24 Marketing Musts for 2024

The new year is here, and it’s the perfect time to evaluate last year’s marketing efforts and try something new!

Whether you’re still building your digital marketing strategy for the year or just looking for tweaks to make as it progresses, here’s a list of 24 ideas from our marketing experts that you should be incorporating across five big categories:

• Communication & Advertising
• SEO 
• AI Tools
• Data Collection& Analysis
• Media

Not sure where to start? Check out our blog on 7 Steps to Creating a Digital Marketing Strategy.

Communication & Advertising

The root of the word “communicate” comes from a Latin word meaning, “to share.” Nothing will matter more in 2024 than how you share your products, services, stories, and how your audience shares it in return.

1. CMS Investment

This is a big investment, not a small tweak, but it’s something every company needs to think about. Investing in a content management system (CMS) like HubSpot will ultimately save you time, help you better use customer data and improve your communication with customers. (We can help you understand and implement it within your organization.)

2. Drip Campaigns

Marketing is a process that unfolds over time as your customers encounter your message, which is why drip campaigns are so useful. Drip campaigns are a pre-written course of emails that are sent to customers after a certain action is taken, like when a cart is abandoned, or when a certain landing page is opened, improving your engagement and conversion opportunities without having to acquire new customers (expensive!). A modern CMS system can automate this, saving your team a lot of time.

3. SMS Marketing

It’s important to get where your customers are, and for many today, that’s the phone. For B2C businesses, targeted SMS marketing (via text message) is a viable option—especially when you have a great deal or offer to make. One recent marketing survey found text messages are consumers’ second-favorite way to receive sales messages, just behind email.

4. Connected TV Ads

Another popular place to reach customers (for both B2C and B2B markets) is through connected TVs and streaming gadgets like Roku or Apple TV. Here at Informatics, we use StackAdapt to manage our video ad spots, but there are lots of self-serve options available as well. No longer do you need to make a million-dollar ad buy to get your message in front of TV audiences.

5. Social Ecommerce

One place we expect consumers to take more direct action is on social media platforms. Consider adding a social ecommerce component in 2024. Once you gain a customer’s interest on a social platform, you can encourage users to purchase directly, rather than forcing them to click through to your website. Save the customer time and make your company money!

6. Dynamic Content

Online experiences are becoming increasingly personalized, and customers are coming to expect it, no matter the size or sophistication of your operation. The good news is, your site can gather basic information from even a first-time visitor, like location, location weather, operating system, and more. Returning visitors can generate data like demographics and shopping history—all of this can be used to deliver personalized, tailored content to web users. Learn more about dynamic content in our recent blog.

7. Chatbots

According to Dashly, chatbots are three times more effective than a website form in converting visitors to buyers. Chatbots also work 24 hours a day! They are particularly useful in collecting contacts, qualifying leads, and answering frequently asked questions. If you haven’t added a chatbot to your site, now is a great time!

8. Authentic Content

Authenticity has become a buzzword in today’s digital marketing industry, but that’s just because it’s the truth for today’s customers. Peer-to-peer (P2P) marketing campaigns are a great way to capitalize on this trend; another is embracing user-generated content as it relates to your brand. Experiment with incorporating reviews, demonstrations, and testimonials from real customers into your flow of more professionally produced content.

SEO

How do people find your brand online? The organic approach to being discovered online is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Focus on these digital marketing strategies to boost your search engine results in 2024.

9. SEO Strategy

You have an overarching digital strategy, but do you also have an SEO-specific strategy for your website? Make sure that you’re including key tactics such as keyword research, backlink building and quality content creation, and backlink building to make your pages as attractive as possible to Google. (If you need help, our SEO Boost studio can help!).

10. Pillar Pages

The topic pillar stands at the very center of your content strategy. It answers your customer’s most pressing question, and links to myriad product pages, blogs, and media content within your site to build authority. The pillar page essentially serves as an information-rich table of contents that both describes and guides all the other content you create. This link-rich compendium will drive traffic and likely be one of your top ranked pages for search engines—don't wait to start building these valuable traffic builders.

11. Spiderweb Content

Your content should stretch out like a spiderweb to reach all the topics connected to your business. For example, if you sell Christmas merchandise, your spiderweb might reach out to topics like, “Christmas Around the World,” “Unlikely Christmas Gifts,” “Christmas Gifts for Sports Fans,” and anywhere else you want your web to reach.

12. Use Long-Tail Keywords

With voice search continuing to see major growth, your SEO strategy needs to grow to include long-tail keywords. Voice search tends to be more conversational and include more elaborate phrases, opposed to the short phrases people are likely to type out on a mobile phone. Including long-tail keywords in searchable and meta content will be valuable in 2024.

AI Tools

AI tools are a crucial component to creating the personalized experiences that customers crave. Make it a point to experiment and harness AI more in 2024.

13. Content Generation

Whether it’s quickly refreshing the messaging for an email marketing campaign, or building an outline for your latest blog post, AI content generators like ChatGPT are helping marketers save time and creative effort. Many marketing tools, including HubSpot and Canva, now include AI-generated content options, so don’t be afraid to experiment. The one caveat here: AI-generated content tends to work best when it is edited and finessed by a human who can catch any errors or omissions.

14. Content Contextualization

A cousin to dynamic content, AI can use certain data points to instantly create fresh content for individual consumers within your marketing channels. The goal is to make it easy for people to find exactly what they want with as few obstacles as possible. This skill requires a little API and coding expertise to make it work, but we can help.

15. Assisted Data Analysis

Even small amounts of digital marketing data can feel overwhelming to the beginning analyst; the obstacles multiply quickly as a business grows. AI tools within popular platforms including HubSpot and SEMRush can help find insights, streamline data, and make actionable recommendations for instant improvements.  

Data Collection & Analysis

Big ideas can start a business, but in order to sustain the business, you have to measure performance. 2024 is the year to implement these data collection strategies.

16. Journey Mapping

Do you know what steps your customer is taking before they convert? Do you know which points in your marketing funnel are leaking customers? This investigative process is known as journey mapping, and once you understand what’s working (and what’s not), you can craft a marketing strategy that maximizes strengths and shores up weaknesses.

17. Net Promoter Score

One of the simplest ways to measure the loyalty of your customers and the value of your brand is by asking them. One way to do that is through the net promoter score. By using polling or survey platforms, you can understand how likely they are to recommend your products or services to another person. Their responses can guide your efforts to build more positive experiences with your customers.

18. Better Key Performance Indicators

Are your key performance indicators (KPIs) still relevant to your business’s digital marketing strategy? Many marketers measure the same things year after year, content to just tweak their KPI goals. We recommend taking a hard look at your KPIs and making sure they truly correspond to important marketing metrics for the year ahead. Examples could be: cost per lead, conversion rate, backlinks, and more.

19. A/B Testing

If you’re not A/B testing, you’re not improving. Experiment with creating digital marketing pieces with just one variable. For instance, send a customer testimonial where the names have been changed for privacy, with one version featuring a male speaker and one female. Which one resonates more with your audience? Which has the better click rate? The better conversion rate?

20. First-Party Data

As privacy gains prominence as a social issue and new laws pop up regulating how you can use third-party personal data, there is increasing value in first-party data, or information gained directly from your customers. Try implementing processes that move away from cookies and third-party surveying, and prioritize customer surveys and other techniques that collect data directly from the source. For more on this topic, read our CEO’s recent column, “Take your Marketing Approach from Third to First.”

Media

In 2023, video content was estimated to make up over 80% of all web traffic. Your company is missing out if it isn’t using media in its marketing strategy.

21. Product Demonstrations

Great products solve a problem, and great content answers a question. Video product demonstrations are often the best answer to the question: “How does this work?” It doesn’t have to be long or complex, and the SEO payoff can be immense for your brand.

22. Behind the Scenes Videos

Remember the show, “How Did This Get Made?” Customers love getting a glimpse at the people and processes that went into creating their favorite products and services. Unless you’re the Wizard of Oz, there’s no harm in letting them look behind the curtain--in fact, it could actually build trust and a sense of authenticity.

23. Influencer Content

Working with an influencer, either through organic collaborations or through paid partnerships, can give your brand awareness with a new audience. Following the trend of personalization, some experts are predicting that influencer marketing in 2024 will be less focused on volume (how many followers?) and instead become more niche, valuing the collaborators’ authority on highly specific spheres of interest.

24. Audio Content

The average American adult spends 1 hour and 43 minutes listening to digital audio every day. Whether you start advertising on Spotify or other streaming services for music and podcasts, or create your own podcast that establishes brand authority, audio is a great way to reach your audience in new and exciting ways.

We’ll always advocate for a methodical and measured approach to your digital marketing approach. Even if you can’t implement all 24 of these tactics, start small and see what moves the needle. Even tiny tweaks can lead to dramatic gains for your marketing team. If you need help, reach out—our digital experts are excited to help you grow in the year ahead!

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