“With that being said, timeliness also proved to be a critical part of any strategy as users proved they still don’t want to be bombarded with content, particularly if it isn’t even relevant to them,” Murray added. “Overall, all of your content and markup should be concise and easily understandable to ensure your users receive value with each interaction. Transparency and respect of users’ privacy should also be a critical component of any digital marketing strategy.”
Frank Spear, content marketer at WordPress contest plugin RafflePress, said personalization boosted his marketing strategy far beyond his expectations in 2019.
“We tried to implement personalized content in virtually every aspect of our strategy,” he said. “Our opt-in ads change based on the content users read before the popup was triggered. The relatable promotion is designed to show consumers that we understand their pain points and want to help. We allow our customers to pick the type of content they want to receive from us when they subscribe to our email marketing campaigns.”
Effective personalization is the result of efforts like behavioral segmentation, or separating audience members into groups based on their actions, like first-time purchases, abandoned carts, repeat purchases and page views without conversion, said Sam White, marketing manager at CBD site Soul CBD.
“Each behavior group can look very similar to each other demographically and then act in very different ways,” White added. “Behavioral segmentation is what allows us to speak to each group in a way that makes sense with how they interact with the brand.”
Vivek Chugh, CEO of checklist app Listables, agreed data-driven segmentation has worked well so far because it allows Listables to tailor its messages and make sure it is getting it in front of the right people, so this segmentation will be a big part of marketing in 2020, too.
3. Let data drive your creative
According to Natalia Wulfe, CMO of digital marketing agency Effective Spend, platforms like Google and Facebook are taking control more control of audience targeting as they simultaneously move away from manual bidding capabilities. Meanwhile, their algorithms have become adept at understanding which ad images and copy will drive the best click-through and conversion rates.
“With these shifts, we’ve seen creative emerging as a serious performance driver, carrying equal weight to other key drivers like placement selection and audience targeting,” she said.
As a result, Effective Spend overhauled its creative design process to incorporate a data-first approach.
“We analyze the performance metrics of existing creative, identify where the gaps are, and then design new creative that directly impacts those poor performing metrics,” she added.
4. Invest in original research
One of the best marketing strategies of 2010 was investing in original research.
Tamas Torok, head of online marketing at Javascript development company Coding Sans, said Coding Sans has been publishing its own research on software development trends since 2017, and these reports have generated links from reputable websites and yielded thousands of subscribers.
“This strategy worked because we came up with something new,” he said. “New data attracted links and it was beautifully presented, which made people share it on social media.”
Coding Sans plans to publish at least three new reports with original research in 2020.
Matthew Zajechowski, outreach team lead at digital marketing agency Digital Third Coast, agreed using proprietary data to create long-form content with graphics has been an effective 2019 strategy, resulting in backlinks from thousands of high-authority publications.
“Publishers want new story angles to cover on a subject even if they’ve covered it a billion times before,” he added. “Having proprietary data allows us to have that unique angle and presenting it with graphics makes it easy for them to share. We look for writers and publications who cover that subject and present it to them as new research or a study.”
5. Update your content
And don’t forget the content you’ve already published.
In fact, Cyrus Yung, co-founder of SEO company Ascelade, said updating old content is a strategy that has served Ascelade well as Google has a freshness ranking factor and most sites eventually see content decay.
“They have old articles that have ranked well previously and have attracted backlinks, but the search traffic for that particular article is on a downward trend,” he said.
Mark Webster, co-founder of online marketing education company Authority Hacker, said 2019 was the year Authority Hacker focused on this tactic of refreshing older content instead of just pumping out new, high quality content.
“After some testing, we found that making simple updates and tweaks and, most importantly, changing the date of the article to represent the newest revision [made] our rankings instantly [jump] up,” he said. “It’s no secret Google prefers fresh content but we had not anticipated this to be such an easy win.”
What’s more, it’s cheaper to refresh old content, so Webster this small technique a “huge win.”
Jeroen Minks of PPC agency Vazooky Digital, too, called updating existing website content “one of the best and most successful marketing strategies that I [used] last year.”
“By going through each article and page individually and [updating] them, I have seen a big increase in organic rankings which have led to more website traffic and new customers,” he said. “Part of the content optimization was to involve other experts in my articles, which led to more external links and a better social media presence.”
6. Try subscribing to HARO
Another popular 2019 strategy was responding to queries from journalists on services like Help A Reporter Out (HARO), as they are constantly looking for experts in a range of fields.
In fact, Olga Mykhoparkina, CMO of chat platform Chanty, called answering HARO queries “by far the best marketing activity we’ve done this year”—more so than even guest blogging and fixing broken links.
That’s because Chanty gets an average of five to ten links a week by responding to relevant queries.
“We’ve come up with a methodology to pick the best and most relevant queries, send timely answers to them and, in the vast majority of cases, we’ve gotten backlinks from high authority websites,” she said. That list includes outlets such as American Express, Forbes, CMSWire, and Inc.com.
“As a result, we’ve grown our organic traffic and our domain authority has noticeably increased in a matter of just a few months,” she added.
Vartika Kashyap, marketing manager at project management software firm Proofhub, agreed, noting HARO has been a great source of authoritative backlinks and has helped boost content ranks.
“And do you know what the best part is?” asked Alexandra Zamolo, head of content marketing at communications platform Beekeeper. “It’s absolutely free. All it takes is a little bit of your time to craft a few well-written quotes every day that apply to your industry. How cool is that?”
7. Expand your guest blogging opportunities
Another way to expand your reach? Allow more people to create content for your brand through guest blogging. Pamela Bourgault, a digital marketing specialist at digital marketing and social media reporting platform DashThis, said DashThis has scaled its content strategy by allowing clients to contribute to its blog.
“This type of strategy is ideal for both of us since they can use this guest post contribution to leverage their expertise and we can use their knowledge to leverage our blog as a resource for relevant information and lead generation,” she added. “In most cases, these articles bring in a lot of organic traffic and promising leads for us. We have some articles that our clients have written that still to this day bring in over 200+ leads per month.”
8. Use more video (again)
Video remained a popular digital marketing tactic in 2019, and it’s a must marketing strategy for this year, too.
Stuart Leung, vice president of marketing for vaping brand Breazy, said videos forge stronger bonds with consumers, which, in turn, makes them more likely to purchase a product. Options include tutorials, testimonials and behind-the-scenes footage.
Case in point: Chris Savage, CEO of video software company Wistia, said Wistia has paid close attention to the rise of streaming platforms and has seen more and more businesses take a page from the Netflix playbook, creating longer-form original content to build brand affinity. That’s why Wistia created its own late-night-style talk show, Brandwagon.
“Throughout the series, I talk with some of the top minds in the marketing world to learn the secrets behind some of their biggest successes,” he said. “Plus, we welcome some unexpected special guests and our team even buys a ’91 wagon to transform into the ultimate Brandwagon along the way.”
Wistia used social media to advertise trailers and clips and allows viewers to binge watch the entire show, resulting in a steady increase in brand search volume and an increase in overall time spent with the brand, Savage said.
9. Livestream
Morgan Lathaen, marketing specialist at printing company Thumbprint, noted livestreaming was on the rise in 2019 and will continue to dominate in 2020 because it is free, takes a short amount of time to produce, reaches a broader target audience, and offers authentic user engagement.
“With that, live content has the ability to generate greater impressions than posts published in newsfeeds,” she added.
10. Try explainer videos
Another option for video content is explainers. That’s what Raj Vardhman, editor-in-chief of remote work resource GoRemotely.net, said his site opted to do in 2019 to make complex concepts easier to understand.
“The Google algorithm continues to favor websites with video content, which makes these incredibly important both for marketing and SEO,” he added.
Larissa Murillo, Marketing Manager at SEO and website marketing tool Marketgoo, said Marketgoo took this one step further by creating a course for online learning platform Udemy that was more educational than promotional.
