With the new year and a new decade fast approaching, it’s time to start planning your digital marketing strategy for 2020. To keep up with the competition, it’s important to be aware of all the up and coming trends which, in this tech era, are constantly changing. We have boiled down the main talking points to take a look at six of the biggest digital marketing trends for 2020.
Perhaps the biggest digital marketing trend for 2020 will be the boom in popularity of interactive content. Across all online and social media platforms, features such as polls, interactive maps, shoppable content, 360 videos and quizzes are a brilliant way to get your audience to interact directly with your brand.
Not only does this make your digital content more unique, it is also very effective in boosting your digital PR efforts as it provides you with valuable content to promote. It makes your content more shareable and engaging which will, in turn, boost the digital reach of your company. Even more than that, it offers a more personalised user experience, which leads us into our second digital marketing trend for 2020…
Related article: What is Digital PR and How Are Brands Using It?
It’s no secret that the average human attention span is small, so to have the best chance at engaging a consumer, your digital marketing content should provide a personalised user experience that directly connects with them as an individual. Effective digital and content marketing will convert your visitors into customers!
Bigger brands have been meeting this demand for a while – Spotify, for example, provide listeners with their ‘Spotify Wrapped’ every December, while Amazon uses its algorithms to make highly personalised recommendations to shoppers.
In 2020, we hope to see smaller brands taking advantage of this trend for personalisation, whether that’s through targeted advertising, using recommendation algorithms on an e-commerce site, or simply more one-to-one engagement with social media users.
Achieving a successful personalised user experience is becoming easier and easier as the demand for this trend increases. With advances in AI, it has never been more straightforward to connect personally with the consumer. For example, communication has gone beyond generic newsletters to chatbots, which allow an individual conversation over social media.
The coming year is certainly going to see an increase in the importance of integrating multiple marketing strategies. SEO will remain essential for increasing organic and quality traffic to your website but, with so many other companies out there competing for consumer attention, no-one can afford to be a one-trick pony. We expect that more brands will invest in an integrated digital marketing strategy which includes multiple aspects of digital marketing which work for them.
In 2020, the key to success will be investing time into content, social media, SEO, paid search advertising and email marketing, to name a few. Plenty of these can also be aided with ever-evolving digital tools so that focussing on multiple aspects does not need to take up all of your time.
Another key digital marketing trend that will be evident in 2020 is the rising popularity of streaming and live video across social media platforms. Businesses that use platforms such as Instagram stories and IGTV can capitalise on engaging with their consumers. It’s important to have an advertising strategy that is prominent in areas with the highest consumer viewing times. This includes streaming sites and social media.
Furthermore, there is research that suggests consumers are likely to watch live videos on social platforms for far longer than they watch recorded material. The beauty of live streams and stories that last for a limit of (usually) twenty-four hours is that they add an element of FOMO (fear of missing out) and therefore keep consumers regularly engaging with your brand’s content.
We’ve all seen the statistics telling us that voice search and the Internet of Things are completely taking over from more ‘traditional’ uses of technology. With many households containing an Alexa, Siri or Google Voice device and continuing to embed these technologies further, there is a big space for digital marketing here.
However, it’s not yet time to commit all of your marketing resources to voice search. While some predictions are suggesting that up to 50% of searches will be via voice in 2020, we’re a little sceptical that voice search is actually growing this fast. At the moment, people mainly use it for quick queries rather than more in-depth research. Plus, most people are still unlikely to make voice searches in public spaces.
Having said that, it is definite that these technologies, which are constantly improving with the help of AI, will continue to grow. As long as are gradually making sure your website is voice-search friendly, you should be fine!
Related article: How to Optimise Your Website for Voice Search
This decade has seen the boom of the celebrity influencer, with companies paying huge sums to well-known figures, such as the Kardashians, to endorse their product or service. What we have seen a shift towards in recent years is businesses getting involved with smaller-scale influencers as part of their digital marketing strategy, and this is sure to grow in 2020!
Whilst their follower count may be drastically smaller than Ronaldo or Ariana Grande, micro-influencers allow companies to reach smaller but more targeted audiences. Many micro-influencers will have a particular area of interest, such as sustainable fashion or vegan food, so brands can seek out those accounts or blogs that are relevant to their key USPs.
Moreover, consumers are constantly highly rating credible recommendations as reasons for buying into a product or brand. This digital marketing trend reflects the consumer desire for more personalisation and will ultimately convince the consumer to place more trust in your brand by hearing endorsements from smaller influencers that they can relate to, rather than mega-celebrities. For many consumers, getting a recommendation from a micro-influencer is like getting a recommendation from a friend.
We hope this has given you an insight into some of the biggest digital marketing trends for 2020. Now is the perfect time to get ahead of the pack with a digital marketing strategy for the coming year!
HS.