It’s difficult to predict which methods will connect with consumers most effectively in the ever-changing landscape of marketing. Just when marketers believe they understand their audience, a new technology, new behavior or even an entirely new audience alters everything. It is drastically disrupting the marketing landscape.
The digital marketing landscape that encompasses SEO, social media, PPC, content marketing and more is witnessing a dramatic shift. There may have been a time when you could’ve dismissed artificial intelligence or visual search as gimmicks from the latest blockbuster science fiction film, but that time is long gone.
There are many new digital marketing trends and strategies that are evolving in the current high-tech, Internet-connected era and businesses now need to use them to succeed in their efforts because what worked for you last year may not work this year.
Social media, streaming content, and the ease of creating or consuming digital content have made the internet the place to be. So if you want to market to your audience online, how should you do it? In this article, we explore the top trends digital marketers should know or prepare to master.
Disrupting the marketing landscape … voice interaction
According to Search Engine Land, voice-based commerce sales in the United States reached $1.8 billion in 2017 and are projected to reach $40 billion by 2022. Yep, that’s 40 billion! This trend means you must get ahead of the game.
Voice searching is an ingenious bit of technology. After all, who doesn’t like being able to simply say out loud to the nearest smart speaker, “Place an order for school supplies”?
Not only does voice searching make it easier to find information online without pulling out a device; people love it because it reduces their screen time. Next year, make sure you’re optimized for voice searches.
Content marketing remains king
Content marketing will always have a strong impact because of the exposure and backlinks you can receive for your brand. Writing interesting content and marketing it to influencers is a win-win.
You are helping people with solution-oriented content, and the influencers help your exposure and outreach so it’s widely seen by the right audience and shared with their peers.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing that focuses on using key leaders to drive your brand’s message to the larger market. Rather than marketing directly to a large group of consumers, you instead pay influencers to get out the word for you.
Using influencers is a very effective marketing tool that works to attract customers. Influencers can be anyone from celebrities and Instagram or YouTube stars to well-known bloggers and journalists who help spread the word about your business or product through their social channels.
The Growth Of Micro-Influencers
As influencer-tracking technologies continue to improve, brands are becoming better equipped at fielding and managing large networks of high-engagement, low-following micro influencers for their campaigns.
This largely untapped market will soon allow for more brands to avoid the significant costs of mid- to high-level influencers and invest in more down-to-earth and relatable influencer marketing.
Disrupting the marketing landscape … a bigger AI role
We are all watching the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing and how it affects our clients’ relationships with consumers. As a company that focuses on bringing out emotional connections through physical environments, we’ll see AI play an even bigger role for brands as they look to personalize and automate more digital and traditional communications.
AI can also monitor consumers’ online patterns and help you understand their behavior in real time, though there are legitimate concerns about whether this is ethical or not. Even if you decide not to take advantage of AI in this way, however, it’s smart to pay attention to how consumers react to it and whether your competitors use it.
Artificial intelligence will take over the world! Or at least the world’s simpler jobs.
It has the highest year-over-year growth compared to all other technologies on the list.
Audience engagement
The ability to engage with audiences (that is, making audiences part of the brand story) will have a huge impact. The less friction there is to engagement, the more connected people feel.
Brands that are more willing to interact with customers publicly will have a strong impact—and brands that can show how this engagement influences their products and services will make an even bigger impact.
Audiences seek expertise, critical insight and ways to be better at all points of interest. Experiential and interactive engagement with a brand is the future of consumer-brand connectivity.
From live video to recorded advice, to content with real-time responses, to contests and beyond, it’s about offering information and encouraging feedback from stakeholders in a way that establishes trust.
Video marketing
Don’t just think YouTube. To witness higher engagement with your video marketing, you can make a video post or start a live broadcast on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
Live video is gaining popularity, with a large number of businesses using it for interviews, product demos and “behind the scenes” glimpses of events, life in the office, how products are made, etc.
Video is a must
A total of 73% of all Americans engage with YouTube. That means more than half of all Americans are watching videos, and a lot of those videos are created in the service of digital marketing.
While YouTube may be the most popular way to consume videos, even more popular than Facebook, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be putting videos on Facebook or any of the other social media platform for that matter.
Video digital marketing, in some ways, offers the best of both worlds. The actual budgeting and mechanics of video production are well understood and documented, since video itself is a 20th century medium.
However, now video is paired with the incredibly accurate and valuable user metrics of digital media to provide much more useful data on how specific efforts are performing.
Interactive video content
Video marketing has been trending upward for years now.
We’re seeing an increase in videos on social media, websites, and blogs. People are even running successful video blogs.
But now we’ll start seeing additional changes in the way video is consumed. I’m talking about interactive videos.
As the video plays, users have a chance to view the entire area by clicking the navigation button in the top left corner of the screen.
The idea behind interactive videos is to increase engagement.
Live video is a separate yet important thing
While video is a valuable tool, one of the fastest rising stars in digital marketing is the use of live video. Part of this is due to the massive spike in streaming services, thanks to popular channels such as “Twitch,” which allows people to easily stream video game play, or even devices like Sony’s PS4 game console that come with live streaming abilities built right into the box.
Live streaming, as it is called, is especially big for digital marketing when combined with influencer marketing. Whether it’s the new generation of social media influencers or traditional sources, such as celebrities, athletes, and musicians, having a live stream with an influencer who is interacting directly with comments is a huge draw for an audience.
Chatbots
Chatbots and live chat isn’t new technology by any stretch. However, we’re definitely seeing a shift in the way these are being used from a marketing perspective.
Have you seen chatbots recently when visiting websites?
And 80% of companies say they’re already using or plan to use chatbots by 2020.
I’m expecting to see a huge increase in chatbots being used for marketing purposes in 2019 in order to reach that number by 2020.
You should consider using this technology in your business if you’re not already doing so. That’s because implementing live chat provides better customer service.
It’s much easier for customers to communicate with chatbots online than to send an email or call a representative.
Micro-moments
People spend an average of 3 hours and 35 minutes on their smartphones every day, and by 2019, mobile devices will be the medium that gets the most minutes in the U.S. (finally surpassing television).
This is changing the way brands must work to capture buyers’ attention.
Micro-Moments is a “new consumer behavior,” as termed by Google, that delivers your marketing message clearly and concisely in a way that is of interest to the consumers – all within a span of seconds (otherwise, they lose their attention and are onto the next article!).
People generally make instant decisions on what to eat, which restaurant to choose, what to purchase, or where to go, so Micro-Moments that that every marketer should know about are:
Beacon technology
Beacon technology is similar to GPS, but it’s not quite as complex.
Businesses are leveraging beacon technology to target customers, especially in retail stores. Here’s how it works.
First, companies need to encourage their customers to download their mobile apps.
Once the app is installed on a user’s device, it will track their location. When an app user walks by a beacon in a store, the company knows exactly where the customer is within that store.
It’ll be able to tell when the person is shopping for a specific product. Then, the brand can send the user a promotion via a push notification that’s related to what they’re looking at.
The bottom line
The future will be about better customer experience with personalization, automation and AI-powered technology.
So to stay ahead of the curve and increase conversions in the coming year, you’ll need to get better at producing custom, conversational content – particularly audio and video content – to share with your better-targeted audience.
New technology and ease of accessibility have made marketing more competitive than ever before. That’s why you need to recognize the newest trends.
It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
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