Trends in Digital Media Marketing in 2011

There’s a new weapon in the arsenal of marketers and it is digital media marketing. Businesses all over the world, large, medium, or small, are embracing digital media to publicize their brand, products and services, and ideas; generate awareness about a new product that is to be launched; notch up sales; and interact with their customers to build lasting relations.

As digital media marketing gains in popularity, here are some trends that have been forecasted for 2011:

Trend 1: Content/Engagement Strategies to Be Pre-Dominant

Though content had always been the King, its importance had never been more realized than now. Content—text, images, animations, videos, and music— now serves more purposes than just conveying information; it is the vehicle to drive search engine optimization (SEO) as well as the tool for social media marketing. Effective and engaging content is also pivotal to the success of a website, email marketing, and apps advertising or showcasing of products.

Businesses have of course, have been quick to realize these potentials and are focusing now on content strategies that map to their marketing objectives.

Trend 2: Digital Marketing Optimization to Gain Ground

The marketing mavericks have moved beyond Web 2.0 and embraced newer modes of transmitting their messages: over the ubiquitous mobile phone via text and multimedia messages, websites, and apps; on the social media networking sites through blogs, microblogs, and user generated content; and with rich media by posting and sharing videos, podcasting, and gaming.

They now need a comprehensive and cohesive digital media marketing strategy that will weave in the plethora of digital channels and the multitude of messages circulating on these. The focus is thus on creating such strategies that will effectively optimize the use of digital media in marketing.

Trend 3: Social Media Marketing to Mature

In August 2010, there were more than 500 million active users on Facebook. There were more than 100 million registered users on Twitter, as per Huffington Post’s statistics on August 2010. The social media networking sites are crowded and bustling with activity; so marketers have been compelled to weave in social media marketing tactics into their marketing strategy. Social media marketing is maturing and it is evident from the new breed of marketing trends that have emerged—Community Marketing, Social Gaming, and Social Listening Research.

Trend 4: Mobile Marketing to Soar

According to the International Telecommunications Union, there will be about 5.3 billion mobile phone users all over the world by the end of the year 2010. About 90% of the world’s population already use mobile phones and its penetration levels in the developed nations of the world is a staggering 68%. So it is no wonder that mobile marketing is slated to gain more popularity as marketers intensify their efforts to reach out to this large section of population.

Trend 5: Search Engine Optimization to Become Complex

It is now not only Google that marketers have to perform on—there’s Bing and local heavyweights like Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia. There have also had significant technological makeovers in recent times—on the one hand, people now search using their mobile phones while on the other hand, search engines have incorporated location-based searches in their platter. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are also gaining in popularity as searching mechanisms.

In this changed scenario, the onus is on the marketers to come up with innovative SEO techniques that can clinch a podium position for the website.

Now that you have identified the trends that are destined to rule the roost in digital media marketing, you need to devise appropriate marketing strategies so that you are not left behind. The Click Asia Summit 2011 is an event that aims to become a forum for marketing mavericks around the world to share and discuss their ideas for innovation.

Web Spiders, a global Rich Internet and Rich Mobile applications solutions company can help you harness the technological innovations taking place across the digital media spectrum. Pi Media Services is an associated company, under the same management, can help you create engaging content and also devise effective social media marketing strategies that can create a buzz around your business.