10 Digital Marketing Trends in 2019
45 days before we hit 2019 — am sure as a marketer most of you have started working on your Q1 digital marketing plans.
All things considered, in a field as dynamic yet powerful as digital, remaining ahead has a significant effect, especially for brand permeability and review.
As always there will definitely be some “trend carry-forwards” from 2018, however, there are a few interesting new patterns to look out for as well.
Let’s begin with the Digital numbers around the world as of Oct 2018.
The ‘Next Billion’ is definitely becoming a reality sooner than expected with more and more of us connecting to the internet worldwide.
Here are the best ten things you can do to take your technique from present to future and cater to this magnanimous digital user base:
1. Chatbots – Mechanize Web Communication
2. Video Marketing – Pictures…err..videos say a thousand words
3. Voice Search – The world of Siri, Alexa and many others.
4. Social Media Messaging Apps – More than emoji sharing platforms
5. Stories and Micro Moments – Everything is “Now”
6. Personalisation – A constant factor
7. Influencer Marketing
8. Native Advertising
9. Visual search – It is bigger than you think.
10. Augmented and Virtual Reality
Elaborating Further:
1. Chatbots – Mechanize Web Communication
A carry forward from 2018, Chatbots will continue to be an important part of digital marketing in 2019.
This AI-based technology uses instant messaging to chat 24/7 in real-time with your audience.
With 1.4 billion people interacting with chatbots, 80% of businesses are already using or intending to use them by the end of this decade. Retail, Healthcare, Telecom and Banking were the first moves with best use cases so far. It is also predicted that chatbots will contribute to savings of $8 billion per annum, for businesses in healthcare and Banking by 2022.
2. Video Marketing – Pictures…err..videos say a thousand words
These numbers from Impact’s “video marketing in 2019 infographic” establish the importance of adding video to your marketing strategy coming year.
1. 70% of consumers say that they have shared a brand’s video.
2. 72% of businesses say the video has improved their conversion rate.
3. 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions.
4. 65% of executives visit the marketer’s website
5. 39% call a vendor after viewing a video.
I strongly suggest, to witness higher engagement with your video marketing techniques, go multichannel – explore a live broadcast on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn in addition to YouTube.
Tina Garg of Pink Lemonade says “Videos are especially helpful for smaller and newer businesses because they allow potential clients to know you better.”
3. Voice Search – The world of Siri, Alexa and many others.
Siri, What time is “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” playing in I12 Katong tonight?
Numbers first:
✴︎ 50% of all searches will be voice searches by the year 2020
✴︎ 20% of mobile queries on Google are voice searches
✴︎ 25% of all Bing searches are voice searches
✴︎ 39 million Americans use smart speakers of which 65% say they wouldn’t want to go back to life without their voice-controlled assistant.
Interestingly, however, the data suggest that people in developing economies are more inclined to use voice search than people in developed markets, with almost half of all internet users across India, China, and Indonesia reporting that they used voice search or voice commands in the past month.
A must have in your marketing strategy next year.
4. Social Media Messaging Apps – More than emoji sharing platforms
Be where your customers are, reach them directly and personalize (another trend) to add value to users’ experience all through the growing social media messaging Apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
Again the numbers says it all:
- Facebook Messenger has 1.3 billion monthly active users
- 1.3 billion monthly active users on WhatsApp who send over 55 billion messages every day
- WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat have more combined users than Facebook or YouTube
- 2 billion messages are sent between people and businesses on Facebook Messenger every month
5. Stories and Micro Moments – Everything is “Now”
Consumer attention span in 2018 decreased from 12 to 8 seconds. Thus as marketers, we need to deliver the brand message clearly in a way that is of interest to the consumers – all within a span of seconds.
Leveraging Google Micro-Moments the “new consumer behaviour,” and Social media stories on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and now Youtube are crucial to grab attention as well as address FOMO (Fear of missing out) the latest trends.
The complete consumer decision journey is a combination of the micro-moments and stories across all channels and devices. If you want to succeed tomorrow, meet your consumers’ needs in these micro-moments and “limited time” stories.
6. Personalisation – A constant factor
The “Personalisation” aspect of marketing was never out of the trend chart, it rather keeps gaining importance. 96% of marketers believe that personalization allows better and advanced customer relationships.
The coming year will be about better customer experience with personalization, automation and AI-powered technology. Focus on producing custom, conversational content – particularly audio and video – to share with your better-targeted audience.
7. Influencer Marketing
Whether you are a property App helping expats to easily rent in Singapore or a workspace design firm in India, you cannot ignore Influencer’s word-of-mouth. An absolutely must have in 2019.
Infographic Source: https://blog.influencerdb.com/influencer-marketing-trends-for-2019/
8. Native Advertising
Native advertising, when done correctly, gives advertisers positive brand recall, drives branded search, and is arguably the most engaging form of advertising.
According to a Sharethrough, out of about 5K consumers, nearly 1 in 3 said they are most likely to share a native ad thus making its consumption 53% more probable than display ads.
9. Visual search – It is bigger than you think.
Visual search provides new opportunities for brands to engage and interact with their target consumers and can take the user experience to a totally new level. Google, Pinterest and Microsoft are pretty much the pioneers in gamifying visual search for advanced user experience. I’d say, jump on this bandwagon soon!
10. Augmented and Virtual Reality
We are closely watching VR and AR marketing techniques as well, which we believe are still emerging. It’s a great time to explore your options and get ahead of the curve.
We believe developing integrated digital marketing strategies across multiple channels is imperative bringing into play your media mix plan. Of course, a must leverage is the power of data-driven marketing based on digital analytics and customer research.
Cheers, and hope you and your brand has an exceptional 2019!
