Now that we’re well into 2020, let’s take a look at five exciting digital marketing trends to watch this year. Change is a constant in business, and in the digital age, change is rapid. Statista projected that there would be an astonishing 5.6 billion active email accounts in the world by 2019. As a result, we see more digital marketing than ever before.
Chatbots
The trend to watch this year, and perhaps even embrace, is the chatbot. Is there anything more satisfying than getting an answer to your questions immediately? Maybe it’s when your customers get their answers right away. In this 24/7 era of instant gratification, the chatbot may be just the solution we need.
These computer programs conduct online chats with humans through a messaging interface. Artificial intelligence (AI) even powers some of these interfaces, making them able to improve their interactions and responses over time.
When integrated into your business website, this digital marketing trend can increase customer satisfaction and cut down on the number of calls that your business must field.
Chat can be a game-changer but can also backfire when not implemented correctly. Your customers must be able to save time and get the answers they need quickly.
Videos and Podcasts
We should call this the digital marketing trend of the last decade. Videos are still popular, and that’s no surprise, but now podcasts are on the rise in popularity as well. Many people listen to videos while driving via a podcast, which means your videos can very easily be built into your podcast.
While both videos and podcasts can be engaging and help personalize the sales cycle, my advice with these two content marketing strategies is to embrace video creation before you try your hand at podcasting.
There’s an extraordinary amount of work that needs to be done to compete in the podcasting space today. The space is very crowded.
If you haven’t already done so, get started with videos. Videos can be a powerful boon for your website’s search engine optimization, helping customers find you and the information they’re looking for quickly.
Clickless Searching
You may have noticed the clickless search trend the last time you headed to Google. When you enter your query into the search bar, Google’s featured snippets appear right at the top of the search. With the answer to your question popping up without a single click, there’s often no need to scan through the search engine results page.
While this can be very handy if you need a fast, easy answer, the clickless trend is making it more difficult for business owners to garner organic search traffic leading to your website. Clickless searching is undoubtedly a marketing trend to watch for a while before you take lasting action or worry about how it will affect your business.
In the meantime, what are some best practices that will help you overcome or appear in clickless searches? Here are three suggestions:
- Focus on content that is more in-depth so that potential customers need to click through.
- Build your brand recognition so that customers search for your brand and not generic keywords.
- Finally, make keywords with a high click-through rate more of a priority on your website.
This trend isn’t going away, but it may be morphing. I vote we wait and see how to accommodate this trend before we make any drastic moves.
Fragmented Customer Journeys
I’m adding this to my list of marketing trends to watch, although it’s more than just a trend at this point. The fragmented customer journey is here to stay.
In the age of mobile devices, it’s common for potential customers to begin researching a product on one device and then finish on another. It can be downright challenging to keep someone engaged beyond the research stage.
The fragmented journey of today’s consumers can be challenging for companies that approach digital marketing in a siloed manner, with different departments perhaps focusing on separate marketing channels. The most important solution is to make the purchase easier for your customers. Here are a few suggestions:
- An abandoned cart initiative is a must-have if you have an eCommerce site.
- Cross-sell additional products while a customer is shopping on your site.
- Remarket to consumers who have purchased from you in the past..
- Explore which forms of artificial intelligence in marketing and sales are right for your company.
Marketing automation is the easiest way to overcome a fragmented buyer journey because it tracks your website visitors as well as their devices. It will save you a lot of time and energy whether you’re triggering abandoned cart emails or analyzing why and where you lose consumers in your sales process.
It’s crucial that you figure out how to manage the buyer’s journey for your company.
Interactivity
The last on my list of digital marketing trends to watch this year is interactivity. When I refer to interactivity, I’m referring to both on your website as well as on social media. It’s not enough to post here and there without a well-thought-out plan. To stay top-of-mind, you’ve got to interact with consumers and keep them engaged. Encourage user-focused content to keep consumers engaged. Here are a few suggestions:
- Consider running contests for user-generated content.
- Allow customers to curate catalogs from your products.
- Include user-generated reviews on product pages.
- Create blog or social media posts directed toward your users.
- Use data visualization to help tell a compelling story about your company and engage your customers.
Most of the information sent to our brains is visual, and our brains process visual information much more quickly. By telling a compelling story through graphics, you can keep your customers more engaged.
Do your best to embrace this trend.
While changes in the digital world can be fast and frightening, staying on top of 2020’s most significant trends in digital marketing can help you have a great year.
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