What Forces Shape Marketing In 2021?

On Wednesday, February 24th at the monthly MnSearch meeting, the Co-Founder of SparkToro Rand Fishkin spoke about the importance of working around barriers, created by tech giants, in the digital marketing agency. Rand guided the attendees on how to allocate their advertising spend on larger marketing platforms by showing important trends to monitor. Fishkin also explained how to better engage your audience by boosting brand recognition, which generates a more effective way to reach potential customers.

A handful of Augurs joined the MnSearch meeting and called out some of the most impactful insights they had from Rand. Do you want to learn more about digital marketing? Follow Augurian’s Content Marketing Blog here to add more strategies to your marketing toolbox!

about rand Fishkin 

Rand Fishkin is a seasoned marketer with over twenty years of experience. He created multiple companies that have helped marketers share knowledge, improve SEO and gain valuable insights into their audience. Currently, Fishkin is the CEO of Sparktoro, which he also cofounded. Sparktoro gives powerful insights into your audience by seeing what they read, watch, follow and share online. This can help a marketer see what influences their audience and how to best reach them. SparkToro helps you gain these insights very easily through their website. Try it free today here.

“Don’t build your digital home on rented land.”

Section by Brandi Palechek 

In his presentation Algorithms & Incentives: The Secret Marketing Forces that Drive Marketing In 2021, Rand Fishkin called out what many digital marketing professionals have known for a long time. Clients and company leadership prefer investing in paid media channels over SEO or content marketing, because of the data available demonstrating the ROI. Even though SEO and content often have a higher rate of return without closed-loop analytics to show the value of these channels, clients will choose paid media because they have the data to prove it works.

The landscape is changing for paid media, much like its SEO and content cousins, because the big internet companies are beginning to limit the data available to advertisers. Fishkin offered the following nuggets of wisdom to help digital marketers get the most out of their digital marketing efforts and achieve success without the data that once guided their decisions.

Establish your brand. Customers will always choose well-known trusted brands over those they don’t know. The companies that will succeed in the digital age are those with high recognition brand names and loyal audiences.

Find the right audience. Create products and services that cater to the needs of a unique, niche audience within a larger market.

Diversify digital marketing. Don’t build your foundation on one digital marketing channel or in channels that you aren’t passionate about. Focus on the channels that inspire your creativity and, most importantly, where your audience is most engaged.

Nurture your community. After you have the attention of your audience, keep them coming back with products, services, content, and email marketing messages that target their needs and wants. Rand Fishkin’s presentation was a good reminder that no matter what happens in digital marketing and despite the limits on data being imposed by big tech, marketers will always achieve the best results by focusing on their audience and going back to the basics.

Navigating the digital marketing landscape

Section by: Chris Denno

The way that Rand described the digital landscape of today was very interesting. His presentation should inspire all digital marketers to think outside of the box to drive marketing success. Fishkin’s explanation for big tech nurturing paid channels, but not organic-based by using privacy as a scapegoat, is a scary look into their inner workings. Unfortunately, once a platform becomes large enough it can start pulling important data from its advertisers once they have market power.

Rand navigates through this minefield by discussing how to combat big techs obfuscations of advertising data by going back to the basics of brand building and customer success.

5 steps on how-to guide users to your website

Section by Micah Perzichilli

Giant social platforms do not want users to leave their platform, but you need users to go to your website to purchase. Here’s the simple 5 step approach to navigate this great dichotomy:

• Algorithm friendly content that doesn’t link away from native experience

• Repeat step one.

• Repeat steps one and two.

• Call-to-Action with a link to your website.
• Repeat steps one through four.

be proactive, not reactive

Section by Sena Geleta

One of the challenges that any digital marketer faces is new updates and rules on different platforms. These constant platform changes seem to just make our jobs harder. In the last five years, huge changes have happened on all paid media channels. Rand Fishkin helped us navigate those changes in his talk, Algorithms & Incentives: The Secret Marketing Forces That Drive Marketing In 2021, in a collaboration with MnSearch.

As a paid media analyst, keeping up and creating strategies can be hard with new updates. Whether testing out new functions or leaving behind practices that were working consistently, it can be hard to trust a new update. We first have to understand Big Tech and why these new changes are taking place. Instead of being reactive, we need to be proactive. Rand said, “ To be proactive, we must accurately predict where these Big Tech changes are going and why”.

When considering the other perspective you’re able to stay ahead of the game, provide the best strategies for your clients and continue to grow. The digital marketing field is always changing, so staying engaged and accepting new practices will only provide a positive outcome. Thanks again to Rand Fishkin and MnSearch for providing an opportunity for paid media professionals to learn and connect.

how to build a competitive marketing advantage 

Section by Arin Arpinar

Three tips to build a competitive advantage for your marketing strategies.

• Create a brand people know, like, and trust.

• Invest in a diversity of marketing channels.
• Have a marketing flywheel that scales with decreasing friction.

learn more about mnsearch

Augurs love to attend the monthly MnSearch meetings to learn from some of the most talented voices in digital marketing. Augurian even has two members on MnSearch’s board; Micah Perzichilli is the Membership Director and Brandi Palechek is the Virtual Event and Volunteer Director. Would you like to join the next MnSearch meeting? Join here today and don’t miss the next meeting!

Watch the full Rand Fishkin presentation at MnSearch here on YouTube!

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