10 Digital Marketing Trends for 2020 to Help you stay on Track

The ability to adapt to the constantly changing world of digital marketing is essential. Not every craze will stick, and some marketing trends will reap greater rewards than others. But keeping abreast of these developments allows your business to fine-tune its marketing strategy. What might have worked brilliantly a few years ago, may not get the same results for your company now.

To keep you in the loop about what’s trending in 2020, here are 10 digital marketing trends to look out for this year.

1. Chatbots

Chatbots have been around for a while. Many of us have probably had conversations with a virtual assistant (with or without realising it). Using AI to enhance your customer service can be helpful, time-saving and cost-effective. Chatbots can provide a 24-hour service to answer recurring questions and respond instantly to customers. Research predicts that in 2020 chatbots could be responsible for as much as 85% of customer service for many companies.

2. Visual Content & Visual Storytelling

Platforms which focus on visual content will continue to be trendy in 2020. The power of strong, interactive imagery cannot be overlooked, especially for the young adult demographic. Visual social media and channels such as Instagram and YouTube are the primary paths to reaching them. We’ll see more marketers taking advantage of dynamic, custom and branded imagery for their content.

3. High-quality content

Meaningful content creation is more important than ever. In a world overloaded with information, exceptional and useful content is needed to stand out from the masses. The information conveyed should not only display E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness). Like a well-balanced meal, it should contain substantial content presented in an appealing and easily-digestible manner. In other words, significant content given in an entertaining and manageable form.

4. Voice-Powered Search

The prediction is that by 2020, 50% of all searches across the internet will be voice-based. Introduced by Google in 2011, voice search was initially more of an interesting gimmick. However, improvements in speech recognition technology (already 95% accurate on Google) have changed the role of voice-powered search drastically. Current statistics show that 41% of adults use voice search at least once a day. Some of the most common voice searches are asking for music, the weather forecast and “fun questions”. Another important technological contribution is the growing popularity of the smart speaker – making voice-search even more precise and convenient.

5. Personalisation

Consumers have become quite skilled at tuning out advertising that is not relevant to them. Some even become irritated with the constant bombardment of messages. Personalisation, however, has been shown to improve success significantly. Email lists lend themselves well to this and can be divided into segmented lists for personalised email blasts. With the availability of data like purchase history, consumer behaviour and links clicked, targeting your customers more accurately becomes easier. A good example would be an airline using customers’ travel history with the airline to build personalised stories, which then suggest where they might like to travel next. Campaigns like these have a much higher success rate.

6. AI assistance

Using artificial intelligence provides in-depth insights to analyse consumer behaviour and search patterns, helping businesses understand how customers find their products and services. AI increases efficiency in everything we do, from product recommendations, content creation, email personalisation, e-commerce transactions, and allowing us to find more relevant information when searching. It impacts our everyday lives and allows businesses to work smarter.

7. Google Analytics

A highly useful tool such as Google Analytics is aimed at helping you understand your customers better and what they are looking for. Although this kind of data has been available for years, the current trend will be more about improving its efficacy for your specific needs. Google Analytics provides hundreds of different metrics, so the trick is to know what type of data will be the most useful for your purposes. Site search data sheds light on what people are searching for on your site. Knowing where your website traffic is coming from also assists in adjusting marketing strategies, as do metrics about sales conversions, website traffic and page views.

8. Customer retention

One aspect of marketing is gaining new customers and expanding your area of influence as a business. However, your existing customers should never be taken for granted and keeping them happy is the core of your success. Next year especially, customer retention is set to be a top priority for companies looking to keep clients engaged and drive growth. Initiatives like using subscription services, personalisation, and improving overall customer experience and convenience will play a key role in retaining current customers long-term.

9. Social Media Marketing

Social media has grown into an undeniably integral part of people’s daily routines (to the point of addiction for some). Social media is continuously evolving and requires brands and businesses to be in top form 24/7.

Ads and targeting are evolving quickly through the use of AI to ensure the right audience sees your brand and also offers improved insights features. Paid ads have now become a must if you want to get visibility. The commerce side, such as Facebook Marketplace, is becoming the place to sell and buy items within local communities. Short and engaging stories should continue to become more popular and ephemeral content, which is only available for a short time and then disappears, is also a growing trend.

10. Google Ads

Many businesses have long utilised Google Ads. In 2020, there will be an emphasis on marketing performance and Smart Bidding features. Automation is a significant theme, with automation tools being used to a greater extent. New features and innovations are continually being added to Google Ads to enhance effectiveness. From Gallery ads, Shopping ads to Discovery ads reaching audiences across various Google platforms. Further focus will also be given to data analysis, reporting and planning to improve audience targeting.

We hope that our 10 digital trends have provided some inspiration for your marketing approach this year. If you would like to get in touch about enhancing your current digital strategy, please contact us.

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