Introduction to Modern Marketing Trend
To be successful in marketing, you have to be forward-thinking. This means keeping up with trends that are likely to be significant over the next 12 months.
This article focuses on marketing trends that will be hard to ignore in 2020. Modern technologies are developing at a rapid pace
Naturally, trends are based on these technologies. However, there is still opposition to digitalization and automation in interactions between brands and consumers.
For those who are in a great hurry and already “in the subject”, we will briefly list the main trends:
- Marketing will rely on customer experience, employee engagement in business-to-market programs, and content visualization to enhance consumer impact.
- Actually, the very definition of what we consider “marketing” continues to transform and expand.
- Marketing has long gone beyond branding and advertising. Marketers need to work collaboratively with other departments to focus on creating great customer experiences and engaging them for long-term relationships.
Customer experience
2020 will be the year of the customer. Today you should not invest in marketing programs that will impose goods and services. There is no point in imposing purchases, the customer is sufficiently aware of what he needs.
Instead, the priority needs to be shifted to providing excellent customer service that will keep shoppers coming back for new orders.
In a sense, the main trend can be formulated: entrepreneurs must focus on building a positive business culture and providing exceptional quality services, and marketers must transform business ideas into adequate marketing strategies.
Content marketing has changed consumers. The growth of useful and freely available content has given people more options.
They have ceased to depend on consultants and can study the product on the market in advance. Consumers are proactive and do not expect salespeople to advise what is best for them.
Instead, they search the Internet for information, read reviews, and evaluate an offer prior to purchasing. Formally, the modern client relies on his ” marketing research ” in his judgments. Therefore, marketers have to offer more than information.
Customer experience has long been the most popular expression in marketing circles. But are there really so many companies that provide fantastic customer service?
What influences the customer experience? Customer satisfaction, convenience in purchasing, competent and friendly service, convenient payment methods – these are what people value in their experience of interacting with companies.
To achieve this, marketers need:
- State-of-the-art technology based on data from the purchase process
- Personalization of a commercial offer
- Mobile technologies for quick contact with the client
- Strong brand image in the minds of consumers
- Product design tailored to customer needs
In other words, customer experience is a must in your marketing strategy. Sales must be planned with customer loyalty and product and service lifecycle in mind.
Involvement of employees in marketing programs
If efficient and friendly service is the cornerstone of marketing, then the question is, “How can companies achieve this?”
Obviously, the staff of the enterprise should actively participate in the process of quality service. If the employees are poorly trained and not qualified, the client will be unhappy and unlikely to return.
What prevents staff from becoming active? The number one factor that prevents clients from doing business with a reliable company is the bad attitude of managers towards employees.
People are the face of the brand, so the focus should be on employee interactions with customers. This is an important factor in any marketing strategy.
The key to employee engagement is to take proactive measures that enable each employee to understand business goals and brand values.
When a manager hires a person, the person is planned to be held accountable for providing quality customer service.
It is necessary to provide for measures that provide confidence that the staff will strive for the success of the company as responsibly as its owner.
Otherwise, employees will stop caring about customers. If they are not happy with the work and don’t believe in the way the business is being conducted, they will not be able to achieve a positive customer experience.
Content visualization
Modern technologies make it possible to use voice search and broadcast content through device speakers. However, visual content cannot be neglected.
Research has shown that people prefer visual imagery over dry text. The explosive growth of interest in Instagram has clearly demonstrated the importance of visualization.
5 facts about visual content:
- 65% of Internet users prefer to watch educational videos
- The desire to read the article increases by 80% if it contains color illustrations
- 85% more likely to shop after watching a product video
- 93% of communication happens through visual content
- 180% increase in reach if the post contains effective illustrations
Visuals are easier to remember than text. Adding data visualizations, infographics, images, and videos to printed text not only makes it more interesting and engaging but also helps to better understand the message being conveyed.
Personalizing messages
Lead generation and technological advances have already had a huge impact on the level of personalization that needs to be extended to consumer interactions with brands.
Today’s consumers are flooded with advertising messages from multiple communication channels. To relieve themselves, what are they doing?
Consumers begin to selectively disconnect uninteresting channels. Therefore, traditional advertising loses its effectiveness.
Personalizing your marketing messages can make a difference and establish a real connection between your brand and your target market.
If 10-15 years ago it was difficult to imagine that emails would begin with an address by name, today it is a reality. Specialized resources have learned to recognize the recipient of messages not only by name but also to take into account his interests and the level of involvement in the transaction.
The use of artificial intelligence, combined with advanced data collection and social media analytics, has made it easy to personalize everything from content to design to product recommendations.
Strategic Marketing Transformation
Every time you read a trending article, you might get the impression that it is easy to succeed in marketing with tips and best practices.
By no means, marketing is getting more complicated. Every year it becomes more difficult to develop marketing programs related to the reasons for business development in general.
Promotion goals become more complicated, marketing communications are layered, and the tasks facing marketers become more difficult and responsible.
If earlier in a small business each head of the company was “ his own ” marketer, today more and more entrepreneurs turn to specialists for practical advice.
It is difficult to imagine modern business without specific goals and a program of clear marketing communications. Marketing planning itself has become an integral part of running a business.
Strategic marketing relies on raw data about the target market, the use of digital technologies, building relationships with customers, and strengthening its presence on the Internet.
This transformation is helping small businesses improve their customer experience, brand awareness, and reputation. As a result, strategic marketing increases revenues and profits.
A marketing plan sets out goals and tactics for promoting a business to the market, which will rely on content marketing, SEO, email marketing, social media, contextual advertising, and offline marketing.
The working paper should clearly state how each part of the marketing communications will work in the interests of the business.
The transformation of strategic marketing is changing the attitude of every employee to the bottom line. The reputation of the company, relations with customers, the level of their service is no longer the exclusive responsibility of the marketer.
Each employee must understand that the success of the company depends on the performance of their duties. One unsuccessful and untimely word from an ordinary performer and the business will receive a cloud of negative reviews.
Zero position in search results
SEO will remain an important aspect of digital marketing, but we are now seeing one of the most significant changes in the SEO marketing industry in the past decade.
With the rise of mobile and voice search, people are changing the way they use search engines like Yandex and Google. Now, being the first in the search is not an end in itself.
You’ve probably noticed yourself that your own search and browse mode has changed over the past few years. Now the netizen is looking for the most up-to-date information.
Highlighted snippets and other information “in the SERP” mean that we do not need to go to the website to get a response to our request. The answer can be found right on the search results page.
This SERP information can appear in different places, but the most requested position is right at the top of the page, before the SERP listing.
This position was named “zero”. Since this is often the only information a user can view, it is highly desirable. Over 60% of search results are now zero-ranked search results (according to Google).
Brands are still struggling to figure out how to reach rank zero, as it requires different SEO techniques than those used for regular SERP listing.
If you can become the first in your industry, you will have a huge advantage over the competition. So expect to see more SEO companies offering this service over the next year and look out for best practices for optimizing your content.
Voice search
Voice search is showing no signs of slowing growth, and it will continue to have a significant impact on the way leading brands to create content and position themselves online.
It is difficult to agree with the statement that this year 50% of searches will be conducted by voice (according to Google, currently about 20%). But the trend is clear. The smart speaker business is booming.
According to global research by PwC, consumers expect increased use of voice search in the near future. 61% of those who are 25–64 years old already use a voice device and intend to use it more often.
Even if a company isn’t ready for smart ads just yet, it’s important that its content is optimized for voice search. Voice search engines use search in a different way.
They operate with longer queries (as in normal communication), so optimizing content for long-tail keywords can help make it more visible for voice searches. It is important that the content contains a direct answer to the question posed.
Artificial Intelligence Marketing Automation
Over the past few years, there have been major changes in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Progress in this direction has been taken up by many companies, they have begun to use AI-based technologies to automate and strengthen their marketing programs.
Smart chatbots, PPC management, voice search are examples of AI implementation that we are faced with more and more often.
Big-data analytics helps companies learn more about their target audience and customers. This enables the hyper-personalization of marketing messages on a large scale.
Large brands are using AI technologies to strengthen their market position, free up resources, and focus on the customer experience, adjusting their marketing strategy to it.
Not to be outdone, small businesses need to automate routine marketing processes and increase their productivity.
Know more about marketing: 12 KickAss Reasons Why You Can Choose Digital Marketing As Career Beyond 2020
Focus on customer retention and building loyalty
Regular customers are more valuable than new customers. Research has shown that attracting a new customer is five times more expensive than retaining a loyal customer.
That is why it is economically justified to provide high-quality service and create an excellent customer experience.
The efforts of companies should be distributed in such a way as not only to constantly look for new customers but on a regular basis to prove their necessity for regular customers.
For their part, loyal customers help build reputation and brand awareness as they talk about your company to those around them. Satisfied clients become lawyers for the company and are ready to give advice on choosing a service provider.
Live broadcasts
The live video industry is on the rise. Live streaming is incredibly popular with consumers, and people spend three times more time watching this content than pre-edited video. The effect of participation in an interesting and important event affects.
This promotion technique has become the most popular way to introduce consumers to a company’s product. Such content is the most attractive, since the audience is, as it were, part of the process and can partially influence it, moving from the state of passive viewing to active actions.
Live broadcasts are primarily in demand on social networks. Audiences develop the FOMO (Lost Profit Syndrome) effect if they understand that live broadcasts give them the opportunity to be the first to know the latest news or the video contains information that they cannot get anywhere else.
Let’s sum up
Many companies will pay attention to the introduction of advanced technologies. At the same time, we must not forget that marketing is based on human relations in society.
Therefore, the attention of marketers should be redistributed towards living people, their behavior, and their reaction to marketing activities.
Now is the time to start implementing your marketing strategies for the current year. Align your promotion goals with a clear roadmap.
Obviously digital marketing will dominate this year too. To be successful, you need to have quality content for all marketing communication channels with consumers.
Check if your content plan takes into account the impact of new trends. Are you ready to become forward-thinking?
