Reading Time: 8 minutes

It’s 2021, and the domain of advertising and marketing strategies is ever-changing! If you want your business to grow, these new trends in marketing are important to follow. For this, the very first thing that you need to do is abandon the outdated marketing rules that you have been following. Make way for the new trends in marketing in 2021!

Marketing and advertising is a complex activity. It always has to align with the needs and moods of the customers. I am sure you are with me on this.  However, to stick to the rules of the new trends in marketing, you need to know what you should stop doing already! 

Trust me when I say this, making a bad impression in the market is easier than making a good one. Correspondingly, this is what goes against the growth and prosperity of your business. And I am sure, you don’t want that for your business.

So what are the new trends in marketing?

Well, for now, inbound and digital marketing seems to be the new trends in marketing that is actually working. You may be wondering why. Allow me to explain.  

The world is shifting to the online podium. People are more involved in the digital world than in the offline platform. Do you see where I am going with this? If you want your business to grab the attention of your customers, then you have to be prominent on the digital platform. 

This is exactly why marketing rules have changed. It is time to adopt new trends in marketing. Traditional marketing strategies don’t work in the digital era anymore. 

Just follow the new trends in marketing and advertising, which includes some digital marketing rules, to grow on the new platform. So let’s revise the dos and don’ts of marketing, for better prospects and growth for your business. 

Interesting, I know. So, follow up!

The great leap from offline to an online platform for marketing strategies

If it was the story of around 10 to 15 years ago, then we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.  At that time, offline marketing and advertising were good enough to grow your business. Those flashy commercials and brochures, worked more than fine, to grab attention. 

But, times are different now. We live in the digital era. Now you see it, don’t you? To reach out to your customers and your niche market, you have to adopt the new trends in marketing and advertising. 

Let’s see what we can do! 

Here are some of the outdated marketing and advertising rules to abandon in 2021:

Offline advertising and advertising/Yellow Pages

Who on earth looks up something in an offline medium nowadays? If you have a valid answer to it, I am sure you are talking about the boomers. 

I hope you already see what I am trying to imply! If you are spending on offline ads then it is a wrong move for now. These days, if anyone wants to check up on something, that just google it out and get done!

So, hey! Turn to the new trends in marketing and advertising. Why don’t you spend on ads that you can put on Google? With this move, you can reach your target customers, banking on the intent that they display on the internet. Sounds good, right?

With the proper use of keywords, you can easily search for intent and work on your ads accordingly. Now isn’t that something that you would want for your business?

Billboard ads

Tell me something. Suppose you are driving and you pass by a beautifully designed billboard advertisement. It does grab your attention. But, do you call on the displayed number or note down the website to visit it later on? No, right? 

That’s it! Billboards are gigantic and beautiful to look at. However, the chances of leads coming from such advertisements are minimal. 

On the other hand, with social media, you can create a brand identity and brand awareness (check out our blog on “brand identity at low budget”, for more information on this).  Brand identity helps you educate your potential customers and followers via blog content writing and graphic posts that may be useful to them. 

Want to know the cool part? You can also interact with your followers on social media through comments and tags. 

And, wait. There’s more! With social media, you can get real-time feedback from your followers. So this is like an instant analysis of your growth as a business as well.

TV commercials

Television? Do we still have that? These days all we do is watch shows on digital platforms or smart TVs. The old school television is actually outdated. Come on!

Added to the online web shows, we have the whole internet to ourselves. We keep exploring every bit of it, right my millennial people? To be honest, we are majorly always on the internet, be it work or fun!

Now let me tell you why am stressing on the internet. See, our attention span is getting shorter each day. In this scenario, short video advertisements are the best tools to grab attention. This is the best of the new trends in marketing and advertising. TV commercials just don’t work anymore.

You can make a short video about your products and yourself as a company. Once that you do that, you can also market it to your audience via emails or your website as well.

Prints and print outs

In this digital era, the online prominence of your business will attract customers much more than anything else. So kindly stop wasting money on designing brochures and flyers. Instead, move on to the new trends in marketing and advertising. I am going to stress a bit about email marketing here.

Why email marketing, you ask? Well, you can customize emails according to the intent of your customers. As a result, it is much more impactful than some advertisements on paper, which people can discard easily. Besides, with email marketing, you can check on A/B test messaging, analytics, target customers, and so on.

Don’t you like it already? 

So here we are! We have finally shifted from traditional marketing strategies to contemporary ones with the new trends in marketing and advertising. 

Now what? Is there anything else to take care of when it comes to the new trends in marketing? Let’s see!

Outdated Advertising and Marketing Strategies tactics after shifting to an online platform

I am sure you will agree with me when I say, there is always some scope for improvement. 

Let’s align with the new trends in marketing and advertising and improve upon the marketing rules that we have been following. You don’t want to miss this.

Serving the general outlook

Stop with the generalization! Every individual is unique. So work for their needs and preferences individually.  

Here’s what you can do. Collect data of every potential customer and use it to target the respective demographics. Sounds like a plan already!

Too many promotional contents

If you use your social media handle, only to publish promotional content, then it’s just not going to work. It will drive away customers because, after a point, it does get monotonous. Social media is the last platform to entertain monotony, trust me!

So before you dive into social media marketing, do good research on what works and what doesn’t. Trust me when I say this, but just being there, isn’t enough anymore.

Stuck in the basics

Digital marketing evolution is very evident these days. This ensures that there are additional tools that you can use to step up your marketing strategies. 

So my advice is, keep upgrading your ways to promote your business. Don’t get stuck in the basics. No one is. The existing tools are good, but why not add up to them? 

You may think that the tools you are using at present are fine, but trust me, there is always some room for development.

Hey there, hold on a sec! Something just crossed my mind.

There are certain things that you should avoid, going by the details. These may not be the gigantic mistakes that businesses keep doing on a loop. However, why not avoid making the tiniest of mistakes?

Here, check these out.

Not listening to market feedback

Why would you overlook customer feedback? If you do, then that’s a sad mistake that you should avoid with immediate effect! Surveying potential customers serve a lot of purposes! Work on market research questions to ask potential customers.  

These include customization of marketing strategies on a large scale. Works like wonder!

Interact with your customers, conduct surveys, and get to know them in a better way. The most interesting part is yet to come!

Do you know that user-generated content is a thing nowadays? It helps them feel connected and involved with your brand. Great way to create brand identity, I must say.

Let me drop some examples of huge brands that have worked on user-generated content in the past. They include coca-cola, Netflix, Adobe, Apple, etc.

Rebranding

Rebranding just doesn’t work anymore. If you feel that changing the name, tagline, or logo of your business is helpful, then I am afraid to say that it’s not. You must be questioning the credibility of this statement. Well, I will explain.

The world is an interconnected space now. If your market and customers have established a connection with your brand identity already, then what’s the point in rebranding?  Just work on the existing issues and read more into the market analytics to foster any further changes.

Are you getting my point?

For now, you can work on your SEO and editorial strategies to connect more with the consumers. The best strategy is to validate these approaches with user feedback. These may not bring about immediate changes, but at least it is promising and long-lasting.

Let me justify this with the example of Old Spice (the American male grooming brand). At one point they needed a new focus and shift in marketing strategy. They could have easily gone for rebranding. 

But what they did instead is that they hired young people like Isaiah Mustafa, the NFL Player to be their face. This helped them shift focus to the younger lot of consumers and it kept blooming, as we all know.

Direct mails/Spamming

Spamming is a big no in the marketing space. Once the customers get annoyed with your constant emails, they have so many ways to dodge and block your subscription. So why risk it anyway?

Do you know the sad part? Around 80% of consumers between the age gaps of 24-35 have blocked subscriptions to their favorite sites, just for this issue. See how risky this is?

The fact that I wanted to establish through the given statement is that, stop spending on these tragic outbound marketing and advertising tactics. Let me tell you what you can do instead as per the new trends in marketing!

• Create stellar content
• Work on SEO
• Generate a subscriber list
• Collect and study user feedbacks

All these formats will help you with the SEO ranking as well as enhance your growth as a business venture.

Narcissistic content

Since childhood, we have been building on the quote – “Actions speak louder than words”. It’s time to apply it in the true sense. Stop flaunting how awesome you are in your content. Not the whole of it at least. Tell me, why should the audience visit your content just to know how great you are? That too, through content that is self-generated! Sounds funny, see?

To reach the bottom of your marketing funnel, you need to push people into the funnel first. That is where this point comes up. 

Attract the audience through quality content that is useful to them. They should keep visiting your content for their growth. That is how they will feel connected and worthy of the posts that you publish.

Trust me when I say this, millennials are really smart and they don’t go by flamboyance. They need content, authority, and strategy to bank upon. 

So to wrap it up, all you need is informative content to push the consumers to the base of your marketing funnel.

Reminder: focus on what not to do

Customers forgive, but they never forget. Didn’t you hear about H&M? Some time back, a retailer posted a photograph of a black kid in a hoodie which read, “Coolest monkey in the jungle.” The public outrage was catastrophic indeed!

Seeing the damage inflicted, the brand hired a diversity manager to take control. Things got better but took time. So this is what I have been trying to say.

Doing the right thing is important. But avoiding mistakes is the greatest takeaway of the advertising and marketing strategies show.

Overview

So as you see, it’s a long list of dos and don’ts of marketing. But, fortunately, with decent marketing and advertising strategies, updated business tactics, and of course creativity, you can deliver excellence. 

If you have been following the business rules from yesteryear, we hope that you drop them today itself.  Remember, the center stage is all about information, value, and quality content.

By following these ground rules, you will see changes in your growth in a positive direction soon. So why wait? Hop on and start today itself!

And hey! Talking of businesses and startups, if you happen to be one, do get in touch with us at TheCodeWork. We would love to help you turn your business ideas into action with the services that we offer.