Evolution of Digital Marketing

The journey of digital marketing began with the basic introduction of websites and email marketing in the early days of the Internet. As technology advanced, so did marketing strategies, evolving into the complex and dynamic landscape we see today. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter became essential tools for brand engagement, while search engine optimisation (SEO) helped businesses rank higher in search results, driving organic traffic. Content marketing emerged as a key player, allowing brands to tell their stories and offer value to their audiences. Over time, digital advertising channels like pay-per-click (PPC) and display ads further expanded their reach, enabling brands to target specific demographics with precision.

Impact on Businesses

The impact of digital marketing on businesses has been transformative. It has levelled the playing field, enabling small businesses to compete with larger corporations by reaching targeted audiences effectively and efficiently. Through personalised campaigns and data-driven insights, brands can refine their marketing strategies in real-time, maximising return on investment (ROI) and driving measurable outcomes. The use of analytics and metrics has allowed businesses to understand consumer behaviour better, fine-tune their approaches, and ultimately build stronger relationships with their customers.

Celebrating Successes

Digital Marketing Day, which is celebrated in November, is a time to celebrate the successes and milestones that digital strategies have achieved. From viral social media campaigns that capture global attention to innovative content that drives engagement and builds brand loyalty, these accomplishments underscore the power of digital marketing in today’s world. Whether it’s increasing website traffic, enhancing customer engagement, or achieving higher conversion rates, the impact of well-executed digital strategies is clear.

Looking Ahead

As we look to the future, the landscape of digital marketing continues to evolve with the rise of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and voice search. These advancements promise to further revolutionise how brands interact with consumers, making marketing even more personalised, immersive, and effective.

This November, let’s celebrate digital marketing and embrace the spirit of innovation, creativity, and strategic thinking that drives our industry forward. Here’s to all the marketers and businesses that continue to shape the digital world.

For support in your digital marketing strategy, please contact us today or email hello@brighterdirections.co.uk

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The topic of privacy, data collection and data usage are becoming increasingly a talking point in the marketing world. This is especially relevant given Google’s plans to discontinue third party cookies, forcing most companies to rely on their own data gathering.

More than ever, the use of machine learning and AI to help companies by automating services, predicting patterns, and making recommendations will lead to greater sales and engagements.

It’s not about how much or what type of data you are collecting, but rather what you infer from it – what analysis can you effectively deduce from the millions and millions of datapoints available out there on the internet?

Where AI fits in

A decade ago, analytics solutions only provided descriptive analytics. Descriptive analytics focus on what has happened in the past – companies use descriptive analytics to gather historic customer buying patterns, sales, supply chain patterns and financials. Companies therein attempt to extrapolate from this past data in an attempt to predict future patterns. Yet, as AI evolves, the amount of data generated increased, and solutions started to develop predictive analytics. Allowing a forward-look into a business’ data, effectively analysing possible future trends.

2020 – The Year of Disruption and Risk?

Further on this, 2020 was the year of disruption and risk – the pandemic rapidly changed consumer behaviour, and the lifestyles of many have been permanently affected. Smart companies are in turn responding by shifting from precision measurement to prediction. In the presence of uncertainty, firms are becoming more reliant on AI and machine learning to guide their future.

In an era of accelerated technological progress characterised by new innovations consistently creating abrupt change in societies, the worst thing you can do for your business is rely on outdated information while attempting to position your company for future success. Consumer habits are becoming unconventional, inconsistent, and erratic with very little sign for stability.

Future Success

There are various methods you can pursue to ensure your company is positioned well for the future. With the use of AI, Sale Representatives can be provided specific recommendations to act on immediately. This can include insights and data into the consumer buying habits and preferences. From which, AI can gather the best products to suggest and bundle to maximise the financial gain for your company whilst ensuring customer engagement. Ultimately, this would successfully increase the size of an order, reduce delivery costs and number of invoices whilst maximising sale value.

AI is not limited to front-end sales but also increases supply chain efficiency. Predictive ordering enables companies to order products needed at the right time for the right price. Through greater supply chain management you will maintain operations seamlessly with little cost. Further, this same technology is used by various subscription-based companies that send out different products to consumers on a frequent basis. For example, certain toothbrush or razor companies send out replacement heads to their customers this way. The AI can utilise data to predict when the heads will begin to fail and require replacement. This technology can consider large data variables such as risk of breakage, general wear and tear as well as take into account probabilities of loss and other events irrespective of rarity.

The Risks

AI sounds great, doesn’t it? It can help you make more sales, reduce costs, and make sure your business is operating efficiently. So what’s the catch?

Well…

AI can create social, reputational, and regulatory risks. Utilising AI and machine learning for your business can ironically cause unpredictability. Famously, Twitter shut down a Microsoft chatbot that “learned” to post racist tweets. The presence of bias should not be underestimated, these are not necessarily small risks for companies. Given a technology is unable to take into account morality or societal values, reliance on such technology becomes dangerous.

The University of Pennsylvania introduces this problem to consider. “Rebecca” applies for a loan with an online bank that uses AI to determine the loan. She is rejected, despite having good credit. But if she enters the same information with one difference — her gender — she is approved.” Evidently, the reputational damage suffered by businesses who solely rely on AI can far outweigh the rewards reaped by utilising such software.

The Bottom Line

Companies are less interest in the historical tracking of consumer data. As we move towards a constantly changing future, the past means less and less. Thus, data and insights are changing. Companies should place greater importance on predictive and prescriptive analytics. Furthermore, the way in which data is collected is also changing given the discontinuation of third-party cookies – companies are becoming more reliant on first-party data collection through surveys and questionnaires to build greater relationships with their customers while collecting data in a safe and transparent way.

Need help developing your brand’s exposure / presence?

Get in touch with one of our marketing experts and we’ll happily provide tailored marketing solutions for content, social media, PR or white label.

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Here are some ways to optimise your SEO on your website:

Keyword Research

Developing a list of keywords is one of the main ways you can identify what words and phrases your potential audience is searching for and make it possible for people to find your site. Therefore, it is important to understand what people are looking for and to make sure that your keywords relate to the products, services, or information that you are offering.

Make sure that your keywords are highly relevant to your audience and are effective in making your site rank above your competitors. It is important to keep updating these keywords regularly to make sure that you make the most out of them as the market adapts. Additionally, making sure that keywords aren’t too popular and are unique is vital as keywords that are too popular are too competitive. This may mean you will struggle to be ranked higher on search results with other competitors using the same terms.

Meta descriptions

Page descriptions tags or meta descriptions are what people can see when they search for something with the description coming up for each website. It is important that these are filled in effectively, as these short paragraphs are your opportunity to promote your website and let searchers know what your page contains and whether it is the information they are looking for.

Making an engaging description using your keywords will get more people to click onto the links to your site and using a call to action is a good idea to use with this. Furthermore, it should be relevant to the page it relates to and you should ask yourself what makes you click on a particular link when you do a search based on the description that appears.

Think about your competitors and compare them with your own business to see how their website ranks against yours. Does your current meta description make potential visitors want to click the link to your site or theirs. If necessary, you may need to revise your description and make it more engaging so that you have the advantage.

Website Content 

When writing the content for your website, the two main things you want to consider are the readability and engagement it has with visitors. Talk about the benefits, not just the features that you are offering to your potential customers. People are only interested in how you can solve their problem and will just invest time in reading information that benefits them.

Provide information in the first paragraph that immediately engages with visitors and makes them decide to find more about what you are offering. Ensure that the content is condensed and readable which tells people what they want to know without making them read too much information which doesn’t answer the questions they may have. Using a call to action is very effective as part of this, which will prompt visitors to engage with you and invest in the services you are offering.

If you are looking to optimise your website and want more information on how to get the best results for your business, Brighter Directions are here to help. Contact our team today to discuss how we can support your digital footprint.

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LinkedIn provides a modern and professional way to contact business owners or potential employees. With over 500 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn is a great platform for networking, people can share about both their personal and professional lives. People post stories and document their successes and failures, this is a great and honest way to connect with people. LinkedIn can be used to maintain links with professionals and keep yourself visible for any future opportunities, to ensure you don’t get overlooked.

LinkedIn hosts a lot of data that can be used to specifically target your advertisements, gather information about their performance and see who engaged with them. This can also work with job advertisements as LinkedIn is now one of the biggest social media platforms for recruiting.  It allows head-hunters to prepare for interviews before engaging with perspective candidates and it gives the interviewees the chance to create a good impression via their online presence.

Overall, LinkedIn is a great platform for all types of networking, if you’re in need of any help integrating LinkedIn into your networking plan then let us know. At Brighter Directions we offer outsourced services covering PR, Social Media, Content and more. Call our office today on 01246 586 330 to discuss your requirements.

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Not only do messenger apps allow companies to engage with employees and enhance team spirit, but they also work for engaging with companies and customers too.

Customer service of a brand can be made easier and less complicated for customers with the use of messenger apps. Consumers nowadays like the option to be able to contact any company at any given time with queries or complaints and surveys show that 65% of them would prefer to contact a company via chat. . WhatsApp, Facebook and Apple Business chat are now becoming more and more popular in the increased use of digital communication channels for customer service use.

We all know how important Content Marketing is (we hope you do!), to help customers better understand a product or service, and by building a direct positive relationship with audiences – yet when people think of content an marketing, many forget the benefits of including messaging apps in their marketing strategy.

Statistics show that there is a 95% open rate within the first two hours of sending along with high follow-up engagement. The click-through rate in comparison to other digital forms of marketing is much higher with an average of 60% – are you utilising the best forms of marketing tools for your business, or are you missing out?

To discuss marketing needs for your organisation, and to find out how our amazing team can help propel your marketing KIP’s this year – contact us on 01246 586330.

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It’s the return of the real. With the ongoing spread of ‘fake news’ and data manipulation throughout 2018 consumers have now lost a lot of trust in social media. This trust has converted back to family and friends where they speak honestly about their opinions, no matter the size of their following.

For companies going into 2019, there should be less of a focus on reach and more concentration on creating meaningful and engaging content. More transparency in companies is shown by brands such as Adidas and The New York Times with their respectable ethos. People are joining together more online, creating communities and sharing insights. Brands should take this into account when developing relevant content for their consumers.

Gone are the days of an update post on Facebook and here comes the age of stories. Stories are short slideshow snippets that can only be seen for 24 hours. They are seen to be growing 15 times faster than feed-based sharing with more than a billion users across the main platforms of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat.

This means companies should rethink their idea of posting a static block of text on social media and instead look into the less polished, multimedia insight into the brand. With proof that more raw and realistic stories generate highest engagement, there shouldn’t be a reason not to utilise this avenue.

Many social media platforms have had their rise and fall in the past with social media marketing, however, 2019 is the year of LinkedIn. With over 500 million members as of 2018, LinkedIn is a content powerhouse. The pace of growth is accelerating so rapidly for this platform and it could be down to the no-nonsense professionalism, get-away from the long rants and viral memes of the rest of the internet. Companies are now using LinkedIn to merge professional and personal aspects of their business and for stages of recruitment.

Facebook member-only groups have increased by 40% in the past year. For companies in 2019 to succeed in targeting these people they need to tap into their group interests. However this type of marketing can be challenging, these groups are safe spaces for people with common interests, interrupting that with sales pitches can be damaging to the brand. Using changing algorithms and user taste will help companies see big revenue in this area next year.

For any assistance with your Marketing requirements, Brighter Directions are always on hand to provide outsourced services covering PR, Social Media, Content and more. Call our office today on 01246 586 330 to discuss your requirements.

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Our resident GDPR consultant Danielle, has produced an informative, clear white-paper to help dispel some of the myths that SME’s should be taking to protect your business in the future, which is totally free for you to download and utilise, containing some interesting case studies and tips to take on your GDPR roadmap.

If you need further information, there is lots of guidance published on our blog feed, and you can also call us for a free initial consultation on 01246 586330, or email danielle@brighterdirections.co.uk

Click here for our free download GDPR whitepaper

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Before you just blindly agree to these new policies, you need to be aware that some of these are significant. For example, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has increased its minimum age to 16. Snapchat is not totally disregarding its customers under the age of 16 but is changing how some of the available features work for those under that age.

While some of the worldwide giants are agreeing to this new legislation, not every company is willing to do so. Many companies have decided that these new rules will cause too much disruption, and are willing to shut down a part of their business rather than comply with them.

Mobile marketing platform Verve, for example, has confirmed that it will be exiting Europe because the company relies heavily on location data.

CMO of Verve, Julie Bernard, told AdExchanger recently:” We have decided that the regulatory environment is not favourable to our particular business model. We are focussing efforts on the strength of our US business at this time.”

Game developer Uber Entertainment is going a step further, with the closing down of its free multiplayer online gaming and Super Monday Night Combat because the cost to comply would simply be too high.

Polygon’s Owen. S. Good confirmed:” Making (the game) complaint would require either rewriting large parts of the system or porting Super Monday Night Combat to Microsoft’s PlayFab platform.” With the game being six years old, and not having massive usage, Uber Entertainment was unable to justify the expenditure required for either.

While Verve and Uber Entertainment are amongst the frontrunners in regards to not complying with the new GDPR regulations, they certainly will not be the last. A recent survey conducted of 400 US companies, which was published by technology association CompTIA, stated that many companies are still bamboozled by GDPR, and 52% are “still exploring the applicability of GDPR to their company.” When companies become more au fait with GDPR, it is firmly expected that many other companies will follow in the footsteps of Verve and Uber Entertainment.

While many companies are cutting costs, or choosing to close certain parts of their business down completely, others are prepared to pay fines for their non- compliance with GDPR.

Ensighten report that a mere quarter of the 150 UK brand and agency- side marketers it approached felt “Very confident” that they would be GDPR compliant by the May 25^th deadline. A substantial 45% said that their company was already set aside funds to pay for fines, which could be a significant 4% of their annual turnover or 20million Euros, whichever is greater.

It is understood that while many companies have set aside funds for non-compliance, they haven’t budgeted for the maximum potential fine, and are currently not too concerned anyway, as any fine will not be applied in the early days.

Ironically, a company like Google, who could comfortably afford even the maximum potential fine, have come under fire for letting all their publishers do the entire heavy lifting.

While GDPR is undoubtedly an obstacle, it is also an opportunity. Even companies that are having difficulty in becoming compliant are excited about the potential rewards it can provide to them, some of which are significant. Recently, 69% of the marketers quizzed by Ensighten expect GDPR will enhance the accuracy and consistency of their data.

Because of the rewards that are on offer, it is well worth your business attempting to become GDPR compliant, even if it cannot be achieved by May 25.

If you still do not fully understand GDPR or would like further information about GDPR, please contact Brighter Directions on 01246 586330 or info@brighterdirections.co.uk

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The company is promoting more news links in its customer’s timelines. Over the last couple of years, Twitter has made a relentless push into news, as it felt this was an area that it was drastically lacking in. Back in April 2016, Twitter moved from ‘Social Networking’ to the ‘News’ category in the app store. Now it streams live news broadcasts alongside the home timeline, it’s promoting news and tweets from journalists in its ‘explore,’ and it’s currently trialling curated timelines around breaking news events. It’s hoped that this new feature will further enhance that effort.

The latest feature which Twitter only rolled out in the last few days is another aggressive move into news. This ‘update’ pushes links tweeted by your network into your home timeline and then grouping the tweets mentioning the link underneath it (‘grouping additional tweets about the same link underneath it’- is a feature that Facebook has already introduced). This is will apply to all users, including those on desktop, Android, and iOS. The aim of this is for news articles to be more accessible and viewed at a glance, along with who is sharing them. In essence, it’s basically tidying up your news feed.

You may be asking yourself- why does this matter to me or my company? Well, allow me to explain. Firstly, if you were unaware of this new feature by Twitter, it just shows how social media is constantly evolving in the way content is being posted, and how managers of social media and agencies that provide this a service, must be aware of all of these updates as soon as they happen, as they WILL certainly make a huge difference to the audience that are trying to reach. You don’t want your company to be left behind the eight ball and potentially missing vital information which you need or potential new customers.

In the past, tweets which were accompanied by an image were far more likely to be interacted with than those without. The gap reduced when Twitter introduced ‘link previews’ to tweets.

This all means that change will be required by those managing Twitter, and a revision of strategy will inevitably have to be drawn up.  

If you feel that you need assistance or have any further enquiries, then please contact Brighter Directions on 01246 586330 or info@brighterdirections.co.uk

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In a post in its newsroom , Facebook wrote:

People have told us that they dislike spammy [sic] posts on Facebook that goad them into interacting with likes, shares, comments, and other actions. For example, “LIKE this if you’re an Aries!” This tactic, known as “engagement bait,” seeks to take advantage of our News Feed algorithm by boosting engagement in order to get greater reach. So, starting this week, we will begin demoting individual posts from people and Pages that use engagement bait.

The guidelines on what kinds of language will be accepted (or not), are at this stage, still somewhat loose, but what it does mean is that Company Pages will certainly be affected, particularly those that encourage competitions or increased audiences using the methodology.

The general rule of thumb is that if you don’t want to be caught out and penalized for just trying to encourage more reach – then, stick to content which engages users and provide interesting posts, rather than playing the click more game!

** Are you looking for assistance to develop your Facebook presence and want to stay within the guidelines of Facebook for maximum output? Contact our professional and friendly team today for a free initial consultation on 01246 586330 ** 

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