Some years ago you must remember the book Bill Gates wrote’ Business @ the speed of thought’ , he explained in the book how technology can keep a business ahead of its competition but as frivolous is time it already feels outdated , that is the speed of the digital transformation which rightly justifies Albert Einstein’s quote that ‘ The past , present and future are stubbornly persistent illusions’ what always exits is a presence always in the NOW where we meet technology.
The basic principles of marketing of attracting your potential customer still remains, and will probably always remain but the channels of how we do that has changed over the years and keeps being redefined in search engine marketing through the whole gamut of SEO optimization.
Artificial Intelligence is in, in a big way and is being used for retargeting, customer segmentation, push notifications, click tracking and virtually every other aspect of search engine marketing. It is being used with limitless permutation and combinations and now even used for creating content. How AI is being used is according to goals and channels being used. It is being used for audience expansion, audience targeting, product recommendations, and campaign optimization. Studies show that 64% of the market has increased its use of AI. AI is being used to achieve growth through personalization. AI is now even providing personalized headlines and creative’s.
Chatbots are increasingly being used and with the use of AI are handling most basic queries of all customers. Man is a social animal and loves to chat ,why we notice social media making such a big impact in our lives now and Chatbots are filling in the role previously handled by a person although not helping with online marketing jobs but is only used for frequently asked question, the individual person still has a role to play. This has helped in cutting costs as a bot is cheaper than hiring a customer support person and can operate round the clock.
Omnichannel marketing has taken over from multichannel and single channel marketing. Omnichannel refers to a multichannel approach that provides an integrated shopping experience. By omnichannel marketing a customer may shop through a desk top, PC, Tablet, Smart Phone or the brick and mortar shop and will have a seamless shopping experience. The difference between multichannel and omnichannel is that multichannel all channels are open to the customer in omnichannel all channels are integrated together making a seamless customer experience CX and has changed the face of search engine marketing. But one needs a good omnichannel strategy; studies show that with an effective omnichannel strategy you can retain up to 89 % of your customers unlike 33 % with no omnichannel marketing or a single channel marketing strategy.
Accelerated Mobile Pages AMP and PWA are in the market in a big way. It is been noticed that 60% of traffic to search engines come from mobile devices and if the website loading time increases it increases the bounce rate which could negatively affect your Google page ranking. Google has now included AMP in their ranking algorithms and lower bounce rate due to AMP increases your ranking. They are today more than 4 million AMP websites on the net. With AMP you have faster loading time , better website experience , no need for user download , eliminates app developments cost , user can create a shortcut from their phones.
E mail and Marketing automation is the new trend in the market. The goal is in personalization of content. Studies show us that nearly 48 % of respondents end up spending more if the content is personalized, 90 % feel that personalization to the CX experience is the future and 74% of customers get frustrated when the content is not for them. Personalization makes your email more effective however you should not limit it to emails alone but a whole omnichannel strategy. The trend is to repurpose your email communication strategy to nurture leads and a customer engagement tool.
Video has become the most popular content and with Netflix, Youtube , Amazon Prime Videos , Facebook lives the trend is for great video content. According to CISCO which provides very reliable data by 2021, 82 % of traffic will be for videos. Traditional content through the TV is no longer popular and most people search for their videos online and will add to the online marketing jobs. With consumers spending more time on their smart phones watching videos advertisers are predicted to spend close to 20 billion on mobile videos by 2020.
Voice search is increasingly becoming more popular, smart speakers are being used to recognize, order and control smart devices. Some of the benefits of voice search are that voice search is easier, faster, it is increasing for mobile devices, and smart speakers are becoming more popular. Voice searches take longer than typed messages so long tail keywords are being used to target these users.
Augment and virtual reality is playing a big role in marketing strategies. With augmented reality you can insert objects inside real time settings and this can help a customer make a decision by seeing for himself how a product will look in his settings. Virtual reality creates a completely new space for the customer to experience his interaction.
These are some of the trends of the current digital marketing scenario it keeps redefining itself as we move ahead with technology. One thing is for certain there is no looking back and as technology redefines our lives, digital marketing too adopts to the new environment for the UX and CX experience.