Part 1: The Future Of Digital Marketing

The digital marketing landscape is changing constantly. That why it’s crucial to always stay ahead of trends and implement the same in time.

The digital marketing landscape is changing constantly. That why it’s crucial to always stay ahead of trends and implement the same in time. Metrics used to measure digital marketing and the level of interactivity involved have come to create new opportunities for marketers.

For some time, the mantra was that ‘content is king.’ Fair enough but the focus is now drifting towards a focus on a well-developed strategy that includes quality link building, relationship outreach, voice, mobile, and the ability to capture attention from influencers.

Customer experience, functionality, micro-moments, targeted advertising, etc., are just some of the trends we are seeing as AI and other technologies continue to shape the digital marketing environment.

Here are some of the important trends digital marketers should follow and integrate into their own strategies heading into 2020:

1. AI

Set to become a major part of marketing strategy AI possesses the ability to analyze consumer behavior accurately for a more interactive and personalized buying experience.  Artificial Intelligence will continue to be a great asset in assisting marketers to target audiences and purchase ads more efficiently. This process is extremely data-driven; however, with the right amount of data, AI will reduce customer acquisition costs and improve the chances of a marketing campaign’s success. Although still in its infancy AI is happening before your very eyes. It’s being used in smartphones, self-driving cars, and both Amazon and Netflix already have built-in AI features to help with recommendations and transactions. In 2020, digital marketers will rely more on AI to inform them on new market analysis, cross-channel campaigns, and complex competitive strategies. PPC strategists will increasingly rely on AI for bidding, ad testing, and even serving re-targeted ads. 

2. VR, AR, and MR

The next major multi-purpose platform will be Mixed Reality (MR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), with physical reality at one end of the scale and a fully virtualized version at the other. These new technological marvels override our sensory perceptions, for instance, when you wear a VR helmet your real-world perceptions are overruled by images on the screen. AR and VR are expected to skyrocket to over $300 billion in the next three years. Considering that today’s consumers demand more exciting buying journeys, it is no wonder that multi-national companies like VW, Starbucks, Quaker Oats, and IKEA, are using VR and AR to boost engagement, create brand awareness, and deliver enhanced consumer experiences.

3. Chatbots

Chatbots will improve UX in a big way as they will evolve into more practical and versatile tools for consumers. Digital marketers, take note! Brand-focused chatbots in social messaging platforms are kicking up a storm. Facebook is creating a business bot, which will integrate into its messaging service. Marketers should keep an eye on this trend if they use Facebook and Facebook messaging for marketing activities.

Over the last several years, we’ve been communicating more and more with bots. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, chatbots are becoming more sophisticated and capable of handling more complex requests. In 2020, this technology will continue to be perfected and incorporated into company websites. Customer service via the web is becoming faster and more efficient every day thanks to these new technologies.

4. Voice Optimization

With Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant, the popularity of voice search is on the rise. Voice searches have been projected to approach 50% of all searches by 2020. In turn, voice search algorithms have become much more intelligent in recognizing human speech. As consumers are adapting to AI-driven personal assistants designed more and more, digital marketers should consider speech recognition and voice search for brand building. Personal digital assistants are bound to improve even further to a point where there will be able to offer more personalized services based on consumer behavior data. And the future will also witness the collaboration between devices whereby appliances made by different companies will be able to contact each other for information. Voice search is shaking up the digital marketing world significantly, calling for digital marketers to tailor their SEO strategy to suit long-tail keyword, question-oriented voice searches. 

About the author

Hi, my name is Rick and I thank you for reading this article!

I explore to learn new stuff every day and here I will share all my experiences and thoughts with you.

You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram. 🙂