Digital Marketing is an essential tool for organizations, enhancing an organization’s brand image and raising brand awareness. With an effective execution of marketing or advertising campaigns, there would be a natural increase in demand for the product or service over time. Times have changed for the marketing industry, where there is a wide range of marketing avenues for organizations to choose from and run campaigns.
The fundamentals of marketing still remain; which include crafting messages to attract targeted groups. However, the channels in which these messages can be delivered to the targeted audience have now extended to many variations: SEO optimization, customer acquisition, social media, engagement, retention, pay-per-click, search advertising and more. In order to stay relevant in this industry, businesses would need to keep up with the latest trends and here’s what hot in 2019:
- Facebook & Instagram
We might think that most people have moved on to other social media platforms and seldom frequent Facebook nowadays. However, this notion is not entirely true as Facebook remains the top most popular social media website in 2019 (Lua, 2019). With this said, organizations should still be judicious with their marketing strategy and ensure that their target audience are still on Facebook, otherwise it would be a waste of time and effort, resources that could have been spent in a more effective manner.
Due to the data breach in 2018, many people started to view Facebook as a platform in an unfavourable way. However, this breach did not shift its reputation as Facebook bought over Instagram, which is a popular platform amongst the younger generation. Over time, Instagram has developed to become a favourite choice to share photos and videos.
Check out our blog posts: How Social Media Ads Can Boost Your Digital Marketing Strategy and Attracting customers to your brick-and-mortar stores through Facebook Store Visit Ads
- Utilizing Videos
Platforms such as Youtube or NetFlix are at the top of their game and we can learn from these big corporations. Video is a big trend that will continue on and not cease any time soon. Traditional content that used to be shown on the big screen is now available through a search on their smartphones.
- Live Videos
Organizations can take one step further by live streaming at times, as it can be combined with influencer marketing i.e. celebrities, athletes, and musicians. One approach would be engaging the audience with a high-profile influencer to raise awareness and grab their attention in the midst of their daily activities. Live video is a brilliant approach to Digital Marketing and acts as a valuable tool for organizations.
- Usage of Chatbots
Given the massive shift in technology and AI over the years, organizations have been turning to develop chatbots to avoid the traditional approach of filling the position with a customer support personnel. With this AI in place, chatbots are now able to hold basic conversations with website visitors and answer frequently-asked questions like a real human.
There are many advantages to using chatbots. For a start, chatbots are a cheaper option in comparison to hiring customer support personnel. And chatbots are available 24/7, to answer questions at any time throughout the day. Functions such as providing weather reports, focused interactions with customers are one of the many features that chatbots can execute. This effectiveness is able to propel organizations to greater effectiveness in operations and customer service.
- Content Management is Crucial
Content marketing will continue to be an essential component of digital marketing through time, it serves as a crucial component in organizations. For starters, creating original content would support organizations in improving their online branding and keep themselves relevant by multi-channel campaign management i.e. emails, brochures, RSS etc. Content management will also support organizations in improving or maintaining their search engine ranking on search engine pages, which ultimately results in an increased traffic.
- Personalized Emails
Email marketing has evolved since early times and the key in garnering attention through emails is personalization. Nowadays, businesses are able to customize emails to different target audience based on their interests and re-market their services to meet their customers’ needs. Personalization is only applicable to emails, but to all marketing platforms. Personalization would engage the audience on a deeper level as opposed to traditional marketing.
- Voice Search
With advancements in voice recognition, voice search have become an increasingly popular tool amongst businesses. For instance, we now have smart control devices that can operate home devices through verbal command.
2 main advantages of using voice command for users:
- Voice search brings convenience for people on the move as they can now talk to their phone instead of typing on it.
- Voice search is faster than typing, which also means that people can perform a voice search faster
How voice search would affect businesses:
- Voice search usage is increasing on mobile devices and accounts for 20% of searches on Android devices
- Smart speakers are becoming a popular household item to assist daily operations
- Omnichannel Marketing
Businesses might wonder what is the difference between a omnichannel marketing and multi-channel marketing approach. Essentially, multi-channel marketing was designed to allow customers to communicate with businesses through various channels. Although it was an upgrade from utilizing single channel marketing alone, this approach does not solve consumers’ issues. Omnichannel marketing encompasses a fuller and enhanced experience for prospects as it provides a communication process across all channels and to keep track of these interactions.
