2020 Digital Marketing Trends To Help Your Business Grow
New year, new decade and new digital marketing trends for everyone. Digital marketing is constantly changing and if you don’t know and don’t apply these trends or changes you are limiting your business or brand from potential growth and success.
With many years as a digital marketing specialist, I am always on the lookout for these yearly trends (small or big) as they are game-changers in the whole marketing industry. So for businesses or brands out there who are planning their digital marketing strategy for 2020, better include these changes in your plan.
1. Social Commerce
Social commerce is the use of social media in selling your products. More specifically, users can buy your product directly from your social media posts. Pinterest was the first one to launch shoppable posts while Instagram launched their Instagram Checkout last 2019.
The good thing about social commerce is that you don’t have to be a big eCommerce brand to use this. If you have products, simple post and wait for buyers to click your post to buy.
Another benefit of social commerce is that it lessens the steps buyers need to take to check out a product. Which means more potential sales for you.
Moreover, if you have existing Shopify stores or eCommerce stores, you can simply integrate it with your social media account.
Social commerce is a game-changer trend that you should include in your digital marketing plan if you want to increase your sales this year.
2. Direct Messaging
Direct messaging has been around for some time. Brands have been using it for a long time. But this 2020, direct messaging will be more important as it is a good strategy to forge a good relationship with your customers, assist in sales, address complaints, among others.
Direct messaging is an effective strategy to implement this 2020. If you want your customers to message you, a good strategy is to offer incentives or exclusive deals.
3. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing will continue to be popular this 2020. Why? Simply because influencer voice is very loud in the digital space. Buyers tend to listen to their testimonials and their buying decisions are heavily influenced by them.
However, this year, it is not enough that you send them free samples of your product. Because of its popularity and effectiveness, many brands rely on them that the demand for influencers continues to rise. Thus, influencers have created their own pricing packages.
Things to remember when using influencer marketing:
- Make sure the influencer upholds the vision of your brand.
- Make sure that it has a steady following. According to the study from Adweek, an influencer with around 30,000 followers had a 60% higher engagement and are 6.7 times more cost-effective than those influencers with more followers.
- Make sure their following is real and not bot-generated
- Brands are more likely to communicate with influencers than the other way around. If so, make sure to have a background check of the influencers. Some are bogus and will just milk you for money and free use of your product.
4. Vlogging
Unlike explainer videos or short films, vlogs will gain popularity this 2020 because of the personal and direct approach that it offers. With platforms such as YouTube, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat, vlogging will be easy to produce and distribute.
It is also a great strategy if you want to create a stronger relationship with your customer and increase your customer base.
5. Chatbots
The rise of chatbots will continue this 2020. According to a survey, chatbots will able to help your customer service by 85% by 2020. This is because they offer 24-hour service and instant inquiry response. They are also cost-effective as you don’t have to hire someone to filter and reply to all your customer inquiries. So using chatbot this 2020 will be an effective digital strategy for your brand/business.
6. Voice Search
Voice search will continue to rise as well this year. With people relying heavily on Alexa, Siri, and other voice search app, search engine optimization will now be based on voice searches based on how people talk, and not type.
7. Visual Search
Having a hard time remembering the name of a product? How about where to buy this specific item? Now, you can easily find what you are looking for with the visual search.
By uploading a photo on the internet, search engine like Google can help you find what you are looking for with their “Google Lens” function. Pinterest also has a visual search function called “Lens”. With Lens, just simply take a photo of the item to know the location of the store.
8. Programmatic Advertising
Advertising online will be easier and simpler this 2020 with the use of artificial intelligence and data. By using software like the Adobe Marketing Cloud or SmartyAds, you can easily program ad placements, media buying, performance tracking and customer targetting. Manually handling these processes can be really stressful and time-consuming. But if you automate these processes, then you have more time to focus on your business and other things.
Some of these trends have been with us before and they will continue to be popular this 2020. So expect that these trends will continue to rise for the years to come. So better to integrate these trends to your digital marketing plan now and continue using them while watching out for other future trends in the industry.
What digital marketing trends are you most excited about this 2020? Let’s talk about it below. Comment also if you have questions or additional information regarding this topic.
On the other hand, if you want to know more about social media management, make sure to book a free consultation with us or ask us a free quote about this service.
Happy new year and a prosperous new decade to all!
Crisel Blenda Fernandez
Digital Marketing Strategist