There was a time when concepts like data-driven marketing and voice search engine optimization (VSEO), were some ambitious concepts that bordered on ridiculous. Nowadays, these are some most innovative trends for digital marketing and are among topmost priorities for a lot of business owners.
Also, why wouldn’t these be? After all, if the business has got any intention of becoming competitive in the landscape of the internet, then everyone has to quickly adapt to evolving technology and digital marketing.
As stated by Brian Solis: “Businesses are victims in Digital Darwinism, the consumer behavior when the technology and society evolve faster than the ability to exploit it. All businesses get threatened by Digital Darwinism.”
Here are some best recommended emerging digital trends in 2020 that help businesses not only survive but also thrive in the current innovative environment.
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
If you’ve not realized yet, 2020 could be the year of people waking up to artificial intelligence (AI) domination. AI is now starting to become the heart of a global business, reshaping the future by taking over much of the manpower required by certain industries.
For example, Uber and Microsoft make use of Knighscope K5 robots for patrol parking in outdoor large areas for the prevention and prediction of crimes. These robots can easily read the license plates while reporting any suspicious activities and also collect data for reporting to owners.
You can also rent the R2-D2 type robots for around $7 per hour – less expensive than paying for human security guards.
There are many reasons for organizations introducing AI to their businesses:
- AI allows getting or sustaining competitive benefits
- AI allows stepping in new businesses
- Pressure for reducing costs require use of AI
- Incumbent competitors also make use of AI
- Customers look for offerings that are AI-driven
2. Chatbots Sounding Human and Intelligent
A lot of customers prefer interaction with chatbots as they respond 24/7 and provide prompt answers. They accurately recall the whole purchase history and don’t lose patience.
AI Chatbots – solution to having a 24/7 customer support, offer virtual assistants that provide outstanding customer services after meeting the expectations of customers and also automating repetitive tasks – meaning that you’re able to focus on vital work.
A lot of brands are already using chatbot technology while significantly increasing service levels – unlimited, like the rideshare brand Lyft. You can request Lyft ride through chat (Slack and Facebook Messenger) or voice (Echo, Amazon), and with their chatbot, you know the driver’s present location.
Consumers use the app for selecting the ride type, tracking car location, making requests, and sending friends estimated time of arrival while making payment.
Other successful brands using the technology chatbot include Fandango, Whole Foods Market, Staples, Sephora, Pizza Hut, and The Wall Street Journal.
3. Programmatic Advertising
Programmatic advertising means that AI is used for automation ad buying so allowing you to target more specific audiences. Real-time bidding is an example of a programmatic ad buying type. The automation would be a lot faster and more efficient, meaning larger conversions with lower costs for customer acquisition.
This is changing digital advertising face quite swiftly, and according to eMarketer, around 86.2% of the digital display advertisements in the U.S. will turn programmatic in 2020.
This is how the programmatic advertising works:
- Step 1: Someone clicks on webpage
- Step 2: Now the page publisher puts an ad impression for the auction.
- Step 3: The ad marketplace also holds auction among advertisers who compete for an impression
- Step 4: The advertiser willing to bid the most for the impression wins right for displaying ad
- Step 5: The ad gets delivered to the prospective customer
- Step 6: Customers can click on advertisements and advertisers can convert these in profits through sales!
4. Personalization
Businesses that wish to stand out from the rest in 2020 have to personalize their marketing strategies – meaning they need to have personalized products, content, emails, and much more.
Here are a few personalization stats:
- Around 63% of consumers easily get irritated through generic blasts of advertising.
- About 80% say that they’ll most likely have business ties with companies offering personalized experiences.
- About 90% claim that they find the personalization appealing.
Kevin George from the EmailMonks asserts that “personalized and triggered mails that was based on behavior with 3x higher than batch and blast mails.”
When you’re studying power personalization examples, it would be hard to overlook on Amazon and Netflix with movie titles and tailored products. Few other companies are here that successfully use personalization nowadays.
EasyJet has launched a data-driven email campaign using the travel history of customers with the airline for building more personalized stories, that can suggest where their customers would wish to travel. Around 12.5 million emails were sent, and the results were speaking for themselves. The email campaign had a 25% higher click-through rate compared to a non-personalized email campaign.
Starbucks uses a gamified mobile app that is drawing data such as customer’s locations and buying history for building more personal relationships with their clients, letting them customize their drinks while encouraging further use by having a rewards system.
5. Smart Speakers and Voice Search
Looking at the Voice Assistants, comparison to 2018-2019, the voice search use has considerably increased and companies need to reconsider their current digital marketing strategies. Here are the numbers:
- In 2020, 50% of all searches are done via voice
- 55% of American households will own a smart speaker by the year 202.
- 72% of people owning voice-activated speakers will use the device in their day to day life.
- $40 billion leap is indicated for voice shopping in the year 2022.
Nowadays, AI has gotten smarter with assistants such as Siri, Google, and Alexa with reduced errors.
6. Fintech and Mobile Payments
Currently, companies have access to their finances through cloud services or advanced software for security. A lot of Fintech products have been designed for connecting with the finances of consumers with technology. This is also applicable for B2B (business to business) technologies.
From popular mobile payments applications such as Square (SQ) – Get Report to the investment and insurance companies, Fintech disrupted financial tradition as well as banking industries.
With the Fintech tools, a lot of consumers are easily able to track, manage, and also facilitate personal finances.
7. Deep Learning and Big Data
In the upcoming days, the world’s largest data industry continues to grow exponentially – which is great for marketers – if you’ve got the knowledge to harness big data power. A large part of such a task down with the tools that are used, which is quite challenging for many companies.
Forbes reported that around 78% of organizations either got or still are developing data platforms for managing, analyzing, and leveraging through data. As it isn’t a surprise that the data experts have topped priority lists for a lot of enterprises, with around 41% of the company owners saying that this is currently the most desired hiring skill.
With benefits associated with big data, there is need of companies for leveraging such data for “simplification of tasks that earlier couldn’t get completed through data scientists”. With “such continuous democratization leads to new use cases closer for requirements of business users and also enables fast time-to-time market for AI applications in enterprise.”
The only caution is that with big data growing more powerful, the demands on the ways of managing consumer data by companies increasingly becomes unwarranted. GDPR changes lit touch paper to have a worldwide revolution on data privacy, with California setting for rolling out California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on the 1st of January, 2020.
With the growth of Big Data, Facebook’s Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a new future mantra, privacy – “The Future Is Private”.
He states that in the future everyone wishes to have a social platform that is privacy-focused.
As such, huge data is a sword with both sharp edges, but the one that a lot of digital marketers won’t be able to resist in the near future.
