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How Digital Marketing Will Change in the 2020s

How many times have we marveled at how a product or service we were discussing with friends or family, or even just thinking about has shown up on our social media feeds, with an option to buy? Equal parts convenient and fascinating, the data gathering and analysis underlying such occurrences is integral to digital marketing.

Targeted marketing

With our digital footprints being ever-increasingly detailed, and media and IT conglomerates making data sharing across platforms seamless, the opportunity to really drill down audiences in the market for various products and services is truly endless. The future here looks like me being able to find exactly that item I have in my head, without an excruciating search process and numerous dead ends.

Personalization really is the name of the game, rendering the mass-marketing techniques of yesteryears obsolete. To take full advantage of this, marketers ought to deploy tools for effective data gathering and analysis, which then inform marketing strategies. After all, it is a telling statistic that 80% of consumers prefer doing business with entities that offer personalized services.

Micro-influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is already making waves across industries, as this avenue encourages niche marketing and sponsorship.The appeal of influencers lies in the authenticity they represent as they show audiences the inner workings of their lives and connect with followers through common interests. This is a platform that will become increasingly important, with 70% of today’s teenagers having more faith in influencers than in celebrities, illustrating the power of influencer endorsements.

The future of digital marketing in this sector will emphasize micro-influencers who have fewer followers but a more targeted reach, translating into better engagement, as these influencers are able to better connect with their followers and generate content that is highly relevant to them.

So how do you make sure you don’t miss the boat on this one? Do your research on the influencers whose platform is most suited for your brand, and establish working relationships with them for one-off or longer-term promotions across their social media channels. The very first step here should be to familiarize yourself with the influencer’s work to determine if it really is a persona you are comfortable being associated with your brand, as they will serve as a spokesperson of sorts for your organization.

Unlike working with contractors and employees, influencers expect somewhat varying levels of autonomy in content creation; this is in the interest of brands as well, as it helps ensure that sponsored content is in tune with the influencer’s online persona, making it an easier sell and not coming off as a marketing gimmick. The fast-changing landscape of social media means that it is vital to stay up to date on the work of the influencer you’re partnering with, not only with regards to your contract but also looking at the entirety of their work. To stay up to date with the latest trends and rising stars on social media, a regular scan of new platforms and influencers gaining momentum in your industry will become even more important, to keep partnerships fresh and to widen your reach through such marketing.

Niche social media channels

As the community of influencers changes rapidly, so do the platforms they use. Alternative channels like TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Medium, and Reddit, are seeing higher usage rates. While Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube remain the big fish in this pond, marketers should be paying attention to other platforms as well, considering how they may find their audiences there too. We are also likely to see a continued focus on social media analytics and evaluation, with more sophisticated measurement tools taking the market by storm.

Interactive content

Interactive content is taking over, leaving traditional content behind; a trend we will only see more of. This user ability to manage their experience and personalize the content they’re exposed to will pave the way for the future of digital marketing. Creating fun and engaging interactive components like polls and quizzes for instance, is already important, and will become even more so as brands need to differentiate in an increasingly competitive market.

Here are some ways that interactivity will become front and centre of digital marketing efforts of the 2020s:

Social commerce / Shoppable posts

Currently, more than half of the buyers out there, research their prospective purchase on social media. It should come as no surprise that allowing customers to shop directly through a social media platform, without leaving the app, will become more common and heavily used.

To best utilize this feature now and in the future, companies must focus on creating a smooth end to end purchase experience that is quick, easy to use and enhances the likelihood of a completed sale.

Voice search

The prediction that more than 50% of searches this year will be voice searches (as per ComScore) demonstrates that while this technology has been around for some time, its usage has gone up significantly recently and will continue to do so. As voice-activated devices like Alexa, Siri and Google Voice become more prevalent and accurate, it will become vital to include voice search in digital marketing planning, and to optimize content for voice search. This may necessitate use of long-tail keywords, and long-tail search queries for search engine optimization, to correspond with how people search by speaking i.e. in a conversational tone, rather than how they would type.

Chatbots

With 80% of businesses looking to incorporate chatbots this year, and an estimated annual savings of $ 8 billion from 2022 onwards attributed to chatbots, it makes good business sense for chatbots to become central to digital marketing. Customers also find chatbots easier to use, responsive at all hours, prompt and accurate, making them even more viable.

Visual search

Image search, available on Google and Pinterest is a visual tool that enables users to take pictures of things and places to find out pertinent details about them, such as where to find what’s in the image, and where similar objects may be available. This will drastically change how users search; and digital marketers would do well to ensure content is tailored to be visually searchable, to avail of this huge opportunity.

AI and automation

AI and automation, having taken over many roles already, is set to play a vital role in digital marketing, so it’s advisable to begin incorporating it, if you haven’t already. AI not only offers companies competitive advantage and the opportunity to move into new businesses areas, it can also help reduce costs and meet demands of consumers seeking AI-compatible products and services.

Additionally, AI can support personalized marketing efforts by collecting improved customer data and enhancing how it’s used. One example of this is the way in which AI can inform video creation, by better understanding viewer behaviour. It also facilitates smoother customer experiences through the use of predictive technology that directs marketing more effectively.

Video

A well-thought out video strategy will also become increasingly important, as consumers gravitate towards audio-visual content. The years to come will be an opportune moment to test out different video styles that cater to the various audiences you seek to engage.

Similarly, the popularity of vlogging is on the rise, given the direct, personal and empathetic nature of this channel. In the 2020s, plan for being able to live-stream events and shoot behind the scenes content, strengthening your relationship with customers, solidifying brand image and better engaging audiences in the process.

Neuromarketing

It’s predicted that neuromarketing will soon become a potential digital marketing tool. This is a method of “analysing measurements of a person’s brain activity to determine which types of content are ENGAGING to them” through the use of complex algorithms, neurometrics and biometrics that accurately measure the emotional responses that content generates, and the attention that its garnering. This can have widespread implications for marketers’ ability to create content that is provably engaging to target audiences and to tailor marketing strategies based on the neurological responses of content consumers.

A word of caution

Data collection on such a wide scale as we`re seeing has implications for stereotyping audiences based on race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, religious affiliation, education level and various other markers of identity. Thus, the tools we use to shape digital marketing will have an essential role to play in avoiding typecasting people or reducing them to labels to predict behaviour; instead, these tools must account for the complex, multi-layered ways in which people make market choices. In addition, compliance with consumer privacy and protection regulations must be stringently maintained, to ensure client rights are protected. Such practices have an added advantage in that they build trust with your audiences, enhancing brand loyalty and supporting positive brand association.

Conclusion

Finally, technological advancements abound, there are nevertheless some marketing tools that will remain relevant, such as paid and organic search campaigns and interactive email marketing. While it’s important to have the right tools in your toolkit, an overarching marketing and media strategy will still remain essential. Technology aids the expertise social media professionals bring, but it does not replace it now or in the decade to come; that is to say, what digital marketing tools offer in terms of efficiency and higher productivity is complemented by the communications experts working behind the scenes. So while we may see more automation, this will create capacity for digital marketers to implement more complex and multifaceted communication strategies, rather than making them obsolete.

In conclusion, the challenge for digital marketers of tomorrow will be to effectively balance current and proven marketing tools with the exciting new innovations coming down the pipeline to implement marketing that is of better quality, more engaging, precisely targeted and able to meet and exceed KPIs.

Sources

https://www.sociallyinfused.com/social-media/social-media-tools-you-need-to-try-in-2020/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/02/03/2020-trends-in-digital-marketing/#2fb3799a2f03

https://medium.com/@bizsites/the-future-of-digital-marketing-whats-new-in-2020-6d13010fb37e#:~:text=Chatbots%2C%20while%20kind%20of%20old,statistics%20for%20AI%2Dbased%20technology

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