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June 03, 2019

What Is Happening In Digital Marketing in 2019



Technology and digital infrastructures can put businesses ahead of their competition.  This means that as technology is evolving, there is a corresponding increase in the speed of businesses.

Businesses like Foottraffik have to increase their marketing efforts. Marketing has changed a lot in the past few years. It has gone digital, but still, the basic tenets which includes creating powerful messages to attract customers still remains. The change is in the channel or method of delivery of your message and this now comprises  SEO optimization, retention, customer acquisition, engagement, pay-per-click, search advertising, social media, and more.



Businesses that hasten get more customers and profits while leaving the slow-paced competitors behind.

To help your company enter the new level, learn about the new trends and innovations for this year.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is making waves in the marketing world this year as it is being used to power customer segmentation, push notifications, retargeting, click tracking and other tech stuff in a limitless combination of possibilities. AI even helps to create content.

AI works for your digital marketing portfolio based on your goals and channels. If you have not started working with digital marketing teams and partners who know and use AI in their marketing intelligence and delivery systems, you're far behind.

AI helps to both increase your sales and improve your customer service.

According to a Forrester’s Global State of Artificial Intelligence Online Survey, 57% of businesses resort to AI to improve their customer experience and support while 44% are using AI to provide the ability to better existing products and services.

One of the ways artificial intelligence achieves growth goals for businesses is through personalization. Businesses have the opportunity to personalize their marketing to each lead to transform them from a marketing qualified lead (MQL) to a sales qualified lead (SQL).

In another online marketing survey, a large percentage of marketers believe that AI is currently delivering personalized headlines and advertising copy. It is also delivering personalized advertising design formats and initiating personalized advertising creative. Some others believe that by 2020, AI will deliver real-time personalized advertising insertions.

Chatbots

Human beings are social animals and therefore love to express themselves. This is the reason why many social media networks are popular. Constantly engaging in social media is not the only way to be closer to your customers, you can also install chatbox to interact with your website visitors on their terms.

With the improvement in artificial intelligence over the years, chatbots have improved by having the ability to hold a basic conversation with visitors and answer most frequently asked questions just as a live human customer support representative would.

Omnichannel Marketing

Consumers do not wait up on only one outlet to find information, they do it through many channels. In the beginning, multichannel marketing was introduced to give prospects a chance to communicate with several business through various channels.

For instance, prospects can be introduced to your business through Twitter (News - Alert), Facebook ads, or stopping by your brick and mortar store. Email subscribers can communicate through email and website visitors can communicate through chat or comments.

But even though multichannel marketing was a step up from single channel marketing, it didn’t solve consumers’ problems.

That’s why omnichannel marketing provides a better experience for your prospects.  It provides a seamless and consistent communication process to prospects and customers across all channels.

For instance, you may start interacting with a customer on a social media network and then it continues through your SEO rankings and eventually through email. Eventually, you get the prospect on the phone which turns into a sales qualified lead.

The main aim of omnichannel marketing is to keep track of the prospect’s interactions even though they’re interacting with you through different channels. In turn, your customers will be impressed that you’re paying attention to the details about your previous interactions and that you really care.

Research by Invesp shows that companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain on average 89% of their customers compared to 33% customer retention rate for companies with weak omnichannel strategies.

To implement omnichannel marketing for your business, find a customer relationship management (CRM) program that helps you to keep track of your interactions with customers on different platforms.  This helps you move your prospects effectively through the sales funnel even when your prospects are communicating on many channels. With the use of omnichannel marketing, Net-a-Porter achieved a 16.9% year-over-year growth to create revenues in excess of $3 billion in 2017.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and PWA

Search engines drive a huge amount of traffic, especially on Google (News - Alert), and about 60% of search traffic on Google comes from mobile devices.  As a website’s load time increases, its bounce rate increases which could negatively lead to a lower Google ranking.

This need for speed led to the AMP project initiated by Google. AMP pages load in less than 0.5 seconds creating a lower bounce rate for your page.

Even though Google has not listed AMP as a ranking factor, the lower bounce rate as a result of using AMP is a positive sign. Currently, there are more than 4 billion AMP pages on the web.

Email and Marketing Automation

Email has been a popular tool for a long time, but email 15 years ago is different from what it is now.

What’s the main difference?  Personalization – the key in making customers spend more.

Now, businesses can send different emails to different subscribers based on their interests, which is usually determined by the content they engage with.

Personalization makes email more effective. However, personalization is not only applicable to email- it’s applicable to all your marketing efforts.

The new GDPR consumer protection ordinance that recently took effect ensures that people receiving your emails want to receive them by clearly opting into your marketing communication. Although it adds a few extra layers to reaching people, it means you’re now emailing the people closest to closing – the warm leads and happy consumers, the people most likely to buy and buy again.

To improve your email communications, start repurposing them as a lead nurture and customer engagement tool. Use them to encourage learning and behaviors most closely associated with the big buyers in your database.

Video

With platforms like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Facebook (News - Alert) Live, video is a big trend online that will continue to grow.

Traditional content that people had to watch on their TV in the past is now available through their smartphones at the touch of their fingertips.

According to Cisco (News - Alert), 82% of internet traffic will be through video by 2021 but you don’t have to wait till 2021, you can start taking advantage of the trend now.

As consumers spend more time on their smartphones watching videos, advertisers are expected to spend $20 billion on mobile video in 2019, up from $2 billion in 2015.



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