Digital marketing is the future of marketing, and it is predicted that conventional marketing channels like television and newspaper are going to die out in the next 20 years. We give them five years at best seeing how fast the digital marketing sector is growing in the modern world – especially when the world is locked down.
We all use the internet and interact with products better when they are promoted on the internet. It is a simple enough phenomenon, and there is no need to act surprised. But what is intriguing is how fast the growing technology has taken over the digital marketing world. The input that is gained from consumers in digital marketing is extensive and covers hundreds of entries, if not thousand.
If the digital marketing realm is going to be fully utilized, then technology will allow the marketer to gain access to actual and actionable insights and develop command execution protocols that are simple and quick.
HABR published research, which states that 84% of businesses are interested in investing in AI for gaining a competitive edge over their competitors for the future of marketing. 59% believe that the modern customer asks for AI-driven options.
All in all, there are many strong reasons to invest in the future of marketing solutions. Here are the top trends to watch out for in 2020:
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The AI technology helps digital marketing systems become automated rather than the marketer scouring through piles of data. The HBAR research also showed that 75% of the businesses believe that they can move into other industries with the help of AI.
The reason for the assumption is that the latest business-establishing processes require extra money for various setups, research, and development. All of these functions become cheaper if AI is conducting most of these functions for your company.
2. Voice Search
Don’t believe in the speaker icon at the corner of Google Search tab, do you? Let us make you a believer! In this year, about half of all searches are expected to be voice searches. By 2022, half of all American homes will have Smart Home devices, and they only operate through voice commands.
Anything that is searched on these devices will have to be explored through voice commands. Around 75% of the owners of voice-activated devices admit to using the devices full time.
Last but not least, voice shopping is at $2 billion right now and is expected to jump to $4 billion by 2022. So that is our evidence for you to invest seriously in voice searches and make sure that all of your content is fully optimized for the future of digital marketing!
3. Social Media
Let’s not fool ourselves; social media was always there even before AI. But previously social media was focused on expression and communication. Facebook statuses and pokes were neat things!
But now, social media is less about self-expression and has grown far more engaged in the concept of mass entertainment. YouTube videos were the beginning of visual content on social media, but now, social media is ruled by visual content. Now that you get to use multiple social media tools to automate your workflow, you have the chance to explore them fully.
4. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing a sure-fire sign of the future of digital marketing. You have to have savvy social skills and a product to promote. If you know of genuine affiliate programs and the techniques applied to promoting them, you can create a business out of it!
The best thing about these affiliate marketing programs is that you earn commission per referral. The more people you bring in to buy a product or service, the money lands in your account without having you to put extra effort into the whole process.
Try Wealthy Affiliate if you’re looking for an excellent affiliate marketing platform to showcase your product line to the best affiliate marketers in the industry.
5. Programmatic Advertising
The ad details that we have to fill on Facebook Ad Manager and other social media platforms is the key player in the success of an ad. It is hard for a marketer to accurately know which parameters are ideal for the best advertising campaigns.
But that problem is solved by programmatic advertising where an algorithm-based system can decide the best time for you to post your ad along with real time bidding options. You will have a highly optimized social media advertising system that will give you near-perfect results in the future of digital marketing.
6. Nano-Influencer Marketing
Nano- influencer marketing is a form of marketing where the influencers having a following of 1000 to 10,000 with highly-engaged consumers are hired to market the services or products. Nano influencers operate for highly specialized niches. These people are running the future of marketing now.
Even though nano-influencers do not have a broad reach, they are trusted by the users. A study has shown that the nano-influencers have a five times more robust engagement rate on Instagram than a regular influencer with more than a million followers.
They are also cheaper and are ideal if the campaign is focused on a particular region and even on a specific niche. You will cover your entire target audience in that scenario with a nice and economic list of local nano-influencers.
7. Video Marketing
Video marketing is the future of marketing in 2020 and beyond. 70% of the consumers admit that they have shared a brand’s video. 72% of businesses have seen their conversion rate grow exponentially after they developed an active video marketing strategy.
52% of the consumers believe more in the product when they watch product-making videos issued by the brand. All in all, stats could not be better.
Video marketing requires that you develop a separate in-house video making team. Even though it is certainly unconventional, to say the least, we believe it to be highly effective in actually engaging your audience and gaining a strong ROI.
8. Visual Search
Visual search is where you can upload an image and see if there are similar images available online. You can simply know all there is on the internet on something by uploading its image. Visual search is the hardcore future of marketing 2020 and beyond.
Presently active visual search mediums are Google Lens, Pinterest Lens, Bing Visual Search Engine, and CamFind, but more will appear shortly. So many companies are investing in the concept because it is gaining steady popularity in the modern world.
9. Content Automation
We believe that content automation is the 10-year birthday gift to digital marketing. Now that digital marketing has been around for a decade, many digital marketers feel that they are drowning in their own content plans.
There is too much content being generated every year, and, surprisingly, much of it is not used correctly. Now, the solution to that problem lies in understanding the system and making sure that the content is appropriately used.
Much of the user-generated content can easily be turned into content produced by the brand and will engage a greater audience. In all of these scenarios, the best course of action is to have a content automation system driven by AI in the future of marketing 2020 and beyond.
It will, mainly, suggest all the essential content that can be recycled or user content that can be turned into a brand focused content. But if AI-based content automation is too expensive, a good digital marketer can recreate the effect quickly.
10. Digital Personal Assistants
The future of marketing is incomplete without them. Digital personal assistants are AI-based software that will work as an assistant to the user in day-to-day life. An excellent and famous example of the phenomenon is Google Assistant, Cortana, Bixby, Siri, Alexa, and many others.
Digital assistants should be used for digital marketing strategies because an excellent digital marketing strategy is comprehensive and all-encompassing. The person ends up executing many marketing plans in a day.
A good virtual assistant will keep you up to date on your digital marketing plans and aspirations. The result will be that you will have an excellent digital marketing execution in place, saving you aligned with the future of marketing now and then.
Conclusion
All in all, modern digital marketing campaigns are evolving at an astonishing pace. The concept of video-based content or image-based searches were not even in the market five years ago.
What makes digital marketing different from its predecessors is an enormous focus on change, the future of digital marketing is driven by technology. And the astonishing pace with which technology has changed in the past decade is not hidden from anyone.
That is why it is exceptionally significant that the digital marketer keeps an eye on the recent developments in the digital marketing field. Many of the trends listed here today came into being two or three years ago.
Content automation, speech recognition based searches, and digital assistants are all extremely new phenomena that are going to dictate the terms of the next decade. The evolution and growth in the digital marketing realm are ever-changing and always surprising. And are the responsibility of the digital marketer.
It is much needed that the modern digital marketer stops catching up to the growth and changes in digital marketing and heads the game by suggesting the various ways in which modern tech can be of assistance to modern digital marketing.
The true potential of marketing strategies has not been fully tapped into by the digital marketing industry, and that can be changed by the focus on enabling the solutions to significant problems faced by digital marketers to mold the future of marketing in 2020 and beyond.
