When creating a digital marketing strategy, companies need to pay close attention to world trends, technologies, and techniques. However, it is not easy just to read about upcoming digital marketing trends or follow a list of best practices and make a successful strategy. Companies need to think outside of the box and learn how to take advantage of the newest trends that will turn out beneficial for their businesses. Marketing managers need to know that every business is different and that digital marketing strategies must be unique for each company. Therefore, the company’s digital marketing goals must always be aligned with the company’s overall goals. 

Following the world trends in the digital marketing strategy is beneficial for each company that wants to be one step ahead of its competition. Technology improves on a daily basis and companies need to follow the latest trends in the world of digital marketing if they do not want to fall behind. A successful digital marketing strategy for 2020 includes the following seven most important trends:

1. The Experience of the Customers
2. Employee Commitment
3. Voice Search and Interaction
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Position Zero
5. The Domination of Visuals
6. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
7. The Popularity of Live Video

1. The Experience of the Customers

The newest trend in the creation of a digital marketing strategy refers to the focus on the customers and their experience. Companies can no longer rely on attracting customers through their old marketing strategies. Instead, they need to direct their attention to providing an excellent experience to the customers in order to get them to come back and continue purchasing their products or using their services over and over again.

Nowadays, with the rise of the popularity of online content, customers can read about other customers’ first-hand experiences with the products they want to buy or with the services they want to utilize. Customers are no more passive entities that only believe in what they see in commercials. Instead, they are active researchers who google the internet and gather the information they need. Therefore, companies must begin thinking about offering their customers something that is more valuable than the information they will get online.

Customer experience, also known as CX, is a trend on the rise that companies need to pay attention to, especially if they want to develop a successful digital marketing strategy. By doing so, a great CX will contribute to more satisfied customers and will increase the number of newly-acquired customers. Companies need to focus on their efficiency, knowledge, and friendliness in the online services they offer. Furthermore, they need to enable easier online payment options if they want to improve the overall digital customer experience. To boost a digital marketing strategy, companies must also get up-to-date technology, provide an easy-to-follow mobile experience, create a brand image and make the customer experience personalized and designed according to the latest trends. 

2. Employee Commitment

A trend in the digital marketing strategy is to keep the employees in the company satisfied but also committed to and engaged in their work. Companies that already implement the trend of keeping the customer experience on a high level, need to also pay attention to their employee engagement. In addition to the efficient and friendly service provided by the employees, they also need to show a good attitude, knowledge, and amiability towards the customers.

The face of the company is represented by its employees, therefore employers need to direct their focus on the communication between employees and customers. Getting the employees to love their job will ensure employers that their business will achieve success. For instance, when marketing managers create a digital marketing strategy, they need to love what they do in order to make the strategy a successful one. If they do not feel passion for their job, the strategy will not turn out beneficial for the business in the end. Employers need to make sure that their employees are committed to the company and its mission and values. Therefore, they need to make the employees feel happy at work and as an important part of the company. 

3. Voice Search and Interaction

Voice search and interaction is one of the digital marketing trends for 2019 that plans to continue growing in 2020. Companies need to implement the voice search trend in their content and digital marketing strategy for 2020. Both voice search and voice interaction will continue to improve due to the increased usage of personal assistants such as Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.

The voice search affects mostly the SEO content strategy of a company because the written search will not be the same as the voice search. In other words, the keywords strategy made for written search will not be valid for voice search. As a solution to this, companies will have to either combine both searches and make one keyword analysis for both of them, or make two separate keyword analyses and optimize the content for both. The best option is to optimize the content for both written and voice search. 

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Position Zero

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the voice search trend will affect SEO and the content strategy which forms part of the digital marketing strategy. In 2020, people will begin to change the way they use search engines such as Google. Therefore, businesses will no longer primarily need to aim for getting in the first place in the search engine results pages (SERPS). Google is constantly making changes, so the search and browsing behavior is also changing consequently. Furthermore, businesses will need to focus on getting at the top of the SERP, right above the organic results. 

The featured snippet which is located at the top of the SERP is called Position Zero (also known as “Quick Answers”, or answer box). To get in the Position Zero, businesses need to work on their organic SEO. Google generates the results organically, searches for offered answers to the question programmatically, picks the best one and displays it in the Position Zero of the SERP. To be even considered as a candidate for the Position Zero, businesses need to be ranked in the first five results of the first page of search results. Moreover, the information must be relevant and it is a great advantage if the content is displayed in formatting useful for the searchers.

5. The Domination of Visuals

With the rise of voice search over the written search, the visuals and design become as important as the written content. Therefore, the newest trends for creating a digital marketing strategy in 2020 require companies to include more and more visuals in their articles and websites than before. Proof that people like more visuals than written content can be found in the increased usage of image-focused social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. Visuals nowadays are considered as the preferred option because it is easier to remember a visual than an entire written article. Therefore, including visuals, images, infographics, and videos in addition to the text on your website will bring advantages to the company’s digital marketing strategy in comparison to the competition. 

6. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Believe it or not, artificial intelligence (AI) will help with the development of a digital marketing strategy in 2020. So far, AI has marked an extreme advancement in the past few years and it has delved into many parts of the companies. AI is the technology that contributed to the existence of voice search, smart assistants, chatbots, etc. The number of businesses that use AI for these purposes has increased over the years. In 2020, businesses will continue implementing AI in the digital marketing strategy of a company, thus creating a better customer experience and a database for the company’s customers and their needs. However, companies need to remember that this technology can serve as an enhancement of human efforts, not as a replacement of the human force entirely. Read more about the battle of the future between machines and humans.

7. The Popularity of Live Video

When creating a digital marketing strategy, companies need to know that videos are an inseparable part of the strategy, if they want to follow the latest trends. In the last few years, videos were very popular among consumers who wanted to learn more details about new products. However, in 2020, people are expected to watch more live videos than pre-recorded ones. And why is that? That is due to the fact that people have an inner desire to always be the first that get new information. Live videos give the audience the opportunity to actively participate in the fresh and exciting news they are about to watch, rather than just sit and passively watch pre-recorded videos. Nowadays, Facebook and Instagram are the two social media platforms that have an audience that is actively participating in live videos. And this is just the beginning. 

Sources:

• marketinginsidergroup.com/marketing-strategy/2020-marketing-trends-you-need-to-know/
• socialmediatoday.com/news/why-visual-search-will-be-one-of-the-biggest-digital-marketing-trends-of-20/545999/
• pwc.com/us/en/advisory-services/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-customer-experience.pdf
• pcmag.com/article/357520/the-best-smart-speakers
• blog.reputationx.com/what-is-position-zero-seo
• smartinsights.com/tag/digital-marketing-trends-2020/
• 99designs.com/blog/marketing-advertising/digital-marketing-trends/
• likesfarm.com/blog/2019/05/14/how-often-does-google-update-its-algorithm/

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Digital marketing marks a prominent and progressing development among companies that want to keep up with the latest trends, thus making our lives more comfortable and enjoyable. Development of technologies and digital marketing innovations are just some of the things that will make a rising trend in the very near future. 

Online marketing is the marketing of products or services that use digital technologies on the Internet. The digitized marketing has become more and more utilized by businesses ever since people had begun spending their time on the Internet. Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the following online marketing tactics: websites, blogs, eBooks, social media channels, brochures, and more.

Five of the most distinguished marketing trends that are already happening are:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Chatbots
• Voice Interaction
• Video and Live Streaming
• Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

AI Is the Newest Digital Marketing Trend

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the newest digital marketing innovations that will continue to rise in the future and will intend to improve companies’ strategies for creating personalized buyer profiles. AI is supposed to direct its focus on customer segmentation, retargeting, click tracking and push notifications, in order to create profiles for their current and potential customers. 

With the help of AI, businesses can implement personalization as the leading marketing online strategy. Instead of focusing on creating experiences for different groups of people, companies that chose to use AI will be able to create unique and personalized experiences for individuals.

When implementing the AI in a digital marketing strategy, you first need to define your goals and identify the channels you want to use. The AI can be applied as a tool for campaign optimization, product recommendations, as well as for increasing a company’s sales and for improving customer services. 

Supported by machine learning algorithms, Artificial Intelligence helps businesses to learn everything about a certain person. That way, companies can personalize their digital marketing strategy and select the experience that most suits a specific person. With the help of AI, businesses are able to tell the computer which types of information to be taken into consideration when determining a person’s digital experience. 

Although AI has proven to be a very important part of every company’s marketing strategy, many businesses have not been using it very much by now. It is expected that AI will soon be much more implemented as a part of the digital marketing strategies. 

Chatbots Are Still Rising In Digital Marketing

Installing a chatbot on a website is one of the digital marketing trends that continue to rise. Although people are still using social media to communicate with brands, websites that have launched chatbots have proven to be more helpful to users. 

Chatbots are allowing customers to hold a conversation and to get answers to most-asked questions just as they would do from customer support representatives. Moreover, chatbots are a much cheaper alternative to customer service representatives, because customers may use them for getting immediate answers, without wasting their time on waiting.

Voice Interaction Continues To Improve

Another online marketing trend brings increased usage of voice interaction. The technology continues to improve in terms of detecting the fields of natural language processing, as well as in creating conversation interfaces and developing machine learning. That way, virtual assistants are becoming more intelligent and useful to individuals who are using the Internet on a daily basis. 

The voice search can be conducted either from a computer or from a mobile phone, and it provides you with hundreds of results that match your search. However, when using a virtual assistant such as Apple’s Siri, for instance, the voice search may differ from the text-based search, and you will get a few or only one result. Therefore, websites are encouraged to pay more attention to their SEO strategy for voice search and provide two different meta descriptions when creating their websites. 

Video Is Still Booming

The action of watching videos has turned into a daily activity for every individual that uses a mobile device or computer. Since a video is considered a 20th-century medium, digital video marketing is one of the most utilized strategies and one of the trends that will continue to rise. 

Nowadays, individuals prefer to watch videos on their mobile phones or computers, regardless of whether they are using video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Rumble, or one of the social mediums – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Video usage is one of the most effective digital marketing tools that marketers use in order to gain impressive amounts of money. As long as the video production and video fundamentals are adequate, companies can utilize the video as a tool for capturing their brand’s personality and conveying much information to their customers. 

Apart from video usage, a company’s digital marketing strategy also includes implementation of live video streaming. Businesses are already implementing live streaming as a useful and powerful online marketing tool, regardless of whether it is used for video gameplays and Sony’s PS4 game console, or for influencing the public. The live stream is a direct interaction with social media influencers or traditional sources, and it has proven useful when an influencer responds directly to the customer’s comments.

AR vs. VR In Digital Marketing

The Internet marketing strategy may include both the augmented reality (AR) as well as the virtual reality (VR). In augmented reality, users can experience a real-world environment in which the objects are augmented by computer-generated information, while in virtual reality, the reality is generated through the use of a head-mounted device. 

Businesses are expected to continue using both of those realities, regardless of whether they want to implement VR gaming technology or an AR experience as part of their web marketing strategy. It is only left for us to wait and see which reality will prevail in the future.

In the end, you might be wondering which of these digital marketing trends will turn out as a success at the end of this year. What is your opinion? Do you believe that video usage and virtual reality will prevail the habit to read written content or to use chats or not? 

Sources:

cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/blog/digital-marketing-trends-and-innovative-tactics-for-2019/

smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/marketing-innovation/marketing-technology-trends-in-2019/

digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/8-digital-marketing-trends-to-watch-out-for-in-2019

forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/12/05/five-digital-marketing-trends-to-watch-in-2019/#575f45f35468

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