8 Marketing Trends to Look Out for in 2020

Over the past 10 years, marketing has changed dramatically. The ways that companies acquire leads today is very different from how they did so a decade ago. For instance, while having a website was certainly nice, most businesses still prioritized more traditional media, like television, radio, and print ads.

Today, establishing a digital presence is central to a business’s success. If you’re still relying on marketing techniques that were popular in 2010, you’re probably not keeping up with your competition. In fact, we’re here to tell you that the hottest marketing strategies of 2019 are already old news. Innovation is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity.

To get ahead of your competitors in 2020, consider these trends:

1. Chatbots…

If your business doesn’t already have a chatbot solution, now’s the time. A recent study found that chat bots could drive $112 billion in retail sales by 2023.

Source

With advances in natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, retail sales from chat bots will nearly double annually — but that’s not all. The automation of customer sales and support processes will also deliver significant cost and time savings to retailers.

2. … And Other AI Technologies

Smarter chat bots are just one example of how AI is revolutionizing the customer journey. Businesses can use AI to optimize marketing campaigns, curate and generate content, and uncover customer insights.

As customers continue to expect quicker response times and instantaneous solutions, leveraging AI is essential to delivering the experience that customers anticipate.

3. Personalized Advertising

Customers are bombarded with substantial amounts of new content and information every day, so marketers need to be more creative than ever to get through to them. Providing information or targeting ads based on a customer’s interests, buying habits, and behaviors is one way of doing so. Sending the right message to the right customer is critical.

According to SmarterHQ, 72% of consumers reported only engaging with marketing messages that were personalized. To tailor your content, collect user data from surveys or studies so that you can create more relevant campaigns.

4. Digital Marketing Growth

Digital marketing is only going to continue dominating the industry. The global digital marketing software space is expected to grow from $37 billion in 2017 to $75 billion by 2022 — at which point around 87% of total marketing budgets will be digital.

Such growth has brought forth agile marketing, the application of a specific agile methodology to measure, manage, and improve the way a marketing team works. Agile marketing’s deliberate experimentation, commitment to customer satisfaction, and focus on frequent releases signifies a break from traditional marketing.

5. Single Marketing Software Provider

With so many digital tools and resources out there, how does a business choose which ones to use? The answer is that they usually don’t choose — the average enterprise deploys an astounding 91 marketing cloud services. This could include everything from Slack, Dropbox, and Google Drive to Facebook, Salesforce, and LinkedIn.

Switching to one software that manages all of these tools and services is highly beneficial. Customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot helps reduce repetitive tasks, streamline marketing efforts, improve accountability, and simplify customer management.

6. Changes to SEO

Changes in search algorithms are profoundly affecting the search results that a user sees. For instance, since more than 60% of Google’s search results are now zero-click, businesses will need to optimize for on-SERP SEO.

Perhaps you’ve never heard of zero-click results, but you’ve certainly seen them — these are the search results that Google automatically provides in an automated snippet. For example, if you type in “how to do digital marketing,” Google will generate its own result that is on the top of the first page of the search engine results page (SERP).

With such a reliable result right in “position zero,” users don’t need to check out the organic search or Google Ads results. Your business will need to adjust its SEO strategy accordingly.

7. Voice-Powered Search

Search engines are evolving in many more ways, so you’ll need to make other changes to your SEO strategy. Around 50% of searches in 2020 are expected to be voice-based, which will lead to a higher number of long-tail keywords and hyperlocal searches. Branded advertising on smart speakers is a great way to take advantage of the voice search phenomenon.

8. Video Content

Content is king, and video is currently in the limelight. In particular, live video will prevail in 2020. Digital Marketing World predicts that by 2021, 13% of all internet traffic will consist of live video.

Prepare for New Marketing Trends in 2020

Clearly, technology and marketing will go hand-in-hand in 2020. If you’re looking to increase your visibility and keep up with most cutting-edge marketing tools and techniques, Ziza Digital is here to help. Explore what we offer on Clutch or Contact us today to learn more about our digital marketing services!