Business Matters: BizzyWeb Explains Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends
Technology is quickly changing how companies do business with each other. BizzyWeb, a business-to-business marketing agency in Champlin, reveals five digital marketing trends we can expect to see a lot not only this year, but into the future.
BizzyWeb’s office, just north of the Brooklyn Park border, contains fun ways that employees can engage with each other and recharge. Thee company has an Atari Asteroids arcade game in the hallway. There’s also a giant-sized version of Connect 4 located in the main office corridor.
“This is actually how we solve some office disagreements,” said Dave Meyer, who founded BizzyWeb 20 years ago.
Giant version of Connect 4
Meyer, who got a public relations degree and MBA from the University of St. Thomas, says technological advancements have changed how his company does business.
“The tools are making our lives easier, but that ease is also making the job of a marketer more complex,” said Meyer. “There’s so much more to know and do.”
Meyer sees five key digital marketing trends that can help companies grow.
“When I started in ’99, it was super easy to just build a website and have magic happen,” said Meyer. “Now you need to deepen relationships with your customers and actually engage them in conversations.”
BizzyWeb has grown itself. Now with 16 employees, the company has tripled its business volume in the past three years.
BizzyWeb’s motto on office wall
Trend No. 1: Search Intent Optimization
The first trend, search intent optimization, is a fancy way of saying how your business can show up better in Google searches.
“If you have a need for a birthday cake, what do you do? You open up your phone, and you type in ‘birthday cakes near me,'” said Meyer.
Meyer says instead of searching for word phrases, it’s important Google algorithms catch the intent of your business model.
“So if I’m a baker, I’m not just optimizing for birthday cakes near me, but I’m gluten-free cakes, I’m baking, I’m anything else that people might be searching for.”
Trend No. 2: Rise of Artificial Intelligence
According to Meyer, business-to-business marketing statistics show customers will search up to 80 websites before they bother to pick up a phone. Artificial intelligence tools on your website can eliminate some of the customer frustration and steer prospective clients toward you.
“An AI chatbot or artificial intelligence chatbot will let me load all of my frequently asked questions on my website. And someone can just type in a question, and the AI will cross that and actually have a conversation with people,” said Meyer.
Trend No. 3: The Use of Video Marketing
Another trend is emails are about to get much more personable. Emails including talking videos from the sender will be much more prevalent.
“The fact that we all have phones and we’re all on our little 4-inch devices all day long, we crave that human connection a lot more,” said Meyer.
Trend No. 4: Inbound Marketing
Meyer sees the fourth digital marketing trend as perhaps the biggest one: inbound marketing. Software developer HubSpot coined the term.
“Inbound marketing is the act of identifying high-value information for your customers and focusing your marketing around those high-value pieces,” explained Meyer.
Meyer says inbound marketing requires business to actively engage clients in helpful ways.
“Instead of just trying to brute force sell people, to sort of brute force help people, and just give them, ‘here’s what you’re looking for, and, by the way, now that you told us that you’re interested in that, here are some other things you might be interested in,'” said Meyer.
Trend No. 5: Growth Driven Design for Websites
Finally, Meyer says the days of big website launches are over. He says websites will be developed through a process called “growth driven design.”
“Growth driven design is kind of the antithesis of traditional web design,” said Meyer. “In traditional web design, you build a big website, and it takes six months to build and everybody’s frustrated. And you finally get it out and launched, and then the moment you get it launched it gets more and more stale.”
Meyer says growth driven design removes that long, arduous journey.
“So it’s the difference between long arduous journey, big design, long arduous journey … and small website, update, update, update, update,” explained Meyer. “And so it really helps you be more interactive and meet your customer’s needs much better.”
DISCLOSURE: CCX Media is a client of BizzyWeb.
