Most Innovative Marketing Ideas for 2021

Many businesses have long-since breathed their sigh of relief that 2020 is over. 

But for a lot of them, 2021 will be just as bad as last year. 

Why? 

Because they won’t advance their marketing strategies, and when this happens, they’ll blame the global situation for their failures. 

But you don’t have to struggle. You just need to pay attention to what’s going on in the world of marketing, understand your customers’ needs, and tweak your strategy. 

In this article, you’ll discover innovative marketing ideas for 2021. You will also find out how you can improve your marketing strategy to ensure you thrive this year. 

But before discovering this year’s marketing trends, you should understand the common reasons most businesses fail with their strategies. Three of these are below. 

Vague Statements 

A lot of businesses will struggle with their 2021 marketing strategies because their goals are vague. They will write empty bullet points that include things like “grow brand awareness”.

That’s great, but how does that give you any direction? Because technically, one more follower means you’ve achieved that. But you probably won’t see much difference. 

Instead of “grow brand awareness”, it would help if you instead said: “gain 50 new followers each week”. That gives you a clear benchmark for how successful your strategy has been. 

Not Making Action Plans 

Setting goals alone will not guarantee success. Yes, you might reach them eventually. However, you will still lack direction and waste a lot of time on tasks that don’t move you forward. 

Once you have made specific goals, decide how you will achieve these. For example, to gain 50 followers each week, you might spend 30 minutes each day monitoring conversations on social media. 

You can change your action plans if they aren’t working, but having them will help you to narrow down your focus. 

Jumping on Every Trend 

This might seem like a strange point when you’re reading an article about the best marketing practices. But while many trends will be useful for your brand to consider, not all of them will be. 

If you jump on every trend, you will stagnate. Your marketing efforts won’t have enough time to deliver results, resulting in frustration. 

Not Reading About Trends and Predictions

You still need to read about trends and predictions. While the curve for innovation this year may not be as big as before, new practices and ideas will emerge. 

You don’t need to spend long reading about trends and predictions, but you must spend at least some time on them. Doing so will help you discover more about the industry and provide inspiration.

Innovative Trend #1: Using AI for More Conversational Marketing 

Your customers want to feel like they’re interacting with a person. That’s why conversational marketing grew in 2020. Going into this year and beyond, businesses will seek new ways to improve in this respect. 

You can expect the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) to increase. How will this technology help with conversational marketing? Because teams will have more accurate data to understand what people want.

AI will help teams predict the future based on past conversations. 

Besides marketing, companies will adopt AI to help with reducing general costs. 

Innovative Trend #2: Optimizing for Voice Search 

As a marketing team, you need to start optimizing your campaigns for voice search now. 

Voice search will become more essential to marketing this year, not just because more users are adopting it but also because search engines will demand this. Google will release an algorithmic update this spring that emphasizes user experience. 

To cater for voice search, more marketing content will involve long-tail keywords that also involve a mixture of short-term ones. Businesses will also focus more on creating content that answers specific questions in the way that users talk. 

Innovative Trend #3: More Interactive Content 

Although written content will still be important in 2021, you can also expect teams to produce more interactive work. Videos, graphics, podcasts, and pictures will be included in this. 

Along with helping users consume content on-the-go easier, interactive content will also help companies rank higher in search engines.

These forms of content will help with long-tail keyword ranking, as well as answering common questions in search engine snippets. 

To improve your content strategy in 2021, you need to consider these within the context of your own business. Here are some ways to do that. 

Stick to Your Values

2020 highlighted the importance of being authentic. Customers will continue craving that both over the next 12 months and beyond. 

Before starting any campaign or publishing a piece of content, stop, and ask if this fits your business values. If it doesn’t, users will see right through you. This will put them off and push them in the direction of a competitor instead. 

Include Your Employees 

The best way you can add a personal touch to your marketing is – wait for it – including the people that make you tick.

Adding pictures of your employees, creating interview pieces, and telling their stories will create a more personal connection with your audience. 

Look to your employees for content inspiration too. For example, you might once per month want to let one person talk about a topic of expertise on your blog. 

Think Before Adopting New Things 

Do not become a victim of shiny object syndrome. Before hopping onto a new trend or adopting new technology, think about why you want to. 

Will this genuinely help your business move forward? Or do you feel pressured because everyone else is doing the same? Asking these questions can save you a lot of time and money further down the line. 

Use These Marketing Ideas for Inspiration to Innovate in 2021  

While there may not be as many marketing innovations this year, those that happen will be just as important as 2020 and before. You should consider new marketing ideas for making this year prosperous, but not take on everything for the sake of it. 

Take a look at your current strategy and how it fits your values. Then, consider what is and is not working. If you could be doing something better, think about how you can change this.

By making grounded decisions and thinking about your customers, 2021 could be your most innovative year yet. 

Do you want to find out more about marketing and technology trends? Check out our blog for extra insights.