In 2016 all business, small or large, had to focus on online strategies to promote their products or services. The biggest small business marketing trends of 2016 are related to the mobile and the digital world and they continued the trends that started in 2014 and 2015.
Small Business Marketing Trends Of 2016 – Mobile World
The mobile world is getting bigger and bigger. In 2014, 2.1 billion owned smartphones and other mobile devices and 80% of the internet searches were conducted from them. In 2015 the numbers increased and Google said that the mobile traffic surpassed desktop traffic.
In 2016 the mobile world became even bigger and most small businesses focused on creating mobile responsive websites and email marketing campaigns with mobile friendly design and easy to read content.
Small Business Marketing Trends Of 2016 – Video Content
Another major marketing trend adopted by small businesses in 2016 is video content. Search engines want to incorporate video ads into their search results so it is easy to understand why video content became so popular. Also, Instagram added the option of sharing video content on the platform and Facebook was definitely pro video this year. Using video content is also a great way for businesses to tell their stories in a unique way that can create more interactions and conversations than other marketing techniques.
Small Business Marketing Trends Of 2016 – Content Marketing
With video content in one hand and content marketing in another hand, small businesses have many different opportunities to promote their businesses this year. The search engine algorithms nowadays are built to be on the side of the quality and not on the side of quantity so businesses that shared valuable information with their target audience in order to build trust and to create connections with their potential customers had a lot to gain during this year.
Small Business Marketing Trends Of 2016 – Apps
Apps are great for creating unique experiences for customers and small business owners loved this marketing trend. Some marketers believe that,, soon mobile responsive websites will be replaced by apps as a preferred method for consumers to interact with their favorite brands so it’s no wonder this year the app industry earn more points than other marketing techniques. Another thing that made marketers to use apps for small businesses is the fact that Google indexes apps. Using apps is an easy way to increase the number of mobile users and to improve the visibility of a small business.
Small Business Marketing Trends Of 2016 – Website Pop-Ups For Subscription
The era of annoying pop-ups is not over yet, however 2016 was the year when the pop-ups were revamped and used to increase the number of subscribers from a website. This is not a new technique, but content writers and designers found a way to be more creative than ever with the design and the texts created to encourage people to subscribe. Most websites had subscribe boxes that were hard to find and we all know that people do not like to spend a lot of time searching for something, especially when browsing on their phones, so lightbox pop-ups were actually a well received alternative for those who wanted to learn more about a small business.