10 Digital Marketing Trends in 2020

The digital marketing landscape is constantly changing and it’s getting difficult for businesses to keep up with these changes. One reason for the constant change is due to a change in digital platforms and technology. Make no mistake, businesses that don’t follow the trend and stick their heads on the ground will be punished severely for it. Customer buying behaviour is changing with these trends, and your competitors are also aligning themselves to these trends.

As Brain Solis rightly put, “Each business is a victim of Digital Darwinism, the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to exploit it. Digital Darwinism does not discriminate. Every business is threatened. ”With this in mind, every business should strive to keep abreast of the latest digital marketing trends.

In this article, we highlight the top 10 trends in digital marketing to help you bring up an effective digital marketing strategy for business growth. Let’s dive in, shall we?

 1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

“In a crowded and fragmented marketplace, marketing leaders are increasing investments in innovative technologies as they strive to deliver meaningful customer experiences that differentiate their brands,”- Mike McGuire, VP Analyst, Gartner.

AI is one of the foremost emerging technologies. Initially, Artificial intelligence was seen to be used by the “techies” alone and for high technological projects. But currently, it’s widely used in all industries to gain competitive advantage, optimize new businesses, reduce cost and personalize communication with their target customers.

From Voice search to predictive analytics, chatbots, image recognition, deep learning, and more, Artificial Intelligence is enabling marketers to understand their customers like never before.

According to Gartner, 85% of customer interactions will be handled without a human by 2020. For example, Netflix is utilizing AI for a personalized recommendation to their customers, and Hotel Hilton uses a robot concierge to give customers quick access to personalized information about the hotel and its surrounding areas.

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2. Video marketing

From about us video to how-to video to vlogging, video marketing has been one of the major sources of communication for most brands. It’s no news that text-based content is dwindling while video-based contents are getting all the views. Customers are spending more time watching videos. An average person spends 100 minutes watching video every day and marketers are rapidly jumping on the trend.

About 52% of consumers are more confident with their online purchase after watching a how-to video or a product video.

Some video marketing trends to look out for in 2020 and beyond includes; Live-streaming videos, Personalized 1:1 videos and Search engine friendly videos.

3. Personalization

In 2020, personalization is key in the B2B and B2C markets. Customers, especially the Gen Z (generation born between 1996-2010) target market, are tired of generic communication from brands and are no longer friendly with brands that keep pushing generic, non-personalized messages.

Personalization is said to be the prime driver of marketing. Giving customers a personalized experience increases sales by 20%. Customers want personalized emails, products, contents and more. They appreciate brands when they receive a personalized message from them. When using email for personalization, you can trigger your email on specific occasions like customers’ birthday, or when they carry out a particular action.

Read the full article in the Business Elites Africa (BEA) digital magazine here: Find it on pages 52 & 53.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written by Marykate Ovwighose for BEA.