What are the Key Marketing Trends in 2020?

To stay on top of your marketing game, you should adapt to the ever-evolving changes in marketing trends. The marketing technology landscape is changing fast and a new generation of innovative products and services are powering modern marketing in ways never imagined. In this post, we have compiled a few dominating marketing trends in 2020.

10 Latest Marketing Trends You Should Follow in 2020

Let's dive into the latest marketing trends which will be going to dominate the market in 2020

1) Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the marketing world and will be at the top of the list of marketing trends in 2020. A lot of the marketing technology you use today including marketing automation and advertising is powered by Artificial intelligence. Marketers knowing or unknowingly are adopting Artificial Intelligence-powered execution. A MarTech stack powered by Artificial Intelligence is bound to deliver superior results for marketers.

In early 2019 Harvard  Business Review seconded the prediction given by Gartner analyst a few years back that ‘AI technology will penetrate all sectors by 2020.' The current scenario is that 47% of digitally mature organizations have defined & incorporated Artificial Intelligence in their digital marketing strategy (Source). In fact, opting for AI will be one of the most ruling marketing trends in 2020

In marketing, some of the practical implementations of artificial intelligence include:

• AI-Powered Chatbot
• Predictive Content Creation & Curation
• E-commerce Optimization 
• Digital Advertising
• AI-powered ABM 
• Hyper-Personalization of Communications
• Predictive Marketing Based on Past Behavior
• Implementing and Optimizing ‘Voice Search Queries’

2) Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing is another tool that needs to be part of your Maretch stack in 2020. The concept facilitates a real-time one-to-one connection between marketers and customers. People seek an instant response to their queries when they have in their minds. A survey by the B2C community concluded that 82% of users want an “immediate” response; indicating that modern marketing needs to power real-time conversations when and where a customer wants.

Chatbots are the best technique to keep your marketing efforts interactive. The AI-powered technology has made it convenient for the website visitors to get intelligent and engaging answers when and where they want. The idea behind conversational marketing is to intensify the user experience with the help of a feedback-driven mode, enabling higher engagement and loyalty. 

Some interesting stats 

Top benefits of chatbots are 24-hour availability (64%), instant responses to inquiries (55%), and answers to simple questions (55%)

63% of respondents prefer messaging an online chatbot to communicate with a business or brand

See here in this example, AI-based chatbot is assisting the customer in finalizing his pizza order. The chatbot is suggesting him option, based on his past orders with dominos. 

3) Personalization

Personalization is key to generate maximum conversation from your online assets by providing relevant content/information to visitors/prospects. Whether it’s a website, email campaign or online buying, everyone expects a personalized experience. Most of the businesses are already inclined towards it and many will surely consider this marketing trend in 2020.

Personalized marketing is all about collecting good quality demographic and behavioral data of prospects and customers and using it to provide highly relevant and engaging communications. Netflix and Amazon are the best examples to start with. Consider their tailored recommended products or movie titles to all visitors/subscribers.

“personalized, triggered emails based on behavior are 3x better than batch-and-blast emails.” - Kevin George from EmailMonks

Another remarkable example demonstrating the power of personalization is Cadbury’s personalized video campaign in Australia. The campaign was based on the information (age, location, and preferences) they collected from the Facebook profiles of their users. The results were astonishing; the campaign generated a 65% increase in click-through rate and a 33.6% increase in conversion rate.

4) Messaging Apps

If you think social messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. are just for personal messaging with your friends, then you are wrong. Interacting with business is as convenient as with your friends over these messaging apps. 

Adoption of Messaging Apps in Business

Using social messaging apps for one-to-one interaction with customers will be another booming marketing trend in 2020. These social messaging apps are already contributing a lot in personalized marketing and are expected to do more in the coming years. Sending direct messaging or responding to chat apps adds value to customer experience. More and more businesses are building a presence on messaging apps and providing the omnichannel experience engaging with customers through their preferred channel for communication.

5) Content Marketing and SEO 

Content marketing and SEO are a match made in heaven but the 2020 digital marketing scenario will continue to witness the dominance of content marketing on SEO. The experts still believe that it is better to implement a balanced content marketing strategy, instead of emphasizing solely on old school SEO tactics, to grow your business.

Providing relevant content to your audience through blogs, whitepapers or webinars can generate 126% more qualified leads than those who ignore to invest in content marketing strategy.  

“rather than chase the latest SEO trends, it’s more important to ensure a site has fast speeds, useful links, and well-written content.” - John Mueller from Google

An astonishing,  88% of B2B content marketers believe that creating & distributing relevant content convinced their audience to develop higher credibility and trust in their organization. 

6) Interactive Content

One of the fastest-growing digital marketing trends is interactive content. It allows users for active engagement and to be an integral part of the two-way experience. Marketers are already leveraging interactive content to help prospects make their buying decisions and in 2020 this marketing trend will accelerate. For example, think about:

• Augmented reality ads
• 360-degree videos
• Embedded calculators
• Live Webinars
• Quizzes, and Gamification
• Interactive Infographics

The audience engagement is higher with interactive content. Some interesting stats

• 63% of marketers said they are using interactive content to educate their audience 
• 93% of marketers believe that interactive content performs better versus static content
• There is a 33% increase in the number of interactive posts over social media
  Source: TopRankBlog

7) Voice Search Strategy

The voice search technology is on the rise and will continue to rise even in the coming years. The increasing number of voice search users will force marketers to re-design their marketing strategies for 2020.

With evolving artificial intelligence technology the voice assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google have improved a lot and have greatly reduced search result errors. Check out these stats to know how voice search will affect your industry:

• The total voice searching user base among US adults is 42.7%.
• 20% of queries on Google’s mobile app and Android devices are voice searches
• By 2020, 30% of web browsing sessions will be done without a screen
• 55% of all American homes will own a smart speaker by 2022
• 72% of people who own voice-activated speakers say that their devices are used as part of their daily routines

Source: 99firms

Being faster, accurate and convenient, voice search improves the user experience. That means if you optimize your website for voice search, you will have brighter chances of showing up on the top results produced by voice assistants. 

8) Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a progressive version of word-of-mouth marketing that emphasis using key industry leaders to escalate your brand message to a larger audience. Influencers can be famous silver-screen celebrities. But lately, some LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube users have built a huge niche following. These online industry-specific personalities are influencers who can spread your business through their social channels. The coming year will witness the dominance of local influencers over celebrities, and this marketing concept will be one of the key marketing trends in 2020.

Because influencer marketing is considered more honest and real than corporate advertising:

• 63% of consumers believe in influencers’ opinions about the brand than what brands say about themselves.
• 17% of businesses spend more than half of their online marketing budget on influencer marketing. 
• 89% of marketers admitted to getting better ROI from influencer marketing in comparison to other marketing channels.

Source: Influencer Marketing, BigCommerce

9) Geo-Fenced Marketing

The location-based marketing idea - Geo-fencing is nothing new for marketers. We expect a significant increase in the usage of geofencing marketing trends in 2020 and beyond. According to a survey report published by Market Search Future - geofencing marketing is expected to reach $2.4 billion by 2023 – along with the rise of mobile users. 

When you combine personalization and location-based targeting the results can be very powerful. Imagine knowing someone’s personal preferences from their social media accounts and using that to serve ads that are most relevant to them as they are walking through a mall.  

10) The Next Generation of Marketing Analytics

The customer journey has become more complex in this omnichannel age. An average consumer engages multiple times with a brand before they make a purchase. With multiple channels to manage and to keep track of, the tracking & analyzing seems to have become a monstrous job. 

Measuring results and being able to attribute them accurately has been and will be of tremendous importance. More investment will be made in the analytics and businesses will explore something beyond the basic analytics. Advanced Business Intelligence solutions that help in better decision making are going to see a rise in 2020.

According to Neil Patel the BI solutions are -  “A central place where you can tie in all your data and make better-informed decisions so you can optimize for your lifetime value instead of your short-term income.”

Get Ready For 2020!!

Make sure you start the new year with a clear marketing plan on the board to ensure your business's online success. For any assistance with the implementation of the above mentioned digital marketing trends, you can set up a  quick consultation session with our experts. Write to us at info@growthnatives.com.