The rise of digital marketing has rivaled that of conventional marketing with the annual outspend expected to reach upwards of $375 billion which is 50% of the total global marketing expenditure. In the coming years, it will serve as no surprise if digital marketing surpasses conventional marketing. The signs are clear; digital marketing is the future.
What’s Expected To Change For Digital Marketing In 2019?
Simply put, digital marketing is an umbrella term that combines different approaches to promote and sell different products and services through online marketing strategies.
Here are 7 key approaches expected to trend and convert consumers using digital marketing in 2019:
-
1. Search Engine Optimization Will Be Speech-Focused
People have long abandoned the physical quest to search for the best fit product or service. Instead, the search takes place on the internet; or via search engines which contributes to driving 93% of website traffic.
The search engine platform is also changing – as long tail keywords and voice-based queries look to emerge as the leading search components. Voice-based queries will account for 50% of all the search queries conducted by 2020.
Due to the rising popularity of digital voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, businesses should look to target spoken phrases rather than outdated keywords. Remember: Google considers similar keywords, or Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) when searching for results.
-
2. Social Media Marketing Proves Its Effectiveness
With half of the world’s population on social media, it is bound to impact the way people shop and purchase. The plethora of social networking sites targeting different demographics, give businesses a clear idea of where to invest their digital ad spend.
As we all witnessed, algorithm changes and privacy policy updates all shaped and changed social advertising platforms through 2018 leaving marketers with a more refined and optimized advertising platform guaranteed to prove its effectiveness in 2019.
Experts have found 41% of Facebook users are aged 65 and beyond and 59% of the adults between the age of 18-29 use Instagram. These are just bare-bones statistics to peak marketers’ interest – but once you take a deeper dive, you’ll see exactly why the social media advertising spend for 2018 was approximately $68,000 million. Check out our piece What’s in Store for Paid Social in 2019 to learn more about trends we expect just from paid social.
-
3. Artificial Intelligence Is Here To Stay
Another leap into ensuring customer satisfaction is the increased usage of chatbots. Chatbots provide quicker response times when tackling data related queries and customer requests without burdening the budget.
Due to their multi-platform integration versatility, the global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.2 billion – a mammoth 24% growth rate. The growth will continue throughout 2019, with 80% of business communications expected to be performed via chatbots by 2023.
As technology integrates with marketing, we can expect more complex trigger-based campaigns and predictive lead scoring from leading marketers in the upcoming year. Coupled with machine learning, the possibilities for adventurous marketers are endless.
-
4. Video Marketing Is The Future
2018 was the year of video marketing, and 2019 promises to continue on this trend. Why? Because video provides more personalized and interactive content for consumers.
Almost half of all users look for a related video before they visit the store for a particular product or service – and 80% find demo videos useful. The digital marketing space will continue to see an influx of videos in the upcoming year as live video feeds come to the forefront.
The impact video has cannot be ignored; adding one to your landing page increases the conversion rate by 86%. Whether it’s your website, emails, Facebook page, or YouTube channel – video is the medium to vouch for in the future.
-
5. Emails Will Only Work If They Are Personalized
Email marketing is far from over yet, with 66% of businesses approving of its ‘excellent’ to ‘good’ return on investment. However, generic one-for-all emails are quickly transported to the trash bin.
As marketing evolves, email marketing has also evolved to be highly personalized, segmented, and layered to cater to different demographics. Simple additions, such as videos or even emojis can lead to higher click through and open rates.
-
6. Content Needs To Be Targeted
While 55% of marketers say that content creation is a marketing priority, the question is not whether content should be created, but what type of content should be created?
As video marketing and targeted search engine marketing increase their share within the content space, there is an ever-increasing emphasis on the importance of targeted content. Modern-day consumers tend to shun generalized content for more targeted, specific, and valuable pieces of content.
For businesses, the content they produce should reflect a deep and thorough understanding of their niche, in order to impress the consumers.
-
7. Data Analytics Is A Survival Tool
In this digital age of marketing, data is the new oil. One of the biggest advantages of digital marketing is that it equips the seller with crucial consumer data that can be used to satisfy consumer needs through a highly specific and targeted marketing approach.
To put things into perspective, emails that are aligned with specific consumer behavior get 71% higher open rate and 102% more clicks than generalized, boilerplate emails. Devoid of analytics, your business will crumble in this age of highly targeted marketing.
Understanding user behavior and capitalizing on it is not a trend, but a necessity which will continue to expand in 2019.
Conclusion
What works for one, doesn’t work for the other. Marketing techniques are a trial and error process – and every marketing strategist will tell you the same.
However, what’s even more important is to remember that a single tactic never works for anyone. A successful digital marketing strategy is not based on one component, but rather makes use of an omnichannel approach that attracts and converts visitors and leads into long term customers.
The recipe of success is not made of one ingredient, so why should yours be?
For businesses to survive in this era, they need to tug the consumer in from the search engine, interest them through an interactive website and make use of the content to convert them.
2019 will focus on more personalization and machine learning integration. The onus to provide a better customer experience is bigger than ever before, and businesses will require a comprehensive omnichannel marketing strategy to stand up to the lofty expectations.
