2020 saw a boom in the digital marketing industry, with new startups and a significant increase in the amount of people who began to take interest in the industry. Traditional means of door-to-door marketing were out of the question and with people stuck in their homes due to the pandemic, digital marketing on various social media platforms grew in scale and for various companies, became the only source of advertisement. Now, with the world opening up again, there have been new developments in the field of digital marketing. These are the top 5 trends in digital marketing that you must look out for:
AI – Powered Optimization.
AI can analyze consumer behavior and search patterns, and use data from social media platforms and blog posts to help businesses understand how customers find their products and services. It gives you a recommended word count, feedback on readability, and an overall optimization grade based on keywords and subtopics covered.
Programmatic advertising.
Programmatic advertising means using AI to automate ad buying so you can target more specific audiences. Real-time bidding, for example, is a type of programmatic ad buying. This automation is much more efficient and fast, which means higher conversions and lower customer acquisition costs.
Chatbots
Chatbots will continue to be an important part of digital marketing in 2021. This AI-based technology uses instant messaging to chat in real-time, day or night, with your customers or site visitors. Many customers prefer interacting with chatbots as they are responsive 24/7, give answers promptly, accurately recall your entire buying history, and never lose patience. These virtual assistants offer outstanding customer service by meeting customers’ expectations and automating repetitive tasks – which means that you can focus on more important work.
Conversational Marketing
With all that talk about chatbots, the reality of modern marketing becomes clear: it’s more conversational. People want it that way, and so brands are reacting. When consumers have a question, 82% want an “immediate” response. Conversational marketing facilitates a one-to-one, real-time connection between marketers and customers. Unlike traditional strategies, this form of marketing is now available across multiple channels, allowing brands to meet customers on their terms: on the devices, platforms and time schedules that suit the customer best.
Personalization
If you want to stand out in 2021, you need to personalize your marketing – and that means personalized content, products, emails, and more.
- 63% of consumers are highly annoyed with generic advertising blasts
- 80% say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences
- 90% claim they find personalization appealing
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing that focuses on using key leaders to amplify your brand message to a larger market. Influencers can be well-known celebrities, but more often they are Instagram or YouTube personalities with a huge niche following who can help spread the word about your business or product through their social channels. Because influencer marketing is generally more authentic than corporate advertising:
- 63% of consumers trust influencers’ opinions of products much more than what brands say about themselves
- 58% of people have bought a new product in the past six months because of an influencer’s recommendation
Social Messaging apps
1.3 billion monthly users are active on Facebook Messenger.
- 10 billion messages are sent between people and businesses on Facebook Messenger every month.
- WhatsApp has 1.6 billion active users and 55 billion messages are sent every day.
- The top three social messaging apps – WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat – have more combined users than Facebook or YouTube.
These statistics show the popularity of social messaging apps, and since people are spending more time messaging each other, it makes sense to market your company’s products and services where your potential customers are hanging out.
Google Lens
Google Lens is a visual search engine by Google, which recognizes objects and landmarks through a camera app. Here’s what you can do when you take a photo of the following items:
- Apparel and home goods: Find similar products and where to buy them.
- Barcodes: Use a barcode to find info about a product, like where to buy it.
- Business card: Save the phone number or address to a contact.
- Book: Get a summary and read reviews.
- Event flyer or billboard: Add the event to your calendar.
Social Commerce & Shoppable Posts
With e-commerce and social media both growing at alarming rates, it’s no wonder brands are using the two together to maximize opportunities for sales. Social media is integral to digital marketing, and visual platforms like Instagram are gold for marketers. Better yet, visual commerce is taking off as more consumers are willing to buy products through ads they see in their feeds. E-commerce brands can create and post interactive ads that allow users to click and shop with ease. Instagram believes this will make it easier for businesses to reach prospective new customers, as it will effectively shorten the sales funnel, giving consumers the instant access they desire.
To conclude, change is an integral part of digital marketing. You must keep looking ahead and strive to embrace new technologies, tools and strategies in order to gain an edge over your competitors. It is integral for digital marketers to always look out for upcoming changes in the industry so they could be possibly the ones to set a trend and make full use of any new technology available.
