to grow. With Twitter introducing voice tweets and LinkedIn letting you record your name pronunciation, we can easily predict that voice search will significantly influence Digital Marketing.

4. Personalization and customer experience will play a big game.

Your customers are prime. In today’s world, the customer’s buying journey is not straightforward. If you have looked into it, you can get the point that many are interested in brands, and we have the responsibility to nurture our relationship with the customers on websites, mainly through email and social media.

Personalization and customer experience are important, and we can encourage the customers to review the products bought online and thus attract new ones. 

5. Live chats join this list.

At present, instant communication expectation among the customers is on the rise. Customers expect their time and money to be valued. For example, if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, the customer moves to the next website. Thus your competitor grabs your traffic. So the world demands instant gratification and so having a live chat is crucial.

Social media and chatbots have made it possible to instantly reply to customer queries, and AI has also greatly contributed to its part. So we can expect this instant communication to grow more; thus, investing in this feature plays a vital role.

Bonus:

Google update & organic listings

Last but not least, nothing scares a digital marketer other than a Google update. The customer’s taste keeps changing regularly, and Google keeps updating its search algorithm; for instance, remember 2020’s May update, it was massive. So keeping in mind all these things, we can survive any update if we practice organic listings.

Final words:

Suppose you have read this article till the end, kudos for your effort. You might have analyzed one major part in this article, Technology; new technologies are evolving. So we must also upgrade digital marketing ways and follow the predictions to get along with the trendsetters of 2o21.

Today, Digital technology is driving our lives. One may not have a good lifestyle, but smartphones and the internet are essential. Somehow, we all are linked up with the internet and it has become a necessary thing to live.

Digital marketing is the use of the same internet, mobile devices, social media, online advertisements, and search engines to reach out to customers. It is the most frequently mentioned buzzword in marketing. It is entirely a new endeavor and the best and easiest way to approach customers. It is also a new way to get feedback from customers. It has affected people’s work, purchases, interactions, and habits.

Some benefits of digital marketing and its impact on business:

Increase in Brand Awareness:

Today, more than half of the world’s population uses internet services like social media. Social media is a natural place where a company can connect with highly targeted potential buyers. So social media is the best place through which you can increase brand awareness. Social media helps customers to discover and interact with new brands.

Generation of Leads:

Digital platforms are a low-commitment way for new customers to show an interest in a business and its products. It is the best and economical way to generate leads. 

Boost in sales:

You can sell anything on digital platforms. A great digital marketing strategy can bring good to business and gives the best opportunity to be a brand. As the number of people on the internet is increasing day by day, online sales are also boosting.

Grow viral:

Digital platforms help you to give exposure to the outer world. When people start liking, sharing, and commenting can help you to be viral. Once your content is shared on the internet, then your content starts to spread across the entire world, gets you millions of shares. Getting viral isn’t easy but without the help of digital platforms, it will be impossible.

Engage Customers and Audience:

Traditional marketing is only one-way communication in which the brand just gives an advertisement and all but digital marketing offers two-way direct dialogues between the brand and its audience. Not only creating an appropriate digital post helps to become a brand but you have to stay active and answer the comment professionally. 

How to go for Digital Marketing:

• The first step is to specify your digital marketing goals like you want to increase brand awareness, increase sales, or just want to grow your community.
• Then opt for the most appropriate marketing strategy. Like if you want to improve sales then running Google ads or social media advertising is the best option. To get more traffic to the website go for Search engine optimization (SEO).
• Create a budget plan by defining your target audience, your performance metrics, and other things you want to opt for in digital marketing.
• Take help from well-known digital marketing agencies so that you spend on the right path and in the end, you get worthy benefits.

Different Digital Marketing Strategy and Channels:

• Search Engine Optimization: It is the process of optimizing the website according to the search engine to rank higher in the search engine result pages. This involves On-page SEO, Off-Page SEO, and Technical SEO.
• Pay-Per-Click Advertising: It is a way to get traffic by paying a publisher for every click. You can set up PPC campaigns on Google, Bing, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and many more Websites.
• Content marketing: The digital world is popular for huge content like texts, images, videos, and audios. Creating good content and publishing it with the help of PPC, Social media, SEO help you to get more and more traffic on your website.
• Email Marketing: Email marketing is the most effective digital marketing channel. It is a good way to link up with customers and acknowledge them about the discounts and offers your company is offering.
• Social Media Marketing: The primary goal of social media marketing is brand awareness and establishing social trust. Creating a profile on different social media sites or PPC helps you to attain your goals.
• Affiliate Marketing: In this, you promote other products with having some commission in between. Like posting affiliate links from personal social media accounts.
• Inbound marketing: The major elements of inbound marketing include content, attention, engagement, trust, and satisfaction. It has the main goal to help businesses connect with their customers and establish a bi-directional channel between them.
• Mobile Marketing: The processes of approaching the customers through different mobile apps like Google play store, Apple app store, or Amazon marketplace.
• Video Marketing: As Youtube has become the second most popular search engine so it is posting featured videos related to your products can definitely help you to achieve your goals.

Digital marketing is all about marketing on the internet. Not all methods work for all businesses so plan your digital marketing strategy properly and sincerely. 

Remember the days when businesses used to take your contact details whenever you used to buy some products from a store.

And days later, 

Messages….

Offers, New products, Sale…… and so on.

Things used to irritate you. 

And comes 2018, everything just changed. 

As if the same companies asking you whether or not to disturb you. Should they tell you about new offers or product launches.

Life has never been so sorted before.

Isn’t it?

But, that’s one side of the coin.

The other part of the coin, i.e., businesses. Has anything changed for them?

I am sure a lot of things.

May 25, 2018….. The date must have been a game-changer for thousands of businesses online. 

Let’s not deviate much and start with the concept of GDPR right away.

GDPR- A Brief Review

GDPR means the General Data Protection Regulation. A privacy policy implemented across the EU and EEA region for all companies selling to or storing personal information about citizens in Europe.

This includes companies in other continents as well. 

It simply means that customers or visitors would have an upper hand when it comes to sharing their personal data such as name, photo, email address, bank details, location details, medical information, or IP address.

Nothing can be disclosed unless and until an individual says so. 

Here is the detailed description of GDPR rights that individuals have.

– The Right To Access

It means that any individual has the right to access their personal data along with asking the company about the usage of their data once it has been feeding on to their system.

– The Right To Step Back

If the customer withdraws their consent from any company to use their personal data, their data needs to be deleted right away.

– The Right To Transfer

Every individual has the right to transfer their personal information from one to another company. 

– The Right To Information

This means that individuals must be informed beforehand that companies will gather their personal data. Customers must opt-in for such services. 

– The Right To Updates

According to this, an individual has the right to update their information if the earlier data is out of date. 

– The Right To Object

This guideline gives the customers to restrict marketers for using their data for any form of direct marketing strategies. 

– The Right To Be Notified

In case there are any data breaches, the individual must be informed within 72 hours. 

Many businesses and other agencies, especially startups get confused about whether or not they need to abide by these policies, or what should be done to be in compliance with such policies. 

Here are some commonly asked questions concerning GDPR policies.

Does My Company Need To Follow GDPR Privacy Policies?

Well, the answer is Yes.

If you own a shop in India and use manual data computing procedures, well then you are pretty sorted.

But, if you own a website that utilizes information from any of the 28 EU countries, then the policies should matter to you as well.

What Type Of Data Does GDPR cover?

The following types of data come under the GDPR policies-

1. Name of any individual
2. Address
3. Email address
4.Card details
5.Location details
6.IP address
7.Cookie-ID
8.Advertising identifier on your phone
9.Data held by a hospital or doctor that could relate to any individual closely

– Has GDPR Affected Lead Acquisition?

This is perhaps the most affected region if your company depends on acquiring leads online via the website, PPC ads, social media platforms, or others.

For instance, you collected data from any resource offered online. As per the new guidelines, you need to let your customers know about the details of the data processing.

Also, there has to be a consent form where the customers confirm that data can be used for business purposes such as sending newsletters or offers.

Consent forms should have-

• Unchecked boxes where customers manually select the boxes that they agree for.
• Short description of the utilization of the data.
• Separate boxes must be there if the number of required consent is more than one.

Although, this might look tedious at first. But, such a concept has helped to build trust among the two parties.

Hence, improving the chances of converting leads into buyers.

– How Does GDPR affect Cookies and Tracking Codes?

If your company is involved in any type of lead generation campaigns, it is but obvious, it will be using cookies, or codes to process the data entered. 

You will be required to ask for consent here as well. You can use a free Cookie consent software as well to minimize the investment.

– How Does GDPR Affect Email Marketing Campaigns?

GDPR governs the data that you have collected using any email marketing software. 

So, understanding that you need to keep a record of consent forms is essential whenever asking your customers to link with your company. 

Now that the ball is entirely in the customer’s court. Companies are changing the ways of data processing and implementing new policies as per the GDPR guidelines.

Privacy by design is one of the key elements of GDPR legislation. So, companies need to figure out ways of handling the data.
Here’s How you can also get started with new policies in compliance with GDPR.

Identify the Source of Data

Experts recommend checking all the sources where your companies get its data from and document the data processing ways. 

Identifying the risks involved must be one of the top priorities. This is one of the promising steps to build customer engagement.

Prioritise The Useful Data

To be on the safer side, you need to keep only the information that will be helpful for your business. Discarding the rest of the unnecessary information will help to lighten the burden of data-keeping departments.

Hence, less chances of goofing up. Here are some of the questions you need to ask before starting the clean-up procedure.

. Why the data needs to be processed instead of erasing it?
.  Why are we saving the data in the first place?
. Are there any benefits for using such a massive amount of information collected?
. Will you benefit anything from erasing the data?

Once all the answers are sorted, go ahead of what is necessary for your business while keeping in mind the GDPR policies.

Implement Necessary Security Measures Beforehand

It is important to develop safeguards before actually starting your online business to prevent any future data breaches.
This also includes the procedures and due diligence in case of any data breaches as well.

That includes notifying the individuals in time. Make sure to check in with your outsourced partners as well.

Be Ready With The Right Documentation

According to GDPR, companies are explicitly required to ask customers about the consent regarding using and processing of their personal information.

Companies need to use pre-checked boxes whenever they are closing any deals.

In the end, data is a valuable entity in modern-day marketing. While GDPR might be making it tough for you, it is also beneficial in many ways such as customer engagement.

Value your customers, they will value your business more. Hence, more sales and growth as an enterprise.