In this internet connected era, we cannot ignore to embrace the dramatic shifts in digital marketing landscape to grow businesses by maximizing customer relationships and conversions. In order to gain a competitive edge in this market, it is recommended to optimize our marketing strategies by adopting these digital trends to the best of our advantage.
In this article, let us explore these trending digital practices to understand why and how we can utilize these innovations for our business benefit.
Artificial Intelligence for Predictive Customer Insights:
With technological giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft investing more and more in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, data intelligence will play a vital role in digital marketing. AI is enabling marketers to anticipate customer buying patterns based on big data analysis. Utilizing data intelligence, marketers are enhancing customer experience with tailor-made content and increased the level of personalization. 86% of the customers agreed that they respond to the personalization for eCommerce purchases and this holds good for buying decisions catering to other sectors as well.
Smart Search with Voice Search:
It is estimated that 50% of all searches in 2020 will be voice searches providing relevant information that people are looking for through audio search requests. Siri, Alexa, Google voice assistants have now achieved an amazing level of accuracy that is encouraging many brands to adopt them in their marketing strategies to drive valuable content to the customers using voice search technologies. In fact, Domino’s pizza is already successfully using this technology for optimizing their sales.
Chatbots for Responsive Marketing:
One of the best ways of leveraging the amazing advantages of digital marketing is to reduce response lag-time. It is an AI-based technology that uses the feature of instant messaging and allows real-time chat at any hour with customers. Chatbots are increasingly being preferred by consumers since they are accurate, prompt, responsive, greater memory and they never run out of patience while answering customer questions. No wonder why almost 1.4 million people are estimated to be interacting with Chatbots and savvy marketers are quick to grab this amazing opportunity.
Leveraging Micro-Moments:
If you are wondering what are micro-moments then let’s turn to Google for its brief definition: ”micro-moment occurs when people reflexively turn to a device—increasingly a smartphone—to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped”
In this age of Google, Amazon and You-Tube where consumers look for information or make a buying decision in a moment with a click of their mobile, marketers have to be ready with Micro-Moments marketing strategies and messaging options.
Virtual Reality for Better Visualization:
Augmented reality enables marketers to create a greater sense of reality visualization for buyers before they make a purchase. Many reputed brands like Starbucks, Ikea, L’Oreal and Nivea succeeded in enhancing the consumer experience with the technology of AR and VR.
Engaging Story Telling with Videos:
In a survey, 70% of the respondents said that they have shared a brand’s video and in another survey 72% of the businesses acknowledged that videos have increased their conversion rates. Major digital platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have witnessed phenomenal engagement with video posting or live video broadcasting. Brands are weaving fantastic stories to create more interactive experiences with the viewers for broader audience reach and traffic boost.
Email Marketing with Data Intelligence:
Personalized emails create wonder in nurturing your prospective customers with the right content and then eventually converting them into your loyal customers. Smart marketers segment their leads based on their behaviors with the help of data and the right tools, then create personalized email content for each category of the audience to improve engagement and subsequently conversion.
Leverage Push Browser Notifications:
It is very common for E-commerce companies to use push browser notifications for retargeting their shoppers. However, this interesting web browser technology can be utilized by other formats of businesses as well in order to communicate with their leads more effectively and bring them back to their moment of purchase.
Social Media Stories for Higher Recall:
Since best of content run the risk of disappearing after a period of time, digital marketers have intelligently introduced the concept of stories to make their brands and services reappear from time to time in an engaging format to the audience. Different stories related to the making of your brand can go a long way in driving awareness, engagement and reviews.
Social Media stories are growing more popular especially after Snapchat first came out with the concept of “My Story” followed by Instagram, Facebook. Even YouTube has joined the wave with introduction of their own story format known as “Reels.” As a result it is important for marketers to integrate this format in their digital marketing strategy.
Visual Search- the Next Level Marketing:
This phenomenon started when Google Lens, a visual search engine that could analyse visual data and perform tasks accordingly was rolled out widely in 2018. Google lens can analyse objects, landmarks and other visual objects through a camera app in mobile phones. Pinterest was the first to grab the visual search technology opportunity and created a lens of their own that will allow users to take pictures of products and search where they can buy such items online. Marketers can get a huge competitive-edge if they are ready to leverage visual search in the times to come.
Our Takeaway:
Digital Marketing will get increasingly personalized and data-driven to drive better results in less time. However, it will keep the marketers on their toes to be on the top of technology, data, and content all at the same time to take advantage of this phenomenon. Time is of the essence and responding to the rapid digital changes promptly is a challenge that every marketer will face today and in the future. It is recommended to be prepared and begin the process of digital transformation selectively with farsightedness and sound digital intelligence.