It’s no secret that marketing trends emerge with changes and innovations in technology. If you want your business to stand out, bring in new customers and increase visibility online, you’ll need to be proactive about tech changes.
Think of tech trends in two ways (and your mindset will make the difference between successful campaigns and crickets in your analytics):
Either take steps to learn the trends and apply them, or get left behind.
In this article, you’ll learn about six innovative tech trends on the horizon for 2020. Ready to launch? Here are the strategies and tools you’ll need to hit the ground running this year.
Trend 1: Omnichannel Marketing is No Longer Optional, It’s Necessary
Up until now, marketers have had success focusing on a few social channels to post and engage on. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case in 2020. As a business marketer, you don’t have time to post content to every platform. Rather than creating custom content for each channel, you can repurpose content and post it on every channel. This will not only reinforce your brand messaging, but it will keep your business relevant and engaged with your online community.
Omnichannel marketing enables your collective audience to visit your channels seamlessly. The result?
Cross-channel sales are worth roughly $2 trillion.
Ready to see omnichannel marketing in action? Take a look at how major U.S. retailer, Nordstrom, implements cross-channel marketing:
- The Nordstrom Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook accounts all contain clickable product posts and style inspiration.
- When people browse any of Nordstrom’s social media accounts, they can shop posts that lead them to the Nordstrom website.
- Once they arrive at the site, they can schedule a styling appointment, download the Nordstrom app, and gain access to a loyalty rewards program.
Omnichannel marketing places the customer in a fluid cycle of content, customer service, sales, and rewards.
The message is loud and clear:
In 2020, you need to focus on omnichannel marketing. The rise of digital marketing and social media has created the need for automated publishing tools. Frankly, business owners and marketers simply don’t have time to post every day to multiple platforms.
Enter: Content creation, resizing and publishing tools from PosterMyWall. Not only can you create content, but you can resize it to various dimensions like Instagram posts or Facebook shared images in a go. Bonus? It’s free. But it’s not enough to just create content, you want to publish it also.
To save time, batch your content creation and publishing tasks together. In one sitting, you can create engaging visual content and schedule it to auto-publish to each channel. By resizing designs on the go and auto-publishing content with a simple mouse-click, you save time, money and keep your brand relevant.
Omnichannel marketing equates to omnipresence online, and that’s a 2020 tech change you can’t ignore.
Trend 2: The Future of Video Marketing
Video marketing is a buzzword lately, but is it worth all the hype? Considering that over half of people online watch videos every day, according to video marketing statistics from HubSpot, I’d say it’s a resounding yes. What type of content are people watching? YouTube no longer dominates as Facebook video ads, Instagram Stories and Live grow in popularity.
The key to effective video marketing is personalization. People aren’t interested in watching highly polished, curated videos anymore. Instead, they crave video content that resonates with their personal interests. Bite-sized videos are a great way to connect with your audience and share a more intimate side of your brand.
And don’t worry, you don’t need a professional videographer to create engaging video content. You can easily craft relevant and engaging videos from scratch, or from video templates in PosterMyWall. Create videos to tailor your brand message, promote a product launch or inform your audience about company news.
Here’s How Easy PosterMyWall Is:
- Browse video templates to find one that fits the tone and message of your brand
- Click on the design to customize the template
- Use the editor to easily customize the copy, colors, fonts and design
- Share the video directly to your social channels from PosterMyWall
In just four easy steps, you’ve got a branded video to share! With short, engaging video content, you keep yourself at the forefront of your audience’s attention, and that’s a great place to be.
Trend 3: Make Products Available In The Google Marketplace
A new tech change has been the topic of much debate for marketers: pushing products to the Google Marketplace. Opponents argue that they’ve invested a sizable sum into building a captivating website reflective of their business’ branding and identity. Pushing products to Google removes the opportunity for visitors to marvel at their perfectly packaged site. The result? A significant drop in web traffic.
You’ll have to look beyond this metric to see the bigger picture here. Do you want to make sales? Or do you want to have a highly-visited website? Of course, you want sales, but you don’t one one-off sales, you want repeat, loyal customers, which is why you created the gorgeous website, right? Right.
Instead of regarding the Google Marketplace as the death of your website, think of it as another channel to bring awareness to your brand. While other brands vacillate on the prospect of pushing products to Google and losing traffic, you can jump in and list your products, get sales, and grow your brand.
The fact that you can list your products to sell through Google in just minutes makes it an easy (and free!) marketing tool that you can’t afford to ignore.
Here’s how you can do it:
First, head to your Google My Business Account, where you can list your products, product details, add images and start selling within minutes. Of course, you’ll want to reinforce your brand voice, messaging and branding from your website and social media channels. Meaning, you don’t want to throw a hodgepodge of messy product listings up. Treat the Google Marketplace the same as you would your online store and put thought into the images, copy and product descriptions.
Trend 4: SERPS Favor Schema Markups and Rich Snippets
Digital marketing is undeniably reliant on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). In 2020, you’ll need to do more than choose target keywords and use image alt text to bring in web traffic. Yes, you still need to use SEO best practices, but you’ll now have to take it a step further and create rich snippets with Schema Markups.
A rich snippet contains microdata, called a Schema markup, that clearly tells search engines what each web page is about. For example, when you enter “coffee maker” into Google’s search bar, which of these results do you think people are more likely to click on:
- A clear product description, price, customer rating, and reviews
- An unclear meta description pulled randomly from the page, no rating, no price, no information
If you guessed the first option, you are correct. In 2020, all of the major search engines, including Google and Yahoo!, recognize schema markups and rich snippets when pulling up SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
What can you do? You have two options: use Schema.org to create rich snippets, or take advantage of this free tool from Google. Now, each of your product pages is full of pertinent information, which increases the visibility of your business.
Trend 5: AI will Facilitate Hyper-Personalization
Sound like an oxymoron? In a way, it is, but that doesn’t diminish its relevance. When we discuss personalization in the marketing space, we’re examining ways to provide a more personalized experience to a customer.
Let me be clear: AI will not dehumanize a brand when used correctly. Instead, it will assist with creating a more personalized and positive customer service experience. After all, consumers are tired of impersonal media. When you consider the fact that ubiquitous media inundates them with 5,000 ads a day, it’s easy to see why they are fatigued. Instead of adding to the noise, you can artfully employ AI to curate a more personalized experience.
With changes in technology and the influx of AI software, marketers can access their customers on a more intimate level. One of the best ways you can use AI to get personal is to collect data about what content they enjoy.
Carefully examine your website analytics and social media insights. What patterns emerge? You’ve established customer personas to create branding and imagery that speaks to them. Still, that’s simply not enough if you want a real brand-to-customer connection.
That’s why major brands are using AI because with it…
- Netflix can predict what each user wants to watch based on their history.
- Under Armour tailors a health regimen based on users eating, sleeping and health habits.
- Chatbots can ask visitors on your brand’s Facebook Page if they need help finding a specific product or service.
Bottom line: to get hyper-personal with your customers in 2020, you’ll need a little help from AI.
Trend 6: Voice Search Will Not Replace Visual Content
The rise in voice search has marketers mass-converting readable content into voice format for search engines. Voice search is a trend on everyone’s radar, and rightfully so:
Half of searches will be conducted via voice search in 2020.
It’s probably a good idea to focus your attention on voice search, but in doing so, don’t make the mistake of thinking that visual content is day-old bread. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Need proof? It’s called Instagram, and it has 1 billion monthly active users as of January 2020.
People irrefutably love visual content. Why wouldn’t they? With visuals, they can:
- Learn skills or information relevant to their interests
- Try out new recipes or create arts and crafts
- Watch entertaining and informative videos
- Find new brands and products
While the importance of visual marketing hasn’t necessarily changed in 2020, the arrival of innovative concepts might tempt marketers away from creating visual content. This inevitably will be a detriment. That’s why it’s absolutely vital to include exceptional visual content in all of your outreach strategies.
To help you, PosterMyWall is fully-stocked with image libraries, video templates, and thousands of professionally designed templates. With this free design software, you can customize templates by changing texts, colors and imagery to match your branding. Or, you can craft social media posts, blog imagery, customized product images and promotional assets from scratch with easy-to-use editing software.
Don’t forget to repurpose these visuals to nail your omnichannel marketing. For example, you can create a blog post header and resize it into a Pinterest pin or Instagram post and voila, you’ve got stunning visual content for multiple channels!
Make Tech Changes Work For You
In 2020, you’ll need to cast a wide net to bring in customers, build brand awareness and grow your business. To do that, it’s essential to stay flexible and ahead of the trends. The key to content marketing is adaptability, as marketers resistant to change risk the market evolving without them. The more open and actionable you are to tech changes, the better you can use them to your advantage. And when you do? Well, there’s no stopping you!
The post 6 Technology Trends in 2020 Every Marketer Should Know About appeared first on Martech Zone.
