As a new year approaches, it’s time to take a look at your marketing strategy and see what new trends you need to incorporate to take your efforts to the next level. Marketing constantly evolves, so the only way to stay on top is to keep ahead of the game!

You don’t have to follow each and every trend, but it’s important to know how to incorporate game-changing ideas into your strategy and your marketing budget. Here are the top three strategies that are essential to incorporate into your 2024 marketing plan:

Adapt Your SEO Efforts to Support AI Search

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to penetrate all areas of marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) is going to change. The AI search experience is designed to provide a snapshot of information to answer the inquiry with an overview and then offer additional links for users to learn more.

This means your content should focus on providing answers to queries that work even if the user doesn’t click. In other words, your featured snippets and structured data should be optimized to answer questions without a click.

It might seem counterintuitive to provide an answer that can be found without a click on your page, but it’s your best chance to get to the top of the search results. If you’re able to answer the question in the search results, you’re establishing your site as the expert and increasing the chances of someone clicking on your page.

Another important thing to consider with the increasing prevalence of AI is creating content that has something unique to offer. In a sea of similar AI content, you want to have humanity shining through your company’s offerings, so you stand out from the crowd.

There are a ton of ways to achieve this, starting with having actual human beings write your content. Also, conducting original research or creating original graphics can help you stand out. Subject matter experts can also help take data and turn it into actionable advice for your audience.

Make Your Plans Around Current Data and Privacy Policies

Privacy policies and data trends have changed and will continue to change in 2024. This means you need to make sure your marketing efforts align with the current rules and regulations.

How do you do this? Incorporating first-party data is a smart first step. It allows for more accurate content that remains in compliance. This can help build trust with your audience as well.

Make your data collection transparent and always get explicit consent from users.

Incorporate Contextual Advertising

With changes in third-party cookies and privacy regulations combined with the increase of first-party data collection, contextual advertising is becoming an important tool for marketers. This strategy has your ads appearing on pages that connect to your specific offering. So, if your product is related to cooking, your ads would appear on recipe-related sites like the Food Network.

This might seem like a throwback to the past, but it is crucial for the future. Because as the advertising landscape changes, sticking to what used to work may not be effective with new privacy compliance rules.