The majority of the world’s population lives online. If you really want to reach modern consumers, you will need the power of your digital marketing.
2018 was a key year for digital transformation. There are now more than 4 billion Internet users worldwide who each spend an average of 6 hours a day online. But the explosive growth of the digital world does not stop there. There are now more than 5 billion people with a mobile phone. More than half of these phones are smartphones. Almost 3 billion of mobile users are active on social media and thus can possibly be reached by your influencer marketing campaign.
There is no doubt that consumers are increasingly living online. More than one hundred billion searches are performed on Google every single month. We consume more than a billion hours of YouTube videos a day. But even more important: those digital consumers generate sales. If you want to build valuable, meaningful long-term relationships with consumers, you will have to meet them online.
That is easier said than done. Competition is fierce and consumer expectations have become “liquid.” The relevance of your organization will be determined by the extent to which you can respond to these changing expectations with great customer journeys.
Embracing fundamental trends and new technologies will give you a head start. But it is even better if you understand how these trends and technologies merge and complement each other. That is why we have collected some digital marketing, among them influencer marketing and some trends closely related to influencer marketing.
Mobile first marketing
In 2016 we saw more mobile Internet traffic than desktop traffic for the first time worldwide. The people have spoken. The importance of the mobile platform continues to grow and this strong trend will continue for the time being. And it is not only the people who have a clear voice. Google rolled out mobile-first indexing earlier in 2018. Where they first indexed the desktop versions of websites, the search giant will now increasingly opt for the mobile version. Mobile-friendly content will do better in the search results than content that is only optimized for desktop, which reinforces the importance of mobile-first development. Not only Google is all about mobile first, think about Instagram, which can only be used via your smartphone.
What does this mean? That tomorrow’s consumers are mobile consumers. They expect mobile-first online experiences and will reward brands with convincing mobile strategies with loyalty and recognition. Simply put: more than 34 percent of all online retail purchases are made via mobile devices. If you want to claim those conversions, you will have to optimize the online parts of your customer journeys for mobile users. Personalized mobile advertisements, cross-channel messaging and specific mobile content are essential ingredients.
Smarter advertising
It will not surprise anyone that consumers do not like to be bombarded by irrelevant advertisements. And thanks to the rise of ad blockers for mobile and desktop, they no longer have to suffer that either. Every year more Internet users choose to actively block advertisements. In 2016, the number of devices on which ad blockers were installed rose to 600 million worldwide. 62 percent of these are mobile devices. This is one of the reasons why influencer marketing becomes more popular to brands. It isn’t (yet) possible to block sponsored content that is posted by influencers.
Pop-ups and disruptive advertisements are out. Smarter, personally relevant ads that enhance online user experiences are in.
This clearly shows that there are opportunities. The game of online advertising must change. Consumers do not, by definition, reject advertisements. They simply indicate their preference – and they do so very explicitly.
Influencer marketing
Brands that want to create a connection with younger target groups will have to learn how to enter into and cultivate those relationships. Millennials for example are digital natives. They live on their mobile and are socially active online. 80 percent always have a smartphone at hand. They spend more time on the Internet than older generations and make their way through the forest of apps and platforms much faster to find the information they are looking for. They are more focused on real value and buy something faster through their mobile. The majority of Millennials indicate that user-generated content influences their purchasing behavior.
This is where influencer marketing comes in. Millennials are looking for social proof. Almost half of Millennials say that social media guides them in online purchase decision. Engagement is the most important driver for conversion. Millennials prefer natural, credible stories. They follow recommendations from their age and group mates faster than those from celebrities. In short, they are therefore more susceptible to micro-influencers.
As a result, marketers are convinced that micro-influencer campaigns help target target groups better. This is supported by the fact that influencer marketing achieves ROI up to 11 times higher than traditional marketing.
