Data and artificial intelligence are among the key digital marketing trends you’d be hearing a lot about in 2020 and beyond. These are the trends changing the world of digital marketing as we know it.
The digital marketing landscape is ever changing and highly competitive. To stay ahead of the curve, you need to know the trends in the field and how to better position your brand using them.
Here are 20 digital marketing trends shaping digital marketing in 2020 that you should jump on.
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Artificial intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the top digital marketing trends in 2020. You probably already know that AI is the future, what you may not know is that the future is here. AI is already at the forefront of global businesses, and it has replaced many simple jobs.
An example is the use of Knightscope K5 robots by Uber and Microsoft for the patrol of large outdoor areas and parking lots to prevent crime. The robots have the abilities to report suspicious activities, read plate numbers and get data to report to their owners.
Some reasons top businesses in Canada are using AI today includes:
- AI allows businesses to gain competitive advantage
- It enables business to cut down cost
- Customers are demanding for AI-driven offerings
- AI makes penetration to new businesses easier
- The fear that AI-driven businesses will enter their market
If you are not already using AI in your business, one or more of the above reasons should be enough to convince you.
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Content Marketing
Content marketing has been with us for a while now, and it’s not going anywhere soon. It’s a major b2b digital marketing strategy used by b2b content marketer. 88% of them say it makes their audience see their brand as credible.
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Chatbots
More customers prefer interacting with chatbots over real humans because chatbots respond on time accurately and don’t forget customers’ buying history. They can provide great customer service for your business while you focus on more important aspects of the business.
Many brands in Canada are making effective use of chatbots technology to handle some aspects of customer service for them. For instance, you can request a Lyft ride via Facebook Messenger and Slack, and their chatbot will respond to the point of giving you your driver’s current location.
If you are just trying to get a chatbot now, then you’re coming late to the party. However, better late than later (or never).
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Personalization
To stand in this 2020, you should be ready to make marketing more personalized. What you’d be personalizing include emails, content, products and so on.
To better understand, look at the following stats from Instapage:
- 63% of consumers find generic advertising annoying
- 90% of consumers say personalization is appealing
- 80% of consumers say they have a higher tendency of working that offers personalized experience over one that doesn’t
Two of the top brands that can inspire you on personalization include Amazon and Netflix through their tailored recommendations. Other notable brands championing the personalization course are Starbucks, Cadbury and Easyjet to mention but a few.
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Video Marketing
One of the biggest and most effective digital marketing trend right now is video, and this may not change for the next 5-10 years. Check out what the stats say about video marketing from IMPACT:
- 70% of consumers say they’ve shared at least a brand’s video
- 72% of businesses revealed that video has significantly improved their conversion rate
- 65% of executives say they visit a marketer’s website and 39% say they call the business after watching their video
Due to its audio-visual advantage, video is one of the most preferred ways by customers to learn about a product.
Your videos shouldn’t be on YouTube only. Post them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and all the platforms at your disposal. All these platforms favor video contents more over others. The same is applicable to search engines. Search engines give Web pages with video preference in ranking over those that don’t. So put your videos everywhere.
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Influencer Marketing
One of the most effective form of marketing is word-of-mouth marketing. Think some of your buying decisions and it will shock you to see how many times you did because someone you know had recommended them. That’s word-of-mouth marketing at work.
Influencer Marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing, but this time, through leaders in a niche or industry. These leaders can be popular celebrities, but most of the times they are social media personalities with a massive following.
These stats from Adage show the effectiveness of Influencer Marketing:
- 58% of people say they purchased a product in the last couple of months because an influencer recommended it.
- 63% of people say they trust the opinions of influencers on products over what the brands say about themselves
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Visual Search
Visual search is becoming more popular by the day and it’s going to take user experience to a whole new level. Through visual search, people can upload images on search engines and get more specific results.
Google Lens, Pinterest Lens and CamFind are some of the brands popularizing visual search.
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Social Media Stories
Snapchat started it, Instagram followed, then WhatsApp, and now it’s virtually everywhere. What all social media story has in common is that it disappears after a set time. Hence, it’s an effective opportunity to make good use of a marketing strategy known as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
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Browser Push Notifications
You must have noticed that prompt to turn on notification on when you visit certain websites. That’s browser push notification at work it’s one of the top digital trends in 2020. It helps businesses to send the latest updates to their readers via browser notifications. This often translates too more traffic and better conversion.
See what stats say about browser push notifications when compared to email marketing:
- Only 10% of email marketers can match push notifications sign-up rate in newsletter sign-up
- Recipients of push notifications see the message immediately while it takes 6.4 hours after messages are sent before they are opened by newsletter recipients.
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Interactive Content
This is a fast-growing digital marketing trend. Traditional contents are gradually making way for dynamic, and engaging content that gives users immersive experience.
Interactive contents currently exist in digital marketing in the following forms:
- Embedded calculators
- 360-degree videos
- Polls and quizzes
- Augmented reality ads
Interactive content, compared to traditional contents, is more memorable and has the higher chance of generating results for your business.
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Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing involves marketing across several platforms including apps, email, social media, blog and so on. The aim is to connect with your prospects across all these touch points.
Contents on all the channels must come from the same drawing board with the same goal of getting the best result for your business.
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Immersive Technology and Augmented Reality
So much is being said about virtual reality that some brands are forgetting the more implementable reality from a marketing standpoint–augmented reality.
More brands are now waking up to the immersive technology, and virtual reality enhance their customer experience and satisfaction and ultimately boost sales.
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Geo-Fencing Growth
Geo-fencing makes real-time targeting possible based on the user’s location. The target area is usually within one mile of the area defined. For instance, if the defined area is a particular hotel in Toronto, you’d receive notification (push notification, mail or text message) when you are within a mile in or out of the hotel.
This is definitely a digital marketing trend that’d continue to grow over the years. It’d be especially effective for you if you are brick and mortar business trying to convert digital customers.
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Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
These are basic websites that work like mobile apps. They have the basic features of mobile apps such as push notifications, fast load times, offline work among others.
With the continuous mobile revolution the world is witnessing, PWAs will become more prevalent with time.
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User-Generated Content (UGC)
This is the digital marketing strategy used by marketers whose target audience are the millennials and Gen Z. What marketers do with this marketing strategy is to encourage their audience to share unique contents with the promise of some form of incentives.
This strategy can quickly increase your brand engagement, especially on social media. It will also lead to higher conversion rates as more people would discover your products and services.
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Blockchain Technology
Blockchain is a term for those dealing in finance, that’s changing now as it’s making waves in the world of digital marketing.
The blockchain currency removes digital marketing intermediaries, drives public accountability and builds trust through transparency.
From 2020 and beyond, some trends you should anticipate in blockchain include:
- Handling social impressions
- Protection of personal data
- Tracking media buys
- Pinpoint targeting
- Verifying online identities
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Big Data and Big Learning
Big data will continue its growth from 2019 in 2020 and beyond. And that’s good news for digital marketers who know how to harness data.
More brands and businesses will focus on the use of data to provide quality service to their customers. You should do the same.
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SERP Position Zero
Also known as featured snipped, position zero is the most coveted on Google result page. Contents in this position usually answer users’ questions without the need to click. Optimizing for voice search can boost your chances of making it to this position.
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Google Ads Smart Bidding
Google Paid advertising is becoming a must trusted form of marketing due to intense competition with social media on organic search. And the smart bidding on Google is still the considered the best, especially for newbies.
The Smart Bidding means advertisers would be trusting their campaigns in the hands of Google’s AI systems. And what the system does is to optimize their budgets for maximum ROI (return on investment).
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5G Technology
We are at a time when there is massive mobile penetration to every nook and cranny of the world. This makes 5G (fifth generation) technology one of the top digital marketing trends of 2020.
It’s believed that the impact of this technology would reach almost all industries. It means users will have a faster connection to the internet to enjoy all that digital marketing and the entire www world has to offer in 2020.
Adage describes the impact 5G thus:
“The arrival of 5G may also bring millions of rural consumers into the high-speed data lanes where marketers sell their products. It might even disrupt the digital duopoly of Google and Facebook by arming telecom companies with unprecedented data for ad services.”
Conclusion
Change is constant. This is even truer in digital marketing. It’s an ever-changing field with new trends coming up every day.
Here you have the top digital marketing trends for 2020, but don’t be surprised some of them may be replaced with new trends come 2021. Be open to trying new tools, technologies and strategies to get ahead of your competitors.