Keeping a finger on the pulse for digital marketing trends can help you to align your business and provide better offerings for your clients. Let’s take a look at predictions for the top trends in digital marketing for 2020.
Digital marketing trends, changes and developments to watch closely in 2020
Artificial intelligence
AI is already driving a variety of fields and technologies including product recommendation, basic communication, content creation and personalization and eCommerce transactions. At the end of 2020, more brands will recognize the value of implementing AI in their marketing strategies, decision-making processes and in optimizing their operations to increase profits. AI is definitely one of the most exciting and unpredictable trends in the digital technology landscape and should be implemented in businesses to create streamlined processes, analyze data and engage with customers.
Conversational marketing
Conversational interfaces provide customers with new ways to connect with businesses and brands. There are multiple developments in the conversational interface industry including chatbots that can provide online and voice interactions, as well as voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri. Voice assistants make it easier for marketing efforts to reach a broad audience because these assistants are available to such a large market.
Voice search – but not in the way it has been predicted
If you’ve done any research on digital marketing trends for 2020, you would know how many specialists have predicted exorbitant growth of voice searches. And while the increase in this area is significant, it is essential to note that not all voice searches convert into sales. Before you spend most of your budget optimizing for voice searches, ensure that you have a grasp on what you aim to achieve with optimization. Although people will start using voice assistants like Alexa and Siri more and more, they won’t necessarily be asking Alexa to buy a pizza for them. Getting your business’s name in the search results is a great leap towards the finish line, but as most digital marketers know, awareness doesn’t automatically translate into revenue.
Voice search will also influence the way we create content to reach the best ranking on search engine results. If your content is optimized for voice search, your business will be found more easily through voice search which can improve your SEO ranking and guide more customers to your business. Because of this development, it will become more important for content creators to create content with voice search in mind and to adapt their keywords to sound more like the way people ask questions verbally than the way they ask questions when typing. Instead of typing “best pizza place”, someone may ask their voice assistant: “Where’s the best pizza place in my area?” and the better your content is adapted to this new type of query, the better your results will be.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is a trend that will remain crucial for the digital marketing industry for at least the next 5 to ten years, if not longer. . Incorporating video into your digital marketing approach is important for a variety of reasons, the most crucial of those being that the demand for video content is rising every day and mobile video consumption rises by 100% each year. People also retain more information when consuming it through video, a whopping 95% as opposed to the 10% of information that is retained when consuming information through text. Video content is also much more shareable than other types of content with social videos getting shared 1200% more than text and image content, combined.
Diversifying marketing channels will become more and more critical
As digital marketing gains traction, knowledge spreads, and the gap closes between the specialists and enthusiasts. This means that as people become more informed about digital marketing strategies and best practices, marketing channels will become more saturated, and it will be harder to stand out on any single channel. Instead, those who want to remain at the forefront need to be active on more channels so that each channel can lead a few customers to the front door instead of expecting a busload of traffic from one channel alone.
Personalization goes beyond naming a customer
Consumers used to be impressed with the communications addressed to them personally. That was a simpler time, long ago. Now, consumers expect this basic level of personalization. As digital marketing becomes more complex, customization will need to go deeper to make an impression. Some retailers are making magic with personalization, giving shoppers recommendations based on their established shopping habits. Still, in the future, it will need to keep growing beyond a few deals suited to the consumer. Crucial developments in personalization will happen based on consumer data and algorithms. Using consumer data to customize the experience on an individual level will become increasingly important for businesses who want to outsmart the competition.
Social awareness and transparency
In the era of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter, digital marketers who don’t engage in social listening will miss the mark completely. Today’s consumer is much more attuned to social justice and will insist on transparency from the brands they love. If those brands don’t adjust their marketing strategies to show their sincere support, they will lose their audience’s trust. A fantastic example of this is the media storm that rightfully erupted on the back of comments made by CrossFit Inc. CEO, Greg Glassman. His failure to understand the enormity of the social justice movement has caused a major backlash. The company has lost support from massive sponsors, including Reebok and many of the international athletes associated with the sport. If the leader of such a huge company acts without compassion, consumers will find an alternative to support.
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