To all marketing experts, here’s THE question: “what are next year’s trends?”
In the complex and constantly changing world of digital marketing, answer this question may be a risk but, at the same time, there can be many hints on how to set up the next strategies. When we talk about advertising, statistics data give us an overview of new horizons and new trends that probably will rise more and more over the next few months.
We must understand that the development and the spread of new technologies open up to new perspectives on how to bring the user closer to the brand and how to take advantage of new adv spaces. The trust in advertising is increasing, so much so that the latest data see a 30% increase of companies that are willing to invest in digital adv or renew digital campaigns.
Connection, the keyword
The first trend is a confirmation: let’s analyse it. Brands have assigned the advertising space to mission and values that hit us deeper, exactly where we are more vulnerable: emotions.
It sounds like mean but, actually, people refuse the mere commercial product. Instead, the user asks for storytelling that goes deeper in the emotional sphere, and he/she wants to identify with the brand’s ethics and values. It is the principle of inbound marketing: the hyper-connected user must create an emotional link with the brand and be not only a consumer but also a promoter and a fan.
In a nutshell, the need is the demand, not the product. The brand that answers and fulfils the question get one more client, more loyal and engaged compared to the past.
Personalized moments in every channel
To get closer to the client instead of the product has a cost: one-to-one and cross-device personalized experiences are correct and effective communication must-have. Micro-moments context creation, focused on the user experience, is the ability required. For this reason, also next year multichannel campaigns will be the trend; the only foresight is to think them – from brand identity to landing page – with an eye towards strategy and user-experience.
Artificial Intelligence and other technologies
Artificial intelligence and augmented reality are next year’s trend: they are more markedly linked to the development of a precise tech area. More and more companies are more likely to plan investments in this regard, also in the sigh of the astonishing progress in the wearable tech and home automation systems. Predictions for 2020 see an increase up to 80% of customer care interaction via chatbot. Moreover, the use of Alexa and Google home assistants is firmly established today. In the end, if glass and VR Viewer were not appreciated by consumers, smart TV and smartwatch are becoming the new displays in which marketers can plan their campaigns.
Real-time social marketing
Impossible to not consider the enormous revenues of the social media market, starting from the important implementation made by Facebook and Instagram: the possibility to purchase online directly from social platforms. Both users and brands benefit from that; for the former, the purchase experience has become easier, the latest, instead, can structure a fulfilling visual strategy. Real-time communication can make a difference too. Spontaneous contents that allow the user to get a real image of the product and the brand are more appreciated than complex and lauded commercials.
Real news or backfire?
In the end, we can observe how trends in digital marketing are wide and variegated but all of them share one common point: the user experience.
When you think about how to innovate or integrate a new strategy betting on a new trend, keep in mind the concept of user and its experience.
Is better to be smart trying new methods rather than focus on the same strategies only because they worked in the past!