Marketing has undergone a huge transition over the last decade for businesses. Today, the root of marketing is digital marketing. Digital marketing is evolving rapidly each day too, as businesses need to innovate to beat the competition.
The ultimate aim of digital marketing is to engage customers. Businesses are trying hard to find interesting means of engaging customers, and at the same time making it easier for the customer to know their brand better.
Each year we get to see new techniques and trends in digital marketing gaining traction. As 2020 is approaching, businesses need to plan their marketing strategy now to lead the race.
The best way to approach digital marketing in 2020 is to incorporate new trends getting popular in the market, to your existing DM strategy. Then, check what works better for your business and modify your strategy accordingly.
Here is a list of the latest trends in digital marketing that you cannot afford to ignore in 2020.
Digital Marketing Trends to Follow in 2020
1. Podcasts – a Form of Audio Marketing
A podcast can be defined as a digital audio file or series of such files or a pre-recorded audio episodic series. In digital marketing, podcasts are used to tell your story to consumers. Podcasts have emerged as great digital marketing tools as they provide better customer engagement.
Companies can create their podcasts with ease or even utilize existing podcast series to promote their brand. As customers can easily listen to audio files while they are driving or at work, on their desk or outside, podcasts are gaining immense popularity among the masses.
2. Vlogging or Video Blogging
We already understand the importance of blogging in digital marketing. Now, it has gone a step further to Vlogging. Vlog is the short-form of a video blog or a blog in video form. Recent statistics from Wyzowl show that 87% of businesses now use videos as a marketing tool.
Vlogging is a popular video marketing technique and the latest digital marketing trend now. You can vlog with ease using YouTube. As listening and watching is far easier than reading, the idea of vlogs has already become popular among masses. People now prefer vlogs as they find it more convenient to view video blogs than read blogs.
Summing up, the major benefits of vlogs are that videos are easier to create and view, blogging through videos can increase conversion rates, and videos catch more attention and so reach a wider audience. Vlogs give a natural and involved feel to viewers, creating a direct connection between your brand and the customers.
3. Voice Search Optimization
In 2020, one important digital marketing trend you cannot afford to ignore is voice search optimization of your website and all marketing content.
Prediction statistics from ComScore indicate that 50% of all searches will be done by voice by 2020.
So, the focus of digital marketing in 2020 is to get voice search-friendly. Some easy ways of achieving voice search optimization are creating a mobile-friendly website, adopting local SEO strategy, improving your website loading time, and using simpler language in marketing content.
4. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can simply be described as word-of-mouth marketing. These Influencers can be celebrities or even popular social-media personalities sharing their experience with others. For example, the video of a celebrity mom praising a baby product that she used for her baby can influence her followers and fans to trust and buy the product. This is much more impactful than the company’s advertisements.
Brands have realized the importance of influencer marketing. Relatability has proved to be more important for a consumer than the popularity of the brand.
Edelman report states that 63% of consumers between 18 to 34 years of age, trust influencers’ opinions about a product than they trust the brand’s advertising. According to a MediaKix survey, 89% of marketers have found influencer marketing ROI to be as good or better than other marketing channels.
Check out some good influencer marketing success examples on the HubSpot blog.
5. Social Messaging Apps
Businesses are now adopting social messaging apps to communicate with their customers. These apps allow customers to have direct contact with your business. It is important to add these apps to your social marketing plan for 2020 if you haven’t done this already!
With social messaging apps, customers can get a quick response to their doubts or queries regarding a product or business. This helps businesses build a stronger relationship and trust with the customer and thus get more conversions.
Customers no longer prefer to wait for days for getting their queries solved. Social messaging apps offer them a quick and convenient way to have one-on-one interaction with businesses and make them feel valued.
6. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
Virtual Reality in simple terms is creating a virtual simulation of a real-life environment. In digital marketing, this is now being widely used to make the customer understand what brands are trying to offer, by creating a similar virtual environment for the customer. It helps place the user inside it virtually and the user will feel deeply immersed in this virtual world in a 3-D environment.
Augmented Reality provides your customers with a real-like experience of product try-on. For example, a home improvement store IKEA’s AR app allows customers to place furniture into their homes virtually and see how it would appear. This helps them decide the right furniture to buy.
AR and VR are simultaneously used to give a “mixed reality” experience that entertains the customers and makes them trust your product and brand.
We are a top notch Virtual Reality App development company, create VR Apps for diverse business requirements.
7. Interactive Emails
Interactive emails and email newsletters have become a popular and successful digital marketing trend today. These provide higher customer engagement with ease. The popular elements in interactive emails these days are image carousel or slideshows displaying multiple product items in one screen in promotional emails.
Other interesting trends in interactive emails are the rollover effect to display products and their features from different angles and survey forms in event-triggered emails.
Brands are also using Accordions to create interactive email newsletters that help senders to show different email layouts to web and mobile users to suit the screen size. These help companies display multiple products in a single email newsletter, clubbed with Accordions.
8. 360-Degree Videos for the Real Experience
The 360-degree videos are becoming popular for digital marketing due to the ease of creating these and the interest they generate among customers. These work magically in various industries including travel, retail, real estate, event management, and many more.
A good camera and a nice video-editing software can help brands create their magic with 360-degree videos. With such videos, customers get the feel of being in the showroom and viewing the product in front of them and getting the product view from all sides, thereby increasing the customer’s trust in the product.
When high in quality, these 360-degree videos give magical results in engaging customers compared to regular marketing videos. Watch a 360-degree video of cherry blossoms in Japan and I am sure you will feel like booking the flight immediately!
Wrapping Up
Digital marketing is about going with the flow! While you need to be up-to-date with the latest trends and leverage these, it is also true that the same strategy may not work well for all businesses. There is no perfect strategy and businesses need to try multiple avenues and see what works the best for them.
Adopt and add these trends in your digital marketing strategy in 2020 and watch your business surge more than ever!
