With the user in mind and the end of year 2016, let’s see what does 2017 has in store for digital marketers? 

It’s the right time for business owners to look forward to what your company really needs to stand out and how to improve their digital marketing prowess in 2017. The prominence and adoption of digital marketing change year after year. With the right digital marketing technologies, businesses can improve their website conversion rate, drive sales and growth. The year 2017 promises to be another year where digital marketing plays a key role in growing and establishing business, generating leads and improving brand awareness.

With every new year comes new styles, trends and ideas, here I’ve curated the top 7 digital marketing trends for small business that will rule 2017. Let’s see what does 2017 hold for small businesses and how to use these trends and techniques to benefit small business owners.

1. Artificial Intelligence

2. User Engagement

3. Influencer Marketing

4. Cross-Platform Marketing

5. Mobile Optimization

6. Video Marketing

7. Storytelling

1. Artificial Intelligence

2017 will be the year when businesses more rely on the biggest trend in marketing — artificial intelligence (AI). From designing a website to advanced electronics applications, to data analytics that predict customers’ behavior and their needs as they arise, AI is all set to solve all these problems. Though artificial intelligence will not replace humans, it will serves as a helping hand and greatly influence what we do in our jobs.

Artificial intelligence is the biggest revolution in the entire history of digital marketing. Marketers can leave the most time consuming and logical matters to artificial intelligence and free up their precious time to think creatively while ensuring that AI efforts are strategically aligned with their business goals.

2. User Engagement

It is important than ever before to develop engaging and valuable content to gain the attention of users so they can like and share your content. Create a comprehensive content marketing strategy, focus on quality, engaging pieces that can easily be repurposed. Blog posts, infographics, slideshares, are all amazing ways to curate original content that can easily be broken down and reuse differently.

Curating content for your audience based on customer-centricity will be your top priority. If your business publishes content that has no images, and falls flats, chances are you will not build credibility and unable to gain audience engagement. Therefore, create an effective content strategy and content editorial calendar to check what type of content works best for your brand and your customers as well.

3. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is indeed the most effective way to increase brand awareness, and this trend is set to explode in 2017. People use and trust social proof of brands and products. If someone’s favorite blogger or celebrity promotes any brand, he/she will probably be more inclined to trust the endorsement instead of any marketing or email campaign directly from the brand.

Even if your brand has a limited marketing budget, small businesses can establish relationships with influencers that don’t require any investment. Access to your followers and cross-promotion on your business website can often be sufficient for smaller influencers.

4. Cross-Platform Marketing

Nowadays people have at least one or two digital devices, like smartphone, laptop, and tablet. And in the digital world, marketing across different channels and devices is the new standard. Therefore, every business small, medium or large must show their online presence where their customers exist.

Marketing efforts must be coordinated so they have a synchronized feel across multiple devices with different resolutions and screen sizes. Optimizing your website design for mobile is the most important step that every business owner should take, followed by email marketing for both desktop and mobile devices.

Your digital marketing and email marketing campaigns must be optimized for desktop and mobile. In addition, keep a clear eye on ROI for every campaign and device to know your success metrics and where your ideal audience exist and is more responsive.

5. Mobile Optimization

Mobile will still rule in 2017, which really comes as no wonder. Everything from your business website to email marketing campaigns must be optimized for mobile and if no doubt, mobile website optimization is something that must be done before desktop optimization. Because nowadays many people are using their mobiles devices to view websites, read emails, and use social media channels. So, being a small business owner, it is advised to grab your audience where it actually present and modify everything according to mobile. If your produce mobile-friendly website design and content, chances are your brand will gain user engagement and ultimately more conversion rate.

6. Video Marketing

Believe it or not, video is the next big thing. However, 2017 truly promises to be the year of video for a variety of reasons. Nearly every social media platform has now become integrated video functionality into its fundamental settings and for a good reason. Nowadays, people are watching videos massively. Facebook claims 100 million hours of videos are watched through its platform daily, imagine that is only one social media channel.

With this massive adoption of video, small business owners must consider using video marketing as an integral part of their social media marketing strategy that has potential to improve audience engagement and customer loyalty. For video marketing, you don’t need to be a tech savvy to master video production. Simply come up with some amazing ideas and see how your ROI boosts.

7. Storytelling

The most enduring principle of good writing is to tell everything in an interesting way. Descriptive explanation curates a scene the users can envision and allows them to visualize the idea and story you are trying to deliver. Storytelling websites have a great potential to attract prospective clients and retain loyal customers. It provides an interactive user experience that is what every brand and consumer want.

Carefully think what your business is trying to accomplish via specified campaigns, then craft the message from the user’s perspective. Customers have now become more tech savvy and don’t want any fake advertisement that bark CTAs. Therefore, it will be a worthwhile choice to curate a story that attracts users towards your brand in a subtle way. Come up with a story that requires Instagram images that users must revisit to watch the whole campaign unfold. This is something that users will want from businesses in 2017.

In a Nutshell

Stay up-to-date with these digital marketing trends and make 2017 the best year for your small business. Follow these trends and incorporate them into your business marketing plan that can take your business towards new heights of success.