Key Trends in Advertising for 2014
OhioMBE – March 15, 2014
What will the advertising landscape look like in 2014? How will consumers find the products and services they want now and in the future? Here are some of the trends every advertising agency in the country is watching closely.
Mobile Advertising—Desktop computers no longer rule, as smaller mobile screens capture customers’ eyeballs. While maintaining a quality traditional website is still a must for every business, it’s also becoming increasingly important for businesses to establish an online presence optimized for mobile phones.
Customers want to be able to use their mobile devices to access information about businesses, products, and services on the fly. And they need to be able to interact with that content comfortably on those devices’ small touch screens. Producing web content that can be tailored for devices of all sizes is one of the main focuses of marketers in 2014.
Shareable Content—As social media takes up a larger share of online activity, advertising content will increasingly be shaped for platforms that encourage sharing. This is a real opportunity for businesses poised to take advantage of it, as knowledge about products and services that comes from friends, family, and peers has more influence on consumers than other types of messaging.
Content that immediately catches users’ attention and makes them smile or feel is the kind of content that they will share with others. An advertising agency that produces shareable, social content will emphasize brief, catchy messages accompanied by visually arresting images and videos.
Useful Content—Another important trend in advertising in 2014 will be creating content that is useful for consumers. Target audiences have become skeptical of traditional sales approaches or have learned to tune them out. But most people are happy to engage with content that they find beneficial, and they are more likely to take a positive view of a company that can relate its products or services to this useful information.
Producing useful content related to a company’s products or services boosts that company’s reputation not only with consumers, but with search engines as well. A business’s place in search engine results can be the key to its success or failure, and search engines currently favor web content that is considered informative or useful, rather than purely promotional.
Location Targeting—Place still matters, and one key trend for small businesses in 2014 will be location targeting. Mobile phone applications that register users’ precise current locations through GPS can also deliver them helpful information about the surrounding area and nearby businesses.
For customers who happen to be in the neighborhood, the sign in front of a business is becoming less important that that business’s marker on a digital map. Having an effective presence on applications that use maps and other location-based services is rapidly becoming an essential part of any marketing strategy.
Keeping Up with the Trends—As channels for effectively reaching consumers change swiftly, it can be difficult for an individual business to keep up on their own. Working closely with an advertising agency that has a good handle on both the present and future of messaging will be a key element in most companies’ success in the coming years.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8355402; Photo: http://thereacter.com/
