7 Popular Digital Marketing Trends for 2020
Are you in the digital marketing business? Do you wish to become more productive this year more than ever? Then you need to start looking at some of the most popular digital marketing trends for the year.
Though a quarter of 2020 is already in the history books, it is not too late to follow the latest online marketing trends.
The use of social media platforms is a trend to watch out for. Analysts predict that Instagram will continue to grow this year. Moreover, video advertisers will invest more money on social media.
This means failing to ride this wave may leave you two steps behind the competition.
But what exactly are the hottest digital marketing trends for the year? Continue reading below as we look at seven of the best ones to follow.
The Need to Follow Trends
Though trends come and go, they often leave a lasting impact. Before we discuss the trends, let us first revisit the reasons why you need to follow them.
First, trends allow you to connect better with your target market. In the past, most companies rely on emails to educate customers about their new products. Today, you have social media and all its different platforms at your disposal.
Trends also help increase your efficiency. You will know what people are looking for nowadays. From there, you can create marketing strategies without wasting time and resources determining what will click in the eyes of your customers.
Following digital marketing trends also helps improve your tracking and analytics. You can tweak your strategies and do away with approaches that do not work. It will help keep you keep in step with what makes your competitors succeed.
Digital Marketing Trends
There are numerous trends that companies use today. Some are superior to others. Here are seven of the most popular worth implementing:
1. More DMs
Companies will put more effort into direct messaging (DM). The rationale is they will want to connect with their target market in a more personal way. They will also use DMs to streamline their customer service.
Hence, you need to tap the power of your Facebook Messenger, Viber, and WhatsApp. The same thing goes for your Instagram and Twitter where you can send DMs to your customers.
Use DMs to accept sales orders. Address any complaints and concerns by sending messages. The good thing about DMs is they come with the convenience of text, but with the urgency of a phone call.
2. Niche Social Media
This year will also be the year for niche and alternative social media channels. These are platforms outside the usual suspects (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram).
Expect marketers to use platforms like Pinterest, Medium, Reddit, and Snapchat. These “secondary” options come with huge potential for increasing your reach. These niche social media cater more to the younger market who are 30 years old and below.
3. Artificial Intelligence
Though marketers will use a more personal approach in customer interaction, they will balance things out by using some artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Companies will continue to invest in AI, as analysts predict that 85% of customer interactions will involve chatbots. Apart from chatbots and virtual attendants, voice recognition services will play a bigger role in today’s digital marketing world.
Google Smart Home and Amazon Alexa, for example, will continue to make some noise.
Furthermore, companies will use AI to analyze their market’s search patterns and consumer behavior. From there, they can use the data to improve their content creation and communication.
4. Interactive Emails
Since traditional email is no longer the most popular way of reaching out to customers, companies will add some innovation by making emails more interactive. Marketers will create more dynamic and interactive emails to increase customer engagement.
Right within the emails, customers can respond to the companies’ call-to-action without having to go to a separate website. These interactive emails may feature surveys, quizzes, polls, and add-to-calendar events.
As for the aesthetics, these emails add spice to the bland and boring plain-text approach. The emails now come in polished designs that appeal to the eyes. They also come with stylized buttons and images that entice customers to act.
5. Snippet Optimization
Apart from using exact match domains to boost SEO, more companies will optimize for featured snippets. Customer search queries now feature snippets. These snippets take up a large amount of space on the first page.
Hence, these snippets get a large number of clicks compared to other types of search results. As a marketer, you want to create content that you will optimize for featured snippets.
The key is creating high-quality digital content with a solid structure. This will allow customers to understand your content with ease.
When creating content, always write not only with your target market in mind. You also need to consider the search engines as well.
If you wish to learn more about web optimization to rank better on search engine results page, Game of SERPs offers useful information on digital marketing that will help you undertake optimization of your website.
6. More Audio Content
Consumers will also demand more audio content this year. People will look for experiences that can adapt to their mobility. People who cannot read text on their mobile phones all the time will want to hear audible information.
Podcasts, for example, will continue to win new followers this year. If you wish to create stronger bonds with your target market, a podcast is a good way to start.
7. Micro-Influencers
Last but not least, companies will continue to tap the power of influencer marketing. But this time, they will pay more attention to the micro-influencers. These are the small to medium-sized influencers that narrower niches.
They do not have a massive following compared to big-time influencers. However, they have enough popularity to reach their respective niche markets. Moreover, they are more affordable having few sponsorship offers.
The great thing about micro-influencers is they can focus more on their followers. Since they have fewer followers, they can spend more time on their listeners in a more personal way. They create a more genuine connection compared to more popular influencers.
Improve Your Digital Marketing Efforts
By keeping tab of the most popular digital marketing trends, you can adjust your strategies and align them with the needs and wants of your market. You need to continue learning new tricks and innovations to stay ahead.
