The COVID-19 pandemic reiterated the importance of adopting the latest marketing strategies to remain competitive in an over-saturated market. It has been common for businesses to employ different marketing tactics to attract prospects and convert them to loyal customers. And failure to follow emerging trends will cause companies to trail behind other industry players that have already invested in updated online marketing campaigns.
One area that saw considerable changes during the global health crisis is search engine marketing or SEM. The growth of this digital marketing strategy is mainly driven by the drastic shift in buying behavior that impacted both consumers and business entities alike.
People have been becoming increasingly reliant on the internet and mobile devices to acquire goods and services remotely in the digital age. Even in the comfort of their homes, individuals can complete a transaction with just a few clicks on their smartphones or tablets. Afterward, all they need to do is wait for their purchase to be delivered to their doorstep.
Because of remote means of performing activities, consumers often do not need to know a brand before doing business with them. As long as the business’s website is easily found online, users can quickly browse the company’s offers to determine if they fit what the buyer looks for.
In relation to this, it becomes imperative that an online site ranks among the prominent places of search engine results. Typically, when users browse search engine listings, they tend to click on websites located on the top pages. It is highly likely that what they are searching for is already found here. As a result, online visitors rarely navigate beyond the first few pages of search engine results. Additionally, page one is considered superior real estate since appearing here increases the chance of a website being clicked by a prospective customer significantly.
Given this information, it only makes sense why many businesses invest in search engine marketing campaigns. Through search advertising, marketers can use paid ads to make sure that the company’s goods or services have a robust online presence in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEM allows the business’s website to return as a result for a particular search query when a person enters a specific keyword or key phrase.
Moreover, enterprises can also use pay-per-click or PPC, which means that the marketer needs to pay a fee each time a user clicks on their online advertisement. With PPC, advertisers can publicize a targeted ad at the exact moment a prospective client searches for a specific term or phrase.
In 2021, many more search engine marketing strategies emerged as businesses across the globe continued to work their way around the pandemic. For example, marketers are investing more in video advertising because of people’s increasing video content consumption. This media type has become a significant part of modern consumers’ buying journey.
In the past year, video advertising was responsible for generating over $27.7million in revenues. It has been projected to rise by 5.5 per year in the next few years. By 2022, video content is estimated to produce about 82% of the total internet traffic. Many video platforms have gained popularity in the past year for online advertising, including YouTube, Tiktok Ads, Facebook, and Instagram stories.
As the world nears a new year, it becomes more imperative that businesses adopt SEM. If a company does not have the necessary resources to run an SEM campaign internally, they can hire an outside digital marketing agency instead. These outsourced professionals can help enterprises in various aspects of SEM, including video content making, graphic design, social media PP, and many more, to generate greater results for the campaign.
When businesses decide to outsource illustration services, it is ideal to find a reliable digital marketing company with a dedicated team for graphic design and other media content creation. Hiring an external agency complete with a Creatives Team proves advantageous as the business owner does not need to find another separate agency to do the graphic design for them.
Many online marketing service providers have capable graphic designers that create visually impactful media content that captivates audiences and compels them to do business with the brand.
Moreover, if businesses outsource social media marketing, it can help them harness different social networks for their PPC online marketing campaign. Exploring and investing in paid social media marketing tactics provide extensive diversification for the campaign, producing desirable results.
SEM will continue seeing an upward trend toward the end of 2021 and beyond. If businesses want to stay ahead of the competition, they must familiarize themselves with the latest trends and practices in the industry, implementing them as necessary.
To learn more, keep reading this infographic created by Digital Marketing Philippines that elaborates its mid-year report on the various search engine marketing trends that made waves in the industry in 2021.
