Guy Leon Sheetrit from Guac Digital shares his predictions for the future of digital marketing

Guy Leon Sheetrit from Guac Digital (based in Tampa, Florida) is an experienced digital marketer who is genuinely passionate about the future of the industry. He is confident in his predictions that personalization is already showing signs of becoming the next big area of innovation for digital marketers and is clearly excited to implement it on behalf of his own clients.

Guy answered some of our questions about his business, the state of digital marketing, and what he predicts the future will hold.

Hi Guy, how did you get started in the field of digital marketing and how did Guac Digital become a reality?

After my army service in Israel as a paratrooper, I went to ‏Geva College of Marketing & Communications by Geva Studios‎ in Tel Aviv in 2014. There, I obsessed over digital marketing and spent my time devouring anything I could learn about the industry. It’s a broad field from web development to graphic design to copywriting, digital advertising and everything in between. I think that’s what makes the ‘T-shaped marketer’ so valuable. That is, a marketer who understands many channels, but is specialized in a few.

That broadness is also what can make digital marketing intimidating to the consumer. Where do they start? How do they know they’re making the right choices with their ad dollars?  I wanted Guac to be a resource that handles it all and leaves our clients feeling like they’re in the hands of experts.

What are some of the ways your team is leveraging ‘big data’ to help your clients plan their campaigns?

It’s all about connecting our client to the right, unique audience for their business and of course, data gets us there. We use data to build personas and then speak to that ‘person’. We’re constantly consuming information so we can speak the right language, at the right time, on the right platform, to the consumer who is looking for it. The right platform is key, you can have all the keywords in the world and be speaking them into an echo-chamber if you don’t know where your audience is spending their time browsing.

What are the most effective social media platforms for digital marketing?

For our clients, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram are still the big, consistent players, but when you’re trying to decide which platform is best for your business, first identify your goals and know your audience, then pick the platforms. Tik-Tok makes a ton of sense for my influencer clients, it’s not the right solution for, say, our construction clients.

Has digital marketing become more important for your clients during COVID-19? Have you adapted any of your services to help them out?

Definitely! In many cases, since COVID-19, our digital services have become the only source of lead generation for our clients. We’ve ramped up all of our advertising to reach people who are at home, spending more time online. We’re encouraging our clients to get creative with us and branch out too. Maybe they’ve never advertised on Pinterest before, but Pinterest is seeing record searches and pins right now. Now is the time to find a way to meet your customer where they are – on Pinterest searching for recipes, home improvement ideas, etc.

Inquiries for our own services have tripled since the start of the crisis. For new clients that we’ve on-boarded during Covid-19, we’ve been offering discounts. It can be a scary time to spend money, especially if they’re just now taking their first steps into digital. Clients are coming to us to help keep their businesses going in unforeseeable circumstances; we want them to feel like they’re making the right choice with their investment and get them results fast.

What future trends do you predict will dominate digital marketing over the next couple of years?

Personalization! We’re already there, but it becomes increasingly prominent every day.

Everyone is their own PR agent on social platforms, consumers are putting themselves out there and they expect to be responded to as such. Consumers search for something on Google, and then they expect it to be the first ad they see on Instagram. Or in their email, addressing them by name, telling them ‘we noticed you looking’. Consumers can literally speak their demands into existence. We expect things to get more, and more personal. Consumer privacy awareness is likely to increase with this as well.

Also, brand transparency. More than ever, people want to feel good about their purchases and that means knowing where or who their purchase is coming from, and who their dollars are going to. This is not limited to gen-z and millennials, it’s everyone. Brand transparency lends itself to socially conscious marketing, consumers want brands they can identify with. I think we’ll see more brands trying to connect to causes in response to the demand for brand transparency.

What advice would you give someone who wants to get started in the digital marketing industry?

First of all, just start. There is SO much information available to us, for free. Start learning everything you can. Like I mentioned earlier the most valuable marketers are well-versed across many channels: content, email, video, social marketing, etc. Innovation is a marketing keystone, so never stop learning.

Thank you Guy Leon for your time!
You can follow up with Guy Leon Sheetrit at https://guacdigital.com
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