2021 is set to be the year of digital transformation – and digital marketing – for South African companies.
Working from home trends are now standard practice for many businesses and requires companies to have suitable ICT infrastructure in place to support their operations.
This will result in more people being online more often, and for longer periods of time.
South Africans’ social and personal lives are also expected to become more “digital” in 2021.
With social gatherings and physical events still restricted, people will spend more time online reading news, watching videos and movies, and posting to social media.
How companies can benefit
This digital shift presents an opportunity to local companies who are looking to reach their target audience in an effective, measureable, and affordable way – thanks to online marketing.
Online marketing has proven to be the most effective way to reach consumers and decision makers over the past year – and is forecasted to maintain its dominant position over other advertising channels in 2021.
The Trend Score 2020 report, which analysed changes in marketing spend last year, showed the best-performing marketing medium during the lockdown was digital.
It also revealed that digital marketing saw the smallest drop in spend among all advertising mediums during the economic slump brought about global lockdowns in 2020.
The drops in spend per medium during the year were as follows:
- Digital: -2.4%
- TV: -16.4%
- Radio: -38.9%
- Out of home: -45.1%
- Press: -65.8%
- Movies/Cinema: -81.8%
“We expect digital to remain the top marketing channel for South African companies looking to grow their business in 2021,” said BusinessTech MD Kevin Lancaster.
“We saw a big increase in the number of companies booking digital campaigns with us in 2020 and expect this trend to continue during the year ahead.”
Source: https://businesstech.co.za/news/industry-news/460996/the-top-marketing-trend-for-2021/