Key Marketing Trends Shaping Businesses in 2024

2023 was an interesting year for businesses, specifically in the area of marketing, product development, and operations. AI was introduced to the public, giving us access to robotic intelligence that can operate as humans. In addition to that, the economy tightened, and many other global events took place.

While we look back at our business year to analyze success, we must anticipate and strategize for coming industry changes. At The Dock Line, we are always looking to stay ahead of the game. We’ve done some research for you on marketing trends for the upcoming new year, so you can thrive as the world continues to advance.

The Rise of Digital Marketing

According to statistics, digital advertising spending is expected to reach over $695 billion worldwide in 2024. The internet is now a part of almost everything we do from Google Search, YouTube, social media, and more. There are so many digital channels to take advantage of to advertise your services and products. But where do you start? Here are the top 3 digital advertising channels to use in 2024:

Paid Search Engine Marketing (Google)

Coming in 1st place is paid search engine marketing. Millions of search engine users all over the world are searching for products, services and more on their phones and computers. Search engines such as Google and Bing allow businesses to show ads on their search engine results pages. You won’t pay for the advertisement until someone actually clicks on your ad—the pay-per-click model. The great thing about PPC is that you have the ability to track your return on investment to see how many conversions you’ve made from your ads.

Paid Social Media Ads

Many social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have built in marketing tools that give businesses the ability to launch paid ads. Not only that, but these ads can be targeted to specific people based on their interests, demographics and behavior. You can also target new customers and past ones with Meta’s automated ad tools. These ads are beneficial because they aren’t subject to social media algorithms, which can cause your posts to get lost in the noise. The result will be more purchases, more followers and more loyal customers due to the detailed targeting ability.

Organic Social Media Content

While ads are a great way to target audiences and give them an immediate call to action, consumers are becoming more desensitized to ads, and can quickly brush past them. Consumers don’t want to just be sold a product anymore—they want to be entertained, inspired and enlightened by brands they admire. Take time to post content that is meaningful and brings value to someone’s social media feed. An effective way to do this is utilizing the art of storytelling and video to capture people’s attention. Use your social media to tell the story of who you are as a business and what you stand for, while also educating and inspiring people. Try to do this without always pointing back to products and services, and let your brand story speak for itself.

Along with these 3 marketing channels, other popular ways to advertise your business online in 2024 is through email marketing, search engine optimization (keyword tracking), video marketing, and influencer marketing.

Consumer Behavior in 2024

Your target audience is not stagnant, they are growing and changing along with the rest of the world. From political and environmental changes to economic and digital changes, things are evolving very fast. Along with change, you will start to see the following consumer behavior in response to these changes.

The Need for Personalization and Humanization

In 2023, we saw AI take over the business and marketing world. Its introduction to the business model changed life as we know it, revolutionizing the way we work. However, as robots and AI begin to take the place of human touch, people will begin to crave real human interaction. While AI can mimic human-like behavior with language models, humans are still so unique. Every person has different emotions, empathy, creativity and humor. It will be important to incorporate these personality traits into your branding, advertising and messaging to resonate with your audience.

Value is More than Money

As political climates shift and economic structures hang in the balance, consumers are preparing for uncertainty by reassessing what really matters to them. While economic shifts can also hurt businesses, you can avoid sinking by re-establishing true value to consumers. Think beyond your product, to the lifelong value your brand brings to the customer. Rethink your messaging to communicate value in deeper ways and new angles. Show them they are more than a customer, but part of your community by updating your customer experience efforts.

Personalized Marketing

As ads continue to populate our everyday interactions, consumers are becoming desensitized to them. Mass marketing no longer has the effect it used to—think about the individual over the crowd. Go from generic to specific in your language, your message and your positioning. You can do this by using customer data to understand preferences, purchase history and browsing behavior.

New Marketing Strategies to Jump On

Video is Still King

We’ve seen video take off the last 2 years in the marketing arena, and yes it will still reign supreme and become the main form of content marketing. Videos have the ability to instantly grab the attention of a consumer and put them in a story that is unfolding before their eyes. 95% of audiences retain messages through video, versus text. A majority of social media content is now video, and consumers are expecting company websites to have video content on the home page.

Micro and Nano Influencers

Rather than focusing on Micro-influencers with millions of followers, try finding a niche Micro or Nano-influencer to advertise your products. Micro-influencers have anywhere from 10K – 50K followers, while Nano-influencers have between 1K and 10K followers.

Nano-influencers are your everyday social media users who aren’t professional “influencers”. According to recent surveys, traditional influencers are not the most influential people in a purchase decision, family and friends are. While Nano-influencers may have small followings, their audiences will be the most influenced by them.

You can find Micro and Nano-influencers by reaching out to a marketing agency who already has a network of connections. Or, think about your own personal network of everyday social media users, and see how you can connect with them and offer deals. Consider sending an easy-to-ship, inexpensive project that the Nano-influencer can test and post about on their social media platforms.

Social Media Commerce

More and more people are making shopping decisions on social media these days. Social media commerce allows social media users to purchase products directly from the social media app they’re using. With 4 billion people using social media worldwide, making sales can be a lot easier using this method. Consumers won’t need to switch between apps and a website to find the product they want to buy. Facebook has been the most popular social commerce platform so far, with Instagram coming in next. TikTok and Pinterest are other great social media apps to take advantage of as well.

Optimize Your Marketing Strategy for the New Year with The Dock Line!

The Dock Line is a team of marketing strategists who know how to optimize your online presence and increase your overall sales. Our unique approach to online marketing helps small businesses develop an established digital brand, get noticed more in their local communities, and become an authority in their industry. Give us a call and we’ll chat about the best way to help grow your business!