Looking back at 2015 and the journey ahead in 2016 for digital marketing

by Guna Nadar - 12/27/2015 3402 Views

A decade ago, digital marketing was like a wild-west frontier for most businesses.

Journey ahead in 2016 for digital marketing Though the opportunities were many, brands were getting things horribly wrong. However, things have changed drastically in the past ten years and digital marketing came to be supported by both techniques and tools that supported more reliable organic and inbound marketing.

2015 has indeed been a big year for digital marketers across the globe, and for brands both large and small. We saw companies pouring more money into their budget for digital advertisements, better focus on SEO and content and intensive use of social media for digital promotion. However, some problems still continued clouding the digital marketing environment and the best case is of Big Data and the way insights are handled. Also, accurate ROI measurement still remains a tough arena to perform.

The good things that happened in 2015

Content marketing generated 3 times the lead as traditional outbound marketing in 2015. Also, content marketing proved 62% less costly.
Around 28% of online marketers have reduced their print ad budgets to pour money into digital advertising and promotions.
Further, 71% of global companies increased their digital marketing in 2015.
78% marketers invested in a dedicated social media team in 2015.
Content generation and management claims the second spot in the marketing budget share.

The ‘not-so-good’ things that happened in 2015

Although 50% companies/brands claim to invest in digital marketing, they do so without a well researched plan/strategy.
Content quality still holds inconsistent and un-optimized for 68% digital marketers.
70% of brands weren’t able to measure return on their mobile advertisement spending.
83% of consumers still report a bad experience in their social experience.
Only 8% of brands have a dedicated email marketing team, though it is believed to be the highest ROI earner.

However, somewhere between these ups and downs, we also got to hear statistics like:

50% of mobile searches globally were for local businesses / results. Further 61% of these local searches resulted in purchases.
15% of the 2015 Google search was in topics that were never searched for before!

As we can see, 2015 has been a roller coaster of a ride for digital marketers and the overall digital marketing industry. Change has always been a part of the business but what has been overwhelming is the increased understanding of both consumers and marketers. Digital is the new way of life and this holds a lot of implications for our way of doing business in the coming year. 2016 will certainly reveal more breakthroughs but here’s what can be predicted at this point in time:

1. Searching beyond the search engines

Web search will finally break the limits of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Consumers have already begun using social networks like Facebook to look for products, services, information and news. Even Pinterest recently brought itself into the ‘search’ game by incorporating “guided searches”. Tweets are getting indexed and are visible both on the micro-blogging platform and the wider internet. Today, 80% of global consumers seek social reviews and feedback and this will be a way of shopping / product rating in 2016.

2. The era of mobile payments

Digital marketers expect ‘mobile payments’ to skyrocket in 2016. 2015 saw the development of Apple Pay and Android will launch a similar platform in 2016. Starbucks already saw 15% of its customers pay via mobile devices. Overall, 60% of consumers already use their smart devices to pay for purchases, driven either by convenience or in lieu of rewards for using mobile apps. As mobile technology and devices become more affordable, brands will be better off

3. Video is the new game-changer

Videos have been a part of online marketing strategies for several years now but it is in 2016 that videos will get its due appreciation. Between 2013 and 2015, there was a 360% rise in video views, again supported by the convenient smart phone technology. Instagram and Facebook are already in the process of beefing up their video posts. Digital marketers will have to get creative in 2016 and use videos to their advantage.

Digital marketing has been ever evolving and 2016 will not be an exception. However, it certainly is slated to be an exciting landmark for the industry. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and Happy New Year!

Category :

SEO News

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Digital marketing

About Guna Nadar

Brief Info about Guna Nadar +

I mostly write technical aspects and not much into creative writing. For the past decade I worked along with top notch SEO & Internet Marketing professionals which naturally lured me into the world of Search Engines. When I am not writing I read from comics to philosophy.Antiques, Fishing, hunting are my passions. Currently I am working on Google Penalty protection and .... more info about the author