In 2021 and beyond, your business needs to step up and use advanced technological tools available for digital marketing, customer service, and business management in general. Unless you do this, your company will be left behind in the marketplace where many of your competitors are already using these tools to their advantage.
Mobile Marketing
According to the Digital 2021 July Global Statshot Report of DataReportal, 4.8 billion people around the world are now using the internet, representing nearly 61 percent of the world population. There were over 700,000 new users daily or a total of 257 million new users in the past year, showing an annual growth rate of almost six percent. Every day, the average internet user across the world spends almost seven hours online while they spend less than half of that time watching television.
Among all internet users in the world, 92.1 percent go online through mobile devices. Among them, 6.4 billion or almost four in every five are smartphone users. The global annual growth rate of smartphone usage is 5.6 percent. Every day, there are about a million new smartphone users.
It is, therefore, crucial for businesses to reach their target market through their mobile phones. Digital marketers must ensure that websites and e-mails are laptop and PC-friendly and optimized for smartphones and tablets.
Omnichannel Marketing
According to DataReportal, the online activities of people around the world revolve mainly around social media usage. Around 4.48 billion people or 56.8 percent of the global population are active social media users. This represents an increase of more than 13 percent over 2020 and over half a billion more users over the past year. Almost all of them or 99 percent access social media through their mobile phones, and they spend an average of two hours and 24 minutes on social media daily.
The top six social media platforms globally are Facebook with 2.853 billion users, YouTube with 2.291 billion users, Whatsapp with two billion users, Instagram with 1.386 billion users, FB Messenger with 1.3 billion users, and WeChat with 1.242 billion users. Still lagging but on the rise are TikTok with 732 million users, QQ with 606 million users, Douyin with 600 million users, Telegram with 550 million users, Sina Weibo with 530 million users, Snapchat with 514 million users, Kuaishou with 481 million users, Pinterest with 478 million users, Reddit with 430 million users, Twitter with 397 million users, and Quora with 300 million users.
Users do not stick to just one platform, though. Most of them use several of these platforms at the same time. The wide range of platforms means that businesses must use omnichannel marketing. This means that digital marketing campaigns must permeate all platforms that your target market uses. This requires research to focus your time, efforts, and resources only on the channels relevant to your market. Otherwise, you will be wasting resources on channels that are irrelevant to your market.
Omnichannel marketing means more than just having an account and posting on all relevant social media platforms, though. It means unifying your message across them and all other channels such as email and texting. It also means tweaking your message to fit the personality of each channel. For instance, the videos posted on YouTube differ from the types of videos posted on TikTok. Digital marketers must learn the nuances of various platforms.
In addition, omnichannel marketing means that you make it easy for consumers to shop across various platforms. They can switch between platforms and still access the same shopping transaction.
Use of AI Chatbots
Artificial intelligence (AI) makes some businesses stand out over others. The use of AI enables you to gather data from users on your website and all your online accounts and use these data to personalize each user’s online experience from your brand. For instance, AI can ensure that when a user visits your website, all products that match his or her preferences are shown. Promotions can also be customized based on a specific user’s previous purchasing behavior.
The use of AI chatbots further improves a user’s experience on your website. For instance, the Telegram AI chatbot platform simulates a conversation with a human. This is important because you must respond quickly to consumer queries 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An AI chatbot can comprehend text, audio, images, location, and other data sent by consumers and respond accordingly.
Ensuring Strong Cybersecurity
Consumers nowadays worry about the privacy and security of their personal data because of widespread cyber-attacks. Because of this, many regulations require companies to ensure data privacy and security. Your company must respond to both of these. You must show consumers that you are complying with the most stringent cybersecurity measures.
You must also do this not only for consumers and for compliance but also for your own sake. A breach can cost a company up to millions in ransom, plus fines from regulatory agencies. It is too costly not to be extra cautious in cybersecurity.
