Top Trending Digital Strategy Tactics Every Company Must Know

Here are some of the key digital strategy tactics being employed for your company to consider through 2016.With digital marketing services slated to account for nearly 75 percent of CMO spending over the next five years, as well as 10.2 percent of total revenue (Gartner 2015) going towards marketing and digital strategy consulting efforts, it makes sense to start putting more thought and effort into your current digital strategy.Establishing the right digital strategy mix for your organization comes down to a collection of important elements, and making sure they are tailored to suit the needs of both your team and clients.With that, we've compiled a list of key trending digital strategies that will put you on the fast track to success for the remainder of 2016 and beyond.

Put Big Data in Its Place

Whether it’s separating baby boomers from aging millennials or targeting consumers via demographic or purchasing behaviors, segmentation is essential for making meaningful connections. Customer segmentation, predictive analytics, and data visualization are necessary, intertwined functions that are all becoming vital in building an actionable digital strategy to support growth initiatives. Your current strategies are going to have to follow suit if you want your company to keep pace.For example, to use a versatile and capable CRM, begin by categorizing your marketing messaging based on data-driven analysis. This gives you the opportunity to provide your customers with a more personalized experience and puts your company at an advantage over the competition.Granted, you're liable to put more time and effort into incorporating segmentation tactics with your key digital strategies, the rewards will far offset the cost when you start to see increased relevancy and engagement with your audiences.

Digital Branding Strategy

With the ever-changing updates to search engine algorithms, SEO is becoming markedly more important than ever. In fact, when other notable brands mention your business within their respective sites, your online brand awareness will increase organically, as if they linked to your site or brand directly. These are widely known as "implied links," and are becoming just as important in helping your overall marketing efforts. Being cognizant of employing social listening tactics is important with regards to not only knowing when your brand is being evangelized but also being able to respond to it.

Content Partnerships and Thought Leadership

No business, whether it be a multi-employee department or 50,000 employees multinational, is worth their salt without the help of reputable partners. Unless you have the overhead and creative talent to create content and compelling stories in-house, finding the right influencers, content providers, and partnerships will work wonders for your content and thought leadership efforts. This can be done through strategic content licensing, employing a content marketing outfit, or establishing relationships with current work affiliates to share and promote resources together and across social channels.

Embracing a customer-centric approach

Today’s technology allows companies to cater to their customers in a way that was nearly impossible before. According to Econsultancy’s November 2015 report, being a customer-centric company was one top priority for establishing a truly digital native culture. Using digital strategies to track and understand customer interactions, behavior, and preferences across channels, will help your company improve growth and retain loyal customers.

The Increased Role of SEO

In the short time since its adoption into the digital marketing vernacular, search engine optimization has changed tremendously. Organic search is still growing as it becomes a more vital part of digital strategy. Here's how:

Social Visibility

Search engines like Google and Bing aren't the only ones in on the algorithm game. Major social media platforms—including Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest—are all vying for increased visibility, which means digital strategists have to take these constant changes into account when formulating social-media driven campaigns for brands.

Listening Tools

Brands are starting to become more keen on using social media listening tools, like Moz, Raven Tools, KissMetrics and more. This means that marketers will need to have a leg up on the competition for everything from trending terms, topics and phrases, to proper audience segmentation practices.

On-Page Metrics

True SEO success doesn't end at simply driving traffic to a respective site. It also relies on what people do after they've landed. This responsibility falls heavily on the UX and UI properties of sites. Intuitive design and page organization can determine how many visitors engage with your product, and that can mean major money changing hands if you're responsible for any e-commerce marketing.

Key Takeaways

• Content is only as good as the well-researched data that compliments it.
• A customer-centric approach achieved through digital means is what will help companies avoid disruption or challenge it.
• Search engine optimization has evolved since its early days, but the core concepts remain the same: quality content and intuitive organization trump most.
• Social media leaves a lot of room for interpretation, given its ever-changing nature. The best strategists will be those who can constantly keep up.
• Big data will become more manageable with segmentation and visualization

The trick to successfully navigating the digital landscape will rely mostly on being able to identify which approaches will work best for your company's needs.Just know that this landscape is constantly changing, so digital strategists who stay on top of the newest and latest developments and tactics are more likely to experience long-term success.