8 Digital Marketing Trends in 2020

by Dave Brown Writer

Digital marketing has shifted a lot in the past few years. Online and digital businesses are adapting to new trends and testing more advanced techniques to attract customers. A marketing strategy that may have been effective in 2018 may no longer work because the digital media has advanced.

In this blog, we look at 8 new digital trends in 2020 that can help your business attract and retain an audience.

Social Media is Booming

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc are booming. The availability of smart mobile devices, communication technology and apps have brought social media into the hands of almost everyone.

Today, social media platforms are actively used by an estimated 3.5 billion+ people around the world. Platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter etc are very popular with users of all ages. They are a great source of news and entertainment content.

If your business is not on social media platforms, you are definitely missing out. Get in the marketing game by creating business profiles for at least 2 to 3 platforms to get the word out about your offerings.

Which platform you choose depends on your industry and business location. So make sure to do some research before you start advertising on digital platforms.

Personalization is a Must for Marketing

Previously, marketing content was designed for millions of viewers. This was easy to accomplish and didn’t cost a lot of money. But this approach lacked a personal touch. Both the customers of a business and people who were not interested in the products were delivered the same kind of marketing content.

Things have changed now. Businesses can now design their marketing content based on the type of interactions they have had with their visitors and customers. You can now personalize the messages you deliver to customers by analyzing and understanding demographics, past customer behavior and purchase habits.

More personalized messaging will help your customers build a better connection with your business and lead to more sales. When your content adapts to each client’s individual preferences, it is more likely to get you conversions than mass marketing ever did.

Effective Sales Funnel are Becoming Critical

Sales funnels are meant to build content different stages of a customer’s journey. A visitor who has just landed on your site for the first time is going to see your business differently than a regular customer. You can’t attract both of them with the same type of sales content.

Sales funnels let you adjust your layout, design and even content based on where your visitors are in their interaction with your digital store.

One thing you can do here is to diversify your content. Try to cover as many topics as you can and address concerns that your readers might have. You can use images, animations, infographics, videos, and podcasts to diversify your digital marketing content.

There is Greater Emphasis on Offering Value

The main purpose of digital marketing is to create trust and brand recognition. Your goal should be to build long term relationships with your audience to a point where people want to read your content and listen to what you have to say.

Once you have built a reasonable number of customers who like your brand, getting customers to buy from you is a much easier task.

One of the most effective ways digital marketers build trust is by offering valuable content. For example, it has become common practice to offer tutorials and how to articles on various gadgets in the tech industry. Several DIY businesses produce content on how to build home improvement items. Spice and herb sellers often publish new recipes on their digital platforms.

All these helpful tutorials teach the audience something new, while making use of the products and services sold by the business. It is a clever way to market your products and services while providing value to your viewers as well.

AI has Become Important for Marketing

The use of AI in marketing has really picked up in 2020, largely due to the pandemic. With more business moving online, developers have come up with sophisticated software that can analyze and predict customer behavior better than before.

AI based marketing tools can be implemented for your social media platforms and blog posts to help you identify how customers find products and services. You can then use this data to promote products that customers are more likely to pick.

Let me give an example here. I usually don’t click on advertisements while browsing through social media. While going through my newsfeed recently, I clicked on a video ad for a bakery cookie that looked really good. As I continued browsing, I immediately noticed that Facebook started showing me more ads for cookies and bakery items.

Facebook, Netflix, Google and other social media platforms are really good at using AI to predict what their users will like and then show content based on that. It is no surprise that these platforms are so addicting and people use them for hours.

Other businesses can also use AI to keep their audience engaged and connected.

Video Marketing is in Demand in 2020

If your business isn’t already using video content for marketing, you should start focusing on it from this year onwards. Text content, as powerful as it may be, simply cannot compete with video content when it comes to selling products and services.

Video content is highly-engaging, especially when it’s live where your audience can interact with your business. Live streaming has proven very powerful in influencer marketing as well.

Take the example of platforms like Twitch that have over 15 million daily active users who tune in just to watch live streaming videos from their favorite content producer.

Marketing researchers believe video has a bigger impact because it engages more of our senses. It is more memorable and a great way to boost sales.

Well Written Content Still Matters

Text based content continues to be an essential component for digital marketers. The quality is still important, of course, but now there's more emphasis on the context and targeting.

Last year, Google announced that it is developing a more sophisticated understanding of online content and how users search for information. Website copywriting services and digital marketers must think carefully about the tone of their content and how they use keywords to tailor content more precisely in 2020.

Voice Searches are Becoming Popular

Verbal interaction with devices has been on an upward swing. Modern adults are used to searching for information on Siri, Google, Alexa, and a host of other ‘smart’ devices and this is something businesses must take account of.

People have always preferred to interact by talking. Electronic machines are now catching up with the way people prefer to search and discover new things.

This presents some interesting challenges for businesses to consider. Searching for information through voice search is different from typing keywords in a query. When you search for information on a text-based search engine, you can get 10 to 20 results on the screen.

But when you ask your device to do a search, your virtual assistant (like Google voice search) will only give you a couple of choices at most.

Businesses must adapt their marketing efforts to become the top choice for online voice searches.

Conclusion

Things are moving very fast in the digital marketing world. Content personalization, AI technology, video marketing, and voice interaction are among the major components in popular trends.

Businesses must be ready to adapt and cannot afford to stand still in this environment. The younger consumers are more tech-savvy and brands must be receptive to adapting new ways of marketing, if they want to make an impact with customers.