Segmenting and Customizing Content
Oscar Wilde said, "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." This sentence is representative of one of the year's trends: segmenting and customizing content. In 2019, you needed to give the impression that you were talking to your customers individually and not the entire planet. You can try to write in a way that reaches as many people as possible, but this is becoming more and more complex.
In order to meet the needs of your customers, it is better to segment and customize your content. Your customers are not all the same. To help them understand you more clearly, you can use personas. If you have a cooking blog, maybe some of your customers are just looking for easy recipes for the family, while others will want tips for healthy eating. These two groups have different needs. Start by understanding your customer base, then segment them into subgroups. This may depend on their age, location, needs or interests. Don't hesitate to do newsletters or marketing campaigns for specific clientele at the same time. You should get better results that way compared to doing the same campaign for everyone resulting in meeting their needs only a small amount.
Influencers and Micro-Influencers
To continue in the same vein, have you ever thought about working with micro-influencers? As we know, it can cost a fortune to work with an influencer. Celebrities are asking astronomical amounts for a simple story on Instagram, even though several studies have shown that more subscribers mean less engagement. There are alternatives that can give you a better return for a lower cost micro-influencers: they interact with a niche clientele and have between 5000 and 100,000 subscribers.
Start by identifying your needs. Who do you want to reach? As mentioned above, you should target groups instead of your entire clientele. Then look for someone who is credible and has a connection with the people you want to reach. For example, if you have a hostel located near a ski resort, you could collaborate with micro-influencers who are skiers. You will more likely do better with this approach than if you used a celebrity who has no interest in winter sports.
Focus on Videos
2020 will be no exception. You still have to rely on videos to stand out. Whether it's stories, YouTube, Twitch or TikTok videos, the time spent watching videos keeps growing. If you have a blog, why not make small videos summarizing the important points in your articles? Otherwise, you may as well use Twitch to have direct contact with your community, even if you don't play video games! Last suggestion, we advise you to take the time to put subtitles on your YouTube videos. In addition to helping people with hearing loss or people who cannot adjust the sound, it will have better reach as the subtitles can be translated into other languages.
Pinterest: Not to be Underestimated
When you think of social media, you naturally think of Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat. But do you know about Pinterest? If you work in a creative field or have a blog, we strongly recommend you be on this platform. First of all, Pinterest is more like Google than Facebook. So, keep that in mind if you want to use it. Then, this site has one of the best click-through rates when compared to other social media and allows people to reach users directly according to their interests. Otherwise, it is a platform where people go to find inspiration and its clientele is predominantly female. How to use Pinterest then? Let’s say you have a blog. That means you could promote your articles on Pinterest. Start by creating a nice visual with Canva, then pin your article by taking the time to add a title, description, and link to the entire article. It is as simple as that!
Be Helpful
In a world of information overload, relevance must be at the center of every marketing effort. To stand out, you need to be helpful and bring something to your customers, subscribers or readers. Start your process by asking what they are looking for and what needs you can meet. Then grab their attention by offering tips, or answers to their problems. When you are having a hard time with something or dealing with a problem, you search the web, don’t you? Do you read blog posts or videos? In short, keep this in mind during your next campaign and do different tests to see what works best with your customers.
Finally, remember to segment your content, integrate videos into your campaigns, use new platforms like Pinterest or Twitch and make sure you are always helpful. With this, you should get through 2020 easily. Of course, it's important to be relevant and adapt well to more short-lived trends and keep this in mind when creating and managing your campaigns. The WebSelf team wishes you all the best and great opportunities in the new year!