Top 3 Digital Marketing Trends for 2016

Being a digital marketing novice I started doing some research on what the latest trends are and found a few articles that I found interesting. Most articles mention the same trends that we have seen in our digital marketing class as well. There are a few common recurring themes that I would like to highlight. If you want to learns about these trends and more http://impress1.com/connect/blog/entry/top-3-digital-marketing-trends-for-2016-which-you-should-be-starting-in-2015.html          

1. Content remains KING: Quality content has always been important and this will continue to be the case. A lot of the search engines are getting smarter in recognizing quality content so you better step up your game if you want to improve your ranking. Some interesting but very convincing statistics on what effect content has on your brand perception: 80% of business decision-makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles vs an ad. 90% of consumers find custom content useful, and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. 58% of consumers consider companies that produce video content to be more trustworthy. 71% of consumers say that videos leave a positive impression of a company. Content marketing costs less than traditional, outbound marketing. Content marketing costs 62% less per lead than outbound marketing.
2. Agile SEO: As mentioned before Google has placed a premium on quality content over keyword optimization. Pictures and videos are much more relevant for a search query. As an example, pictures are worth 1,000 words and a video can be worth as much as 1.8 million words. With the trend of visual content comes the art of supplementing these visuals with smart meta descriptions. This is an easy but sometimes overlooked simple way to optimize your SEO strategy. Key will be to keep changing your SEO strategy as technology is changing so rapidly.
3. Optimize for Mobile: Most digital marketing strategies will be focused on appealing to the millennial. 87% of this digital generation admits to never being without their phone so you better focus on optimizing your mobile websites/apps. If you are not convinced yet here are some stats: 86% of the millennials are of the opinion that there are still a lot of websites without good mobile functionality and 14% wouldn't do business with a company that doesn't have a mobile site or app. More research and purchases are done on mobile/tablets and a friendly user interface will be essential for better conversion rates.