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2021 Digital Marketing Trends: 8 Proven Lessons From This Year

2021 Digital Marketing Trends: 8 Proven Lessons From This Year

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This article has been contributed by Edwin Deponte.

We’re heading towards the end of the year, and the top 2021 digital marketing trends to take into next year are now clear.

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Brands worldwide are competing for the attention of users every single day. The competition has never been fiercer, and 2021 has been no exception from the past decade or so.

Capitalizing on trends is one of the best approaches to achieve your brand’s digital marketing goals. To do it successfully, you need to know the most popular digital marketing strategies here and now.

So here we have them – eight 2021 digital marketing trends that you can lean on to grow your brand into 2022.

1. Human-Centric Digital Marketing

People are now seeking more human connection from businesses digitally. You’ll be seeing more brands with more engaging content this year.

Consumer-centric businesses have been the most successful, by putting their customers first in every business and marketing decision.


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Messages appealing to people’s emotions and thoughts rule social media, search engines, and various websites.

Your brand can form human connections with your customers and target users digitally by producing more interactive and inclusive content.

2020 seemed to be the precursor for people’s desire for more inclusivity in brands’ digital marketing approach. People are now looking for more optimistic depictions of equality in the content they consume online, and they’re looking at brands to provide it.

Inclusivity and Diversity

According to Accenture’s research, the demand for inclusive branded content is already affecting purchasing behavior.

41% of shoppers have shifted away from a retailer that doesn’t share the same emphasis that they put on the importance of diversity and identity. It also showed that 29% of consumers are willing to switch to other brands if they see or feel like they don’t offer enough diversity.

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On the other hand, releasing interactive content on your brand’s social media accounts and website gives you three things.

  1. It helps you learn more about your target audience and your customers,
  2. It gets them to engage with your brand and
  3. It provides them value.

By having your audience vote on social media polls, asking for comments, or having them play a mini-game on your homepage just like Google, they’ll feel more connected to your brand.

This trend proves that even in a digitalized world, the human touch is still essential.

Every form of content you release for marketing your brand has to have a message connecting with your audience. To do that, you have to be aware of who they are.

2. Customer Segmentation

2021 digital marketing tredn - customer segmentation

Customer segmentation has been around for a while, but as digital marketing competition gets more challenging, it’s become more relevant. This is one trend that any brand can capitalize on, regardless of size and the time they’ve spent on digital marketing.

By grouping your customers into segments, you’ll identify them better and improve your awareness of what they desire to see or hear from you.

Segmenting your customers also allows you to save money and have a better return-on-investment (ROI) turnout.

By segmenting your customers, you can tailor your content more accurately to suit their preferences. That way, you can increase your engagement and leads and also be more inclusive and interactive with your content creation and digital marketing approach.

Customer segmentation paves the way for personalization, which in principle means targeting specific segments of your potential customers rather than the masses. This allows you to gain more savings by ROI as well.

One of the best ways to roll out tailored digital marketing for your customer segments is through email. Personalized email tends to be opened more than the generic marketing email.

Another effective option is hiring a digital agency that will help you partner with an influencer in your niche; since they already have an established following, your marketing efforts will be directed to their followers. Their followers are easy leads for conversions since they’re interested in your industry.

3. Local SEO

2021 digital marketing trend - local SEO

People still use directories nowadays, but instead of turning pages of an actual directory, they search online. Google listings are what people are now referring to for finding local businesses.

The number of local businesses recognizing the power of Google’s business listings will increase in the coming year. They realize that people searching for a local business have a more serious intent to purchase, making them easier to convert.

Google My Business

If you’re a local business or if you own a franchise operating in a locale, having a Google My Business account will help you bigtime.

It’ll be easier to do that if you optimize your local shop for local search queries. All you have to do is ensure that your Google My Business details are up to date with relevant content.

Take note that Google is strict on the relevancy of your business listing in ranking your brand in “near me” searches. Specify your products or services, your working hours, and geographic location to get a boost in your search engine results ranking.

Existing SEO Activities

Aside from that, you also have to incorporate local keywords in your SEO strategy. You can include them in your backlinking efforts when guest posting or outreaching bloggers and journalists to write for you.

Your city or town’s name should always be the top keyword priority, as it’s the counterpart of the “near me” phrase, while other related keywords could be a landmark or something that your locality is famous for.

4. Structured Data SEO

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Structuring your brand’s online data so that search engines can easily categorize it has remained significant in 2021. The popularity of structured data SEO is driven by heavy smartphone usage for searching information online.

Optimizing your data for prominence in search engine results is done by most well-known brands, and so far, it’s been useful for them.

Almost 50% of internet traffic globally now comes from mobile devices. Featured snippets are more visible when searching Google using smartphones because they are more detailed and provide more relevant information in a concise structure.

Structured data is used to generate featured snippets or rich snippets, placed on position zero, the part right before the search results.

Rich snippets also serve as an alternative to placing ads on Google. Instead of paying to get position zero, you can embed structured data in your website’s back-end coding to form featured snippets.

Featured snippets data include the images, videos, and reviews. It also comes in the form of a Knowledge Graph Box found beside the search results, which contains essential information about your brand.

Structured data - Knowledge Graph

Image source: moz.com

You can use Schema.org to put structured data on your web pages as it contains a semantic vocabulary of tags that enables you to do it. It includes every structured data tag that Google uses to show as a response to search queries.

There are also SEO plugins that have structured data as an included feature, so you won’t have to do any coding.

Structured data is the holy grail of modern-day SEO because it answers user queries without them having to click a link.

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That may sound counterintuitive, but having your brand’s information displayed on featured snippets symbolizes your brand as a “thought leader.” Users value that, which elevates the worth of being on position zero rather than gaining clicks and visits.

5. Optimizing Content for Search Intent

Search intent is the reasoning of users for using the keywords they type or say on their query. It defines what the user is trying to accomplish by making their query.

More brands will be optimizing their content to cover users’ search intent as we head into 2022.

You can determine the search intent of your target audience and customers during your keyword research and segmentation.

You’ll find that specific keywords are used by a particular demographic or people living in the same city. By targeting these keywords, you can systematically boost your positions in search results.

You can target those keywords by fulfilling what users are looking for. People go online to search for things that can help them solve their problems or answer their questions.

They’re specifically looking for brands that can help them with whatever they need and is likely to pick the first one they see in the search results.

There are four primary types of search intent that tells what a user is aiming to get in the search results:

  1. Informational: Users enter a query, expecting to get a straightforward answer fast.
  2. Navigational: Users look for directions to a landing page.
  3. Commercial investigation: Users are researching to make informed purchasing decisions.
  4. Transactional: Users intend to make a purchase.

6. Voice Search SEO

2021 digital marketing trend - voice search - Google Home Nest

With the popularity of smart speakers has come the rise of voice search. More searchers are now using microphones rather than keyboards to make queries.

This has given rise to our sixth 2021 digital marketing trend – voice search optimization.

Optimizing your brand’s content for voice search means making direct and conversational content.

Most voice search queries are in question form, requiring a fast and concise response from search results, mostly gathered from featured snippets.

Top brands such as Paypal and Nestle are already using voice search to deliver value-based content to consumers.

According to a study by Backlinko about voice search, the average voice search answer consists of 29 words.

Average voice search answer is 29 words

Optimizing for voice search is about innovation, as artificial intelligence (AI) technology used in voice assistants is getting smarter throughout time. Through it, you can provide consumers a unique experience that will foster brand loyalty.

7. Influencer Marketing

2021 digital marketing trends - influencer marketing

Now for the seventh of our 2021 digital marketing trends – influencer marketing has continued to be prevalent and will continue to be leveraged in 2022.

More brands will be partnering with influencers to spread the good word about a new product or service and amplify their message.

It’ll also go beyond the number of followers an influencer has but will be more focused on choosing which one is best suited for their marketing campaign.

According to the data gathered by MuseFind, 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an ad by a celebrity. On the other hand, an Edelman Brand Trust survey showed that 63% of consumers trust an influencer’s opinion much more than the brand itself.

These numbers say a lot about the effectiveness of human connection in digital marketing by establishing trust through the use of key leaders.

Micro-influencers have also been more relevant this year, with more brands forming relationships with them. Although micro-influencers have smaller followings online, they’re more engaged with their fans since they’re fewer in numbers.

Having micro-influencers review or endorse your products has the potential to significantly increase your leads because they have a more direct reach to their niche market segment.

AI will also come into play when it comes to influencer marketing. It’s transforming the way brands will be picking influencers to represent them.

Technologies such as artificial neural networks (ANN) incorporated with image recognition help identify fake accounts better, while natural language processing (NLP) helps determine influencer performance.

Expect brands to explore these types of options that AI presents to choose the best influencer partner conveniently well into 2022.

8. Google Ads Smart Bidding

And here it is, the eigth and final of our 2021 digital marketing trends….

Automation is helping consumers and businesses conduct their dealings easier online. In 2021, more brands have been relying on automation to assist in their digital marketing campaigns.

One automated tool at the forefront of this trend is automated bidding for Google Ads.

Brands have found running their ad campaigns more convenient with automated bidding. Previously, digital marketers have had to constantly adjust their campaigns and keywords and then bid to make the most of their spending.

Continually tweaking campaigns and keywords costs time and money, which is all reduced through automation.

Automated bidding for Google Ads lets Google AI determine prior moves to adjust your bids in real-time. With Google AI’s help, you can generate more leads for a maximum cost per acquisition that you set and add more conversions depending on your objective.

That way, you won’t need to work as much as you did before to reach your specific target audience. It’s faster and more efficient, which will contribute significantly to your conversion rate and the reduction of customer acquisition expenses.

Wrapping Up

Following these eight trends will enable your brand to be at its best digital standing. You can reach your goals more manageable by changing or developing a digital marketing plan that incorporates them.

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About the author: Edwin Deponte is a motivational writer who is also passionate about all things digital and social media marketing. On his free days, he spends his time indulging in digital and social media marketing books.

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