As I write this last blog post of 2015, I feel so very energized. While it was a tough year personally for me — I lost my beautiful mom to Alzheimers — on the professional front, the past year has been a very educational and exciting one! As the number of online advertising opportunities continued to expand this past year, and along with them, greater opportunities for reaching very refined target audiences, we enjoyed learning about and testing out the various new tools, so that we could advise our clients on which ones might make sense for them based on their particular marketing objectives. And, of course, we enjoyed implementing results-achieving campaigns on a broad variety of online advertising platforms.
Google Ads Expert
Results Communications and Research became recertified as a Google AdWords (now known as Google Ads) Certified Specialist at the end of 2015. The need to renew our AdWords certification by studying for and passing an “advanced search” exam provided another welcome educational opportunity and refresher on the many tools and techniques available to optimize search campaigns and associated budgets. And, it positions us well to very effectively and efficiently manage clients’ 2016 search and display campaigns.
As it did in 2015, we expect that digital/online marketing will continue to reign as king of marketing activities for most brands and organizations. Sure, we’ll still see very large consumer packaged goods companies, financial service organizations, insurance companies, and cell and cable service providers running extensive broadcast and print campaigns — think General Mills, Capital One, Geico, and Xfinity TV and magazine ads. But, we believe smaller and mid-sized organizations should and will continue to put most of their marketing $$ and energies into digital marketing activities, such as search and display (pay-per-click) campaigns and their presence on a variety of social media platforms.
On the social media front, Facebook is expected to maintain its lead in 2016 as far as far as capturing the largest percentage of advertisers’ social media advertising dollars. Yes, the younger generation (25 & under) is primarily staying away from Facebook and mostly using it as a way to stay in touch with their parents, aunts, and uncles who have made Facebook theirs, but advertisers are still able to reach an extremely large, diverse audience on Facebook. And, the people they can reach, including baby boomers, have the greatest buying power.
During the last 5 years or so, Twitter has experienced popularity ups and downs, and the demographics of individuals whom it has attracted have varied greatly, but as we enter 2016, the platform seems to be embraced by quite a diverse group — both young and old appear very engaged. Pinterest remains very popular among women of all ages who love to cook, follow style, love interior design, etc., and while a much smaller group than women, men are enjoying Pinterest’s benefits of being able to find and file items of interest. Snapchat and Instagram should remain great ways to reach younger generations, and two new video platforms, Periscope and Meerkat, are expected to be used very effectively by advertisers in 2016, as both platforms significantly grow their followers in the coming year.
With all of the current and expanding opportunities for marketing consultants like me to help clients meet their awareness and sales marketing objectives, there’s so much to be excited about as a new year gets underway. We look forward to working with and helping both existing and new clients with their marketing opportunities and challenges in 2016, so let’s get started!