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Video advertising and email marketing have been two of the biggest-growing areas of marketing for UK brands over the past two years, according to a new report.
Salesforce has released its fourth annual State of Marketing report, which looks at which methods of marketing have been most popular during the last few years, allowing businesses of all sizes to see where their competition is focusing its efforts so they can plan their own strategies accordingly.
204% growth in video advertising
One of the biggest areas of growth between 2015 and 2017 was video advertising, which is currently used by 204 per cent more brands for their B2B communications than it was two years ago. Meanwhile, use of video has increased by 141 per cent in the B2C sector, meaning it is the content type to have grown at the fastest rate over the past couple of years.
The second fastest-growing content type was found to be text messaging marketing, which has experienced growth of 197 per cent in the B2B, demonstrating that brands are now interacting with each other in new ways. Small businesses need to be taking note of this if they want to be at the forefront of their industry and joining in with relevant conversations.
Email marketing grows 83%
At the same time, the use of email marketing has risen by 83 per cent since 2015. With text and email two of the fastest-growing marketing mediums, this highlights that a huge budget is not necessarily needed for an effective campaign, as long as the right messaging is used.
In fact, Salesforce found that marketers have become 12.8 times more likely over the past two years to incorporate email, mobile and social aspects into a single marketing campaign. With a well-researched and targeted strategy behind these efforts, brands can give a broad reach to their messages with a relatively low budget, allowing small businesses to compete on a more even level with their larger counterparts.
At the moment, just 29 per cent of marketers say they adapt their email messaging to different channels and audiences, but more brands should be doing this if they want to achieve maximum impact.
Yet almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of marketers reported that they were focusing on providing a consistent experience across all of their channels.
This therefore suggests that brands need to strike the right balance between portraying their values consistently in every form of content they use in their marketing campaigns, while making sure the messaging is adapted to different channels accordingly.
Accessible channels mean budget doesn’t have to be a barrier
The State of Marketing report also showed that more than one-third (34 per cent) of brands’ marketing budgets is currently spent on channels that they did not know existed five years ago. This is expected to increase to 40 per cent of total budgets by 2019, showing just how rapidly the marketing landscape is constantly evolving.
However, the most popular methods are all easily accessible and relatively affordable – video may require greater investment, but the returns on this are likely to be significantly higher – so there is no reason that even the smallest businesses cannot keep pace with shifting trends.
Source: http://www.adweek.com/digital/new-stats-from-salesforce-show-how-marketing-execs-are-laser-focused-on-customer-experience/
Source: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/06/23/email-marketing-up-83-2015-b2b-marketing-grows-200