Top digital marketing trends are made up of a lot of actionable topics – SEO, social media, marketing automation, PPC, and more. New technologies, techniques, and ever-changing Google and Facebook algorithms keep digital marketing teams hopping, including ours. Part of our job is to stay up-to-date on the upcoming trends so our clients’ digital marketing campaigns remain effective.
It is more important than ever before for marketers to understand and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to digital marketing trends. Doing so ensures you have the right tools at your disposal, an up-to-date strategy, and the required skills to make the most of social media.
As we enter a new decade and tech continues to change at a rapid pace, here are the digital marketing trends where we’re predicting growth:
Interactive Content
91% of buyers are looking for more interactive content online. Shoppable posts, AR/VR, 360-degree video, quizzes, and polls are just a few examples of interactive content.
Interactive content will be one of the decades top marketing trends for a few reasons:
- This type of content is new and original, helping it cut through the noise
- It gives visitors a reason to stay on the page
- It’s extremely shareable (almost everyone has seen someone share results of a silly quiz like “What kind of cheese are you?”)
Voice-Powered Search
As the growth in technology continues to increase rapidly, we will start to see more people using smartphones with voice assistants.
Features like Google, Alexa, and Siri are useful in digital marketing. Voice assistants can search for things, read text loudly, and even voice dictate text messages for you so that you can be hands-free.
Voice search is also essential when using it for your business. It’s helping in the growth of a mobile-friendly movement and adding value to local SEO. Voice search also boosts the use of Artificial Intelligence and prioritizes semantics of searches.
that people may ask concerning your products and provide detailed answers.
Immersive Technology like AR and VR
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have exploded in popularity over the past few years and are quickly becoming one of the top marketing trends. While VR was the more popular of the two for a long time, it is predicted that AR will outpace VR in 2020 and by 2021, VR won’t be able to catch up.
AR is already being used by major companies like IKEA. Using their app and AR, customers can see what a piece of furniture would look like in their space before purchasing (or even setting foot in a store)!
Shoppable Posts
By now, you know that social media is a huge part of online marketing. What you might not realize is just how many people shop on social. 60% of Instagram users say they discover new products on Instagram and in a survey of over 4,000 Pinterest users, a whopping 70% said Pinterest helps them find new products.
These platforms have taken note of the fact that people are using them to shop and have made it easier for merchants to sell via social media. Over the past few years, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook all have ways for eCommerce stores to create shoppable posts using a native integration that makes it easy to tag and shop products directly in your posts. For online retailers, this is a great way to drive traffic to product pages.
By utilizing social commerce, you’re reaching new customers, reducing the barriers to purchasing, and dramatically shortening the sales funnel. While shoppable posts have been on the rise for the past few years, we expect them to become the norm in the next decade.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing has been around for several years now, and it’s not going away any time soon. Influencers used to be huge celebrities or “internet celebs” with tens of thousands of followers but now, companies are turning to people with much a smaller social media following to be influencers.
Leveraging influential people on social media allows you to reach their audience with a voice that they trust.
Personalization
Currently, only a few companies are using some form of personalization. And big conglomerates like Amazon are already doing it well.
This household name built their huge internet business by analyzing customers’ behaviors and promoting products based on assumptions and the user’s past purchase history. It showcases products that a person may be interested in by putting forth similar or complementary products in a Recommendations tab, and Amazon found that this upsell tactic works in getting more business.
The primary benefit of personalized marketing is having the control to reach a specific group of customers. And by collecting user data from list segments, surveys, or studies, you’re better positioned to create more relevant and effective email campaigns towards targeted audiences based on their buying habits, interests, and behaviors.
90% of 1,000 people surveyed said they find personalization appealing and 80% said they’re more likely to do business with a company that offers personalized experiences. Customers are beginning to expect personalization and there are a lot of ways for digital marketers to deliver.
The rise of alternative platforms
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram tend to be the core platforms used by B2C brands, with LinkedIn also being vital for B2B companies. However, many users are growing fatigued with these core platforms while brands have to fight harder than ever before to achieve good levels of organic reach and engagement.
While TikTok is unlikely to be the best option for B2B brands, B2C companies with a younger target audience (41% of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24) could find it to be a great platform to encourage engagement with users who are stepping away from more traditional social media platforms.
As well as TikTok, a good platform to invest in for those looking to encourage e-commerce sales through social media is Pinterest. Although Pinterest is far from new on the scene, it has experienced a recent resurgence, meaning it is now used for more than just saving recipes or getting decorating inspiration.
Pinterest has found that it fits well into the e-commerce space and has an audience that is engaged with the idea of buying products they see on the platform. In fact, 75% of Pinterest users say they are “very interested” in new products compared to just 55% of people on other social media platforms.
Increased use of artificial intelligence
The name “Artificial Intelligence” is exactly how it sounds; it refers to robots or machines having the ability to work like humans. AI uses a combination of different features such as chatbots and voice assistants to quickly find answers.
For instance, Alexa and Siri are voice assistants that provide excellent customer care. Just like a human, they can take orders from the users and work behind the scenes on their behalf.
Transparency
Research indicates that companies producing transparent and easy-to-digest information are likely to retain the bulk of their customers.
However, how you handle a customer’s private data is vital. In 2018, the GDPR policy was more actively enforced to ensure that companies handle customer data transparently.
This means that there will be more emphasis on this in the future; companies will be required to be completely transparent on what kind of information is being shared to promote their products.
Here are some tips on how to improve transparency
- Establish your company’s core values.
- Make sure that selling is not your only goal.
- Be an open book to your customers– tell them as much as you can about who they are doing business with.
- If customers raise some concerns or questions, respond immediately.
- Be able to take constructive criticism from your customers and respond in a friendly, non-judgmental tone.
Telling stories on social
Since the launch of Snapchat, other social media platforms have rushed to add the story’s format to their offering. The result has been huge growth in the usage of this format for Instagram in particular, which as of January 2019, boasts 500 million daily active Stories users across the globe.
