Think About the Impact

Take a moment and think about the impact you would like to bring to your business through technology. That, in most cases, means consistently comparing your services and strategies with your top competitors. Then you can take advantage of successful business strategies and try to predict the future of technology and anticipate the changes by modifying your product or advertising plan.

Digital marketing is the newest tool used by businesses to survive the cut-throat competition in the 21st century.

Rather than allow your business to fall behind, you can use the digital marketing trends to actively reach more customers while working to retain your existing users proactively. Here’s a look at the marketing trends for 2020 in detail.

2020 Marketing Trends

Trends have been emerging with the close of 2019, and those that were growing will continue to grow into the new year as well. Keeping on par with the emerging as well as the growing digital marketing trends are going to be essential for the survival of any modern business.

With this in mind, it is critical to stay ahead of the pack to expand your business. Here are some digital marketing trends you might want to take a look at as your brand takes on a new year.

Voice Search

Voice search has been growing at an astounding rate in late 2019. Experts expect the statistics to continue in the same metric, even going into 2020.

How Can You Optimize Your Website For Voice Search in Digital Marketing?

Understand the language of your target users: People use sentences to explain what they are looking for on the internet. For your content to be optimized for voice search, you must adapt and use sentences that are likely to define your product just as your customers would. You have to understand how your customer views your product and tune your content to align with that.

Be conversational: To improve the probability of a user finding you through voice search, you need to design a conversational keyphrase, because the user is also going to keep his queries at a conversational level.

Answer questions: People using voice searches to find out meanings and answers on the internet want a direct answer to their query. If you can pinpoint the questions that are likely to be used by your target users, then you can adapt the keyphrase in your content and improve the chances of your content being found.

Chatbots

Another growing digital marketing trend that shows no sign of slowing down is the adoption of chatbots. In the course of the past year, chatbots have seen a lot of limelight and are expected to play a significant role in digital marketing in 2020.

Chatbots still have a long road to travel before they can perform complex tasks, but the technology is promising and is expected to grow stronger with time.

Chatbots have become quite useful in answering user queries that would typically require a human a few years back. They go a long way in cutting costs and time that a support team requires. The support team can now shift their focus to answering the more complex queries.

Chatbots also improve the customer experience. Since they are fast, they answer simple queries to users in a short time, and the user can access the answer more quickly.

No-Code Website Design

In recent years, no-code website design software has slowly risen in popularity. In upcoming years, experts predict their reputation is going to soar drastically. The main reason behind this is the cost cut-down and speeding up of the process of designing and modifying a web page. In layman’s terms, people and businesses wishing to create appealing content for websites but who lack coding knowledge will have an easier time building an excellent online space moving forward.

Marketing departments will not have to involve IT departments in editing professional webpages matching their creative concepts. Soon, a larger pool of people will be able to access the website designing field.

New Marketing Trends

With a brand-new decade upon us, businesses have to keep a keen eye on emerging digital marketing trends. Here are some new marketing trends in 2020 that might take your business to the next level.

Shoppable Posts

Given its ubiquitous nature, it is highly unlikely that you have not used some form of digital media. Social media has understandably grown into an integral part of digital marketing. What some might not have encountered are shoppable posts on social media.

Shoppable posts represent a vast opportunity for businesses given approximately 72% of Instagram users have bought a product on the app. According to Forbes, Pinterest users use it to find new and exciting products.

Shoppable posts shorten the sales funnel and make it easier for users to shop. That gives brands the freedom to easily and quickly reach new customers. By the dawn of 2021, shoppable posts are expected to be a norm.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Both VR and AR have become extremely popular in the months ahead and are quickly becoming a top digital marketing trend in 2020. AR is expected to surpass VR in popularity in 2020, despite the early lead VR has enjoyed.

Major companies have already begun implementing AR. For instance, Ikea has launched an app that allows its users to visualize what a carpet or a piece of furniture would look like in their house before proceeding to make a purchase.

Interactive Content

Online shopping activities today are about new experiences as much as they are about finding the right product. More interactive pieces will keep the reader engaged in the content you are providing and ultimately result in higher returns.

Interactive content is also shareable, so customers will feel the urge to share your content and thus create more awareness about your brand.

Video Content

Most customers respond positively to visual content. Making an attractive video for your brand is not a new thing in the digital marketing arena. It will likely continue to grow more critical even beyond 2020.

Make sure to regularly update your video content to keep your customers coming back. Do not overlook the power of a video: Instagram Live and Facebook Live can keep your audience on your web pages for three times longer than recorded videos.

2020 SEO Trends

Aside from matching the keywords in users’ queries with the relevant content on the web, search engines also rank websites according to the most reliable sources available. The systems are designed to identify signals that determine a website’s authoritativeness, expertise, and trustworthiness.

If you, therefore, wish to rank high on the search engine results page (SERPs), make sure your content is written by someone who has an in-depth knowledge of the subject.

Be Clear

Unless there is a solid reason for anonymity, Google and other search engines expect that websites provide clear information on who is responsible for the site, contact information, as well as the creator of the marketing content.

That means that your pages must be thorough, easy to find, and provides references to quality external links. It is also advisable to have author bylines on every article.

Get Cited

Most of Google’s EAT evaluation takes place off your website. That makes sense because any random person can claim to be an expert in a specific field.

How do you get other websites to agree with you and cite your content as reputable? First of all, you will need to earn published quotes on as many trusted websites as possible. They do not even have to be linked mentions.

Second, your whole site needs to be associated with a particular subject. This again comes down to off-site citations from other professionals in your field.

Visual Search

More people are doing visual searches today than ever before. Stats suggest that Google lens has so far been used more than a billion times.

If you open Google Lens on your phone right now, you will probably find that it recognizes almost everything in your room. Though visual search is still in its infancy, it already works surprisingly well. Even Bing’s visual search does a decent job.

If you have used visual search in the past, you probably already know that it gives consumers an easier time when shopping, identifying landmarks, translation, nutrition information, and more. That is perhaps why 62% of young customers prefer to use visual search more often.

If you want your brand to rank high in search engine results in 2020 and beyond, image SEO is critical. Use descriptive file names for your images and write alt text for each of them. However, that is only the first step to optimizing for visual search.

According to Google, they prioritize image content with the most authoritative content, among other new digital marketing trends. They also prioritize newer material, so your brand is likely to rank higher if it has been recently updated. Google’s updated guidelines also state that the search engine prioritizes sites where images are central to the pages and appear high on the page.

2020 Digital Marketing Trends

While some of you may think influencers are an outdated digital marketing strategy, the role they play in B2B marketing is indisputable. For firms that operate in the B2B space, here are some 2020 influencer marketing trends that you might want to take a look at in 2020 and beyond.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Finding the right influencers and optimizing performance on online channels is a process consistently being addressed by AI. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are among the newest technologies when it comes to new digital marketing trends.

There are signals of influence beyond social media, and the increasingly competitive business environment will require employing more robust technologies to automate analysis and bring together critical data from reliable sources across the internet.

Brandividual Media

As 2020 influence marketing trends unfold, the number of influencers operating their media will grow and compete with traditional methods of digital marketing. The influencers could come in many forms from YouTube creators to podcast networks to a teams of professional bloggers than can provide businesses with turnkey promotion and event coverage.

Democratized Influence

In B2B purchasing, individuals at different levels in buying committees conduct research and make recommendations to executives on the best product or service for their investment. Each of the individuals relies on influencers around them as they collect information. More brands are already tapping into the niche to take advantage of the unique marketing opportunity.

Influencer Experience Management

As brands continually elevate their focus on customer experience, there is bound to be an increased focus on brand influencer management. Any efforts towards learning their preferences and goals could be critical to the success of a brand’s digital marketing strategy in 2020 and years to come.

2020 B2B Marketing Trends

Most B2B organizations have a formal digital marketing plan that helps shape their marketing activities. However, there is still quite a significant faction that is missing out on the opportunities presented by integrated marketing activities present and 2020 B2B marketing trends.

When delivering their marketing strategies, most B2B firms prefer a combination of in-house and outsourced professionals. That allows them to take advantage of the expertise of freelance workers without having to invest in monthly salaries.

Email

Email ranks at the top when it comes to marketing tactics implemented by B2B companies. Emails are used by the majority of brands, not just B2B, likely because it has a high ROI. Emails allow you to deliver relevant content to specific consumers at the right time during the buyer journey.

If implemented correctly, emails can build customer trust and keep your customers engaged for promotions, ultimately growing your client base.

Social Media

As well as email, the majority of B2B marketers use social media channels as a part of their overall digital marketing strategy. Though social media is primarily viewed as a B2C tactic, the right approach can deliver exceptional results for B2B firms as well.

SEO, content marketing, and blogging also rank high in the B2B space. Just like emails, a well-designed blog can cultivate trust between your brand and your consumers and help increase leads when optimizing your content for search engines.

2020 B2C Marketing Trends

Modern technology is growing and evolving at a tremendous pace. Every firm that relies on technology must similarly move at that pace. It is especially necessary to update your knowledge on the current trends if yours is a B2C firm.

New algorithms and techniques are continually being included in updates of the digital marketing scope to keep up with the overwhelming competition. Being aware of continuing and emerging marketing trends for 2020 is vital to earning another spin in the game.

Personalization

As businesses dive into the research to figure out new strategies for digital marketing in 2020, personalization is at the front of the pack. More and more people across the globe are expecting a personalized experience from every website they visit.

Different strategies have been adopted to improve personalization, including targeted communications like triggered emails that are based on the customer’s preferences. Personalized content can help nurture green traffic and help you retain customers.

Marketers are no longer obliged to provide information to the customer, but when you do, with the ultimate customer experience in mind, you will compel readers to read through your content and lead them through the appropriate steps to complete a purchase.

Using ads to talk directly to customers

More marketers than ever expect to interact directly with customers through the personalization of technology. Ads are continually improving to offer the user an appealing interface. Gone are the days when ads used to disrupt the main content of the page and chase users away.

By 2020, ads will be aligned not only to the design of the webpage but also the content.

Email Trends For 2020

A solid email marketing strategy back in the 2000s cannot work as effectively in 2020. Chances are, sales offers will be sent directly to the spam folder and left unopened. Global email traffic data suggests that spam messages accounted for 56% of the total messages received by consumers.

A working email strategy in 2020 will have to be appealing, informative, and, most of all, trendy. As times change, so do email marketing trends. Here are some email tactics you might be interested in applying in 2020.

Customize your Emails

After segmenting your email recipients, you need some time to get to know their habits better. After establishing what appeals to each of your customers through cookies or items they click through on your page, customize your newsletters with a focus on their interests.

It will be easier to convey meaningful messages about promotions and deals to your customers if you get to know them better. Then you can customize your emails, reminders, and follow-ups to their individual needs.

State a Clear Call-to-Action

If you have successfully gotten the attention of your target consumers, you should follow it up with a compelling call-to-action.

Whether the email intends to invite the customer to your website, subscribe to your newsletters, or purchase a product on your online store, you should lead them with a clear call-to-action.

Avoid asking for too much too soon. Design your call to actions (CTA) according to your level of association with the target customer. CTAs have amazing benefits. You get to market your brand directly to your customer and direct them to your store or website in just a click.

Craft Catchy Headlines for Your Email Alerts

A crappy email headline can easily be the deal-breaker. Your target audience could easily ignore your email if it has a dull or baity headline.

According to an email marketing study conducted by MailChimp, short and descriptive headlines are the best to entice your target audience.

Mobile-Friendly Emails

According to recent studies, the number of people using mobile devices to access the internet will be approximately five billion by 2025. With more people scrolling their emails through handheld devices, you will need to optimize your email marketing strategy to a mobile-friendly view.

Consider the fonts and pixels of visuals to display the content of your email on smartphone screens efficiently. Some image files may have large resolutions that may fail to open on smartphones or have slow download time.

Analytics Trends for 2020

After rising to the limelight in 2019, augmented analytics is predicted to remain as one of the most advanced analytics technologies as we go into 2020 and beyond.

For businesses, the value of data to marketing and selling strategies cannot be overlooked. While traditional means of analysis can help get insights into valuable information, you would need a data expert to decode the insights to understand what they mean.

However, in augmented analytics, artificial intelligence will help you understand what the data means. The technology empowers small and medium enterprise owners who can’t afford to employ a competitive data expert to generate valuable insights.

Augmented analytics is predicted to be a leading factor in the purchase of business intelligence platforms and analytics. As time goes by, augmented analytics is bound to be the future of data and information analytics.

The potential of technology is astoundingly huge, but before it can change the world, we will see augmented analytics streamline business operations leading to the reduction of operation costs and faster growth of businesses. Automation will be a central theme in 2020 and the upcoming years. It is wise to invest in these systems and stay ahead of the competition.