Trends, Predictions and Statistics You’ll Wish You’d Known Before

As the world of marketing, PR and advertising changes at lightning speed, it’s important to keep track of current trends and expectations in order to determine how to better reach, nurture and convert customers.

One of the most heavily discussed predictions for 2014 is the importance of creating highly personalised content across all different digital marketing platforms (ie website, blogs, social media, email marketing etc).

To help you identify current trends to boost your marketing strategy, we have compiled some useful facts and statistics below:

 

Trends, Predictions and Statistics to Consider

  • Industry experts predict a whopping £80 billion pound spend on new digital marketing collateral in 2014.
  • Nearly 50% of companies have content marketing strategies.
  • Social media marketing budgets are set to double in the next five years.
  • Internet advertising will make up nearly 24% of the entire ad market by 2015.
  • B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don’t.
  • 65% of audience are visual learners.
  • Visual data is processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than text.

 

Social Media Marketing Stats

  • Social media marketing budgets are predicted to double in the next five years.
  • The top three social networks used by B2B marketers are LinkedIn (91%); Twitter (85%); and Facebook (81%).
  • 43% of all marketers found a customer via LinkedIn.
  • 52% of all marketers found a customer via Facebook in 2013.
  • Google+ averages more visits per month than Facebook. Google+ receives 1.2 billion visits per month compared to Facebook’s 809 million.
  • 83% of B2B marketers invest in social media to increase brand exposure; 69% to increase web traffic; and 65% to gain market insights.
  • People spend, on average, four times longer on Tumblr and Pinterest than they do on Twitter.

 

Online Advertising Stats

  • Landing page optimisation is highly regarded as the most important tactic for optimising the performance of paid search advertising; targeting by segment is most important in optimising display ad performance.
  • 8% of internet users account for 85% of online display ad clicks.
  • Videos on landing pages increase conversions by 86%.
  • In 2013, internet advertising expenditures surpassed newspaper ad spending for the first time. Internet ads also now account for 21% of all advertising costs, second to television at 40%.
  • Of the 100 largest global advertisers, 41 are headquartered in the U.S., 36 in Europe, and 23 in Asia.
  • The average click-through rate (CTR) for online display ads is 0.11% (roughly one click per one thousand views). CTRs are highest in Malasia (0.30%) and Singapore (0.19%), and lowest in Australia and the U.K. (both at 0.07%).
  • Among different display ad formats, large rectangle ads (336 x 280 pixels) generate the highest CTRs on average at 0.21-0.33%, while full banners (468 x 6) generate the lowest at 0.04%.

 

Email Marketing Stats

  • In 2013, 62% of emails were opened on a mobile device (48% on smartphones and 14% on tablets).
  • 48% of consumers say email is their preferred form of communication with brands.
  • Emails that feature social sharing buttons increase click-through rates by a whopping 158%.
  • 4 out of 5 consumers use smartphones to shop.
  • 40% of shoppers consult 3 or more channels (often while shopping) before making a purchase.
  • By the end of 2014 mobile is predicted to overtake desktop Internet usage.
  • 70% of mobile searches lead to online action within an hour.
  • 78% of retailers plan to invest in mobile this year.

 

The facts and figures above are a mere snapshot of information available out there. Try to get the most out of your 2014/2015 marketing strategy by studying data collected by industry professionals and integrating findings into your own campaigns. Current findings indicate that an integrated marketing strategy across social media, SEO, content marketing, email, PPC, PR, and event marketing platforms will help to create a cohesive experience for potential customers. It’s therefore important to research all marketing avenues and identify areas that can be developed successfully in light of trends and predictions found.

If you have any interesting marketing facts or statistics to share, please comment below. We would love to hear from you.

 

* Sources: The statistics above have been compiled from sources which we believe to be current, reliable and up to date. Sources include: Social Times, B2B Marketing, iMedia Connection, Smart Insights, and Heidi Cohen’s Actionable Marketing Guide.