Digital Marketing Trends for 2020: What You Should Expect
Some things that we take for granted today were unimaginable just a few years before. Voice search, AI, AR, etc. now seem pretty normal. These innovations are not just changing our everyday life, but the way marketers work as well. Ignoring these changes would basically mean giving up and lose chances to stay on top of the competition.
Technologies bring so many new things to our lives, and the speed of tech advancement only increases. Customer interest and demand for particular services and products changing as well. This is a pretty challenging time for marketers right now. We cannot afford picking tactics and take new steps blindfolded anymore, nor can we rely on dated methods and strategies anymore.
Find out about the latest marketing trends of 2020 to stay on top of the competition and provide customers with the best experience possible.
Programmatic marketing
The process of automatic ad buying is seeing increased popularity in recent years. Programmatic marketing or advertising is when we rely on software in purchasing digitals ads. The automation of bidding allows us to reach a specific user and this decision is made in real-time. Usually, it means decreased spending and increased conversion. Isn’t it something that we all look for?
It’s no surprise that programmatic marketing is taking over. Programmatic advertising is estimated to constitute some 86% of all online advertising in the United States.
If you are not really familiar with this technology, have a look down below:
Conversation marketing
As the name suggests, it’s when businesses engage in real-time communication with their customers. Think of yourself as a customer, don’t you want to get an immediate answer to your question? And since more and more businesses can provide that, customers expect that too.
Conversation marketing is when you engage with a customer through the channels that best suit them. You want to make sure that all the devices and platforms are supported and a client can connect with you using each one of them.
Basically, it all boils down to the exceptional customer experience. You want your customer to feel special; you want to make them feel heard. That’s where conversation marketing can do you a lot of good.
Chatbots
This trend is also about communication with a customer. And it looks like chatbots aren’t going to go anywhere any time soon. They can effectively help you better user experience. Even though they have some limitations and cannot offer the same services as real people, they are way more affordable and can interact with your customer at any time of the day.
Their benefits include the possibility of giving prompt answers and being able to immediately access all the data about previous interactions of the customer. Many brands from different niches are actively using chatbots, and customers are pretty satisfied with them. 4/5 of surveyed businesses want to set them up by 2020.
Personalization
This trend has been growing in popularity in recent years, and it’s no surprise. People are bombarded with hundreds of emails and ads every week. Of course, they will pay more attention to those that are built especially for them and find generic ads annoying.
With so many brands on the market for almost any niche, many customers tend to choose those who provide personalization when it comes to user experience.
If you are looking for examples of the companies that are effectively using personalization now, there are Netflix, of course, EasyJet, and Starbucks among many others.
Influencer marketing
Brands and businesses are more actively collaborating with influencers and social media creators and seeing high conversions. Influencers are the most prominent figures on social media, they are sort of voices of their community, and their audience trusts them implicitly.
Finding the right influencer relevant to your industry is an effective move that can help you expand your audience. Influencers and creators bring a sense of authenticity to their ads and that helps to elevate the level of trust.
I-want-to-buy moments
Do you ever have a sudden urge to find out more about some topic? Or go to a certain place you forgot the address of? Or buy something online? You are obviously not alone in this, your customers are human beings just like you.
Immediate access to the Internet through our smartphones can actually turn these small moments into purchases. The first thing we do is usually use Google or other search engines. We use them to learn about something, find out about a place or a product.
Targeting our potential customers in these particular moments is extremely effective and would mean higher conversion. Thankfully, paid ads on the major platforms allow us to take advantage of these moments and connect with our audience when the time is just perfect.
AI technologies
It is becoming pretty obvious that AI technologies will dominate the world of the future. AI can improve our lives in so many ways. Marketing cannot avoid its influence as well.
AI can provide marketers with valuable insights into customer behavior. You can use this info for improving your targeting or bettering the customer experience. Also it can be extremely valuable for website seo optimisation.
We have already discussed chatbots. Sometimes they can be surprisingly advanced, especially when AI technologies are involved. Mastercard’s chatbot is an amazing example. Their Facebook Messenger chatbot can identify customer’s needs and respond accordingly. This can be achieved because of the language processing technologies built within it.
So sometimes interacting with a chatbot can feel like interacting with a human, especially if we are talking about AI.
Artificial intelligence can bring improvements to many areas of marketing. It can better lists of recommended products and product suggestions, personalization on various channels, and just communication in general, like in the case of smart chatbots.
Content remains to be the center of SEO
Rather than trying to search for loopholes in SEO, maybe it’s smarter to invest in quality content. John Mueller from Google would sure agree with that.
88% of business-to-business marketers agree that making quality content helps them to build credibility and trust in the eyes of their customers and visitors. Sometimes a good content game can give you great long-term results and be as effective as any ppc google campaign.
A great social content marketing strategy can effectively help you to generate leads and build your reputation as a credible resource. Google will still most probably be prioritizing quality content with good content written in the human language, and businesses will keep on investing in it.
These are just a few from the trends that you should expect to see more of in 2020. Others will most probably be related to voice and image search, AR, use of push notifications, eCommerce feature for major platforms, etc.
The popularity of Stories, UGC, interactive content will surely not be decreasing, and they are going to be actively used in digital marketing as well.
