Digital Marketing Trends in 2019

Digital Marketing is dynamic and always changing.  Some of the biggest challenges of marketing are currently being solved with new technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.  AI drives many of the emerging marketing trends such as voice search, chatbots, and personalisation, and will power a lot more technological advances in years to come.  AI could lead to an economic boost of $14 trillion according to Accenture research, which explains why 92% of Fortune 1000 companies are investing in it.

Photo credit:  Unsplash photos

1.  Personalised Marketing  

Some of the challenges in marketing have surrounded developing the customer from an interest into a lifetime customer.  AI takes CRM and automation to a whole new level, assisting with marketing planning, production / ROI, personalisation and promotion to customers, by automatically creating advanced customer profiling and supplying highly targeted content to users in real-time.  Personalisation is already being used for building brand loyalty where the AI powered algorithms remember your preferences and anticipate what you may want next as we already see with companies such as Netflix.

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2.  Chatbots / interactivity

2019 will see the increase of interactive websites via emails with chatbots powered by AI to communicate with customers and enhance the customer experience by interacting intelligently with the customer when and where they expect it. 

Photo Credit:  Unsplash photos

3.  Voice search

Local Search Marketing, especially via voice search, is set to become a big trend, with voice search being three times more likely to be used for local-based queries than text searches.  Register your business details with Google My Business and match the key words on your site to what customers may be asking in conversational language - ie 'Siri, where should I go for dinner tonight?'  Watch your local business leads grow!

4.  Location based / mobile marketing  

Technology  known as augmented location will take  location based marketing and personalisation to the next level utilising technology through Mobile that provides human-centric, real time, highly targeted, location-based content that gives customers a richer shopping experience and marketers enhanced sales results.  According to Connecthings, 'users want “smart” applications that understand their behavior, anticipate their needs and offer appropriate and useful solutions'. This is the future of shopping where the brand becomes a partner to the user.

Image Credit:  Grover, V (2019).

Image Credit:  Unsplash Photos

5.  Augmented Reality

Microsoft’s HoloLens, Google’s Tango, and Intel’s Project Alloy glasses are allowing people to interact with the online world and create virtual shopping experiences that give customers more confidence in buying online. Additionally, AR powered apps allow people to scan an image on paper, screen or package with their smart phone or i-pad, and an interactive 3D model will appear above the printed model.  Apple CEO is predicting AR will be a trend as big as the iphone, which will allow customers a fully immersive online shopping experience that will bring them back wanting more.

Video Source:  Hubspot, (2018).

6.  Video 

HubSpot news shared some incredible data about the present and the future of video - which is why it is included in Digital Marketing Trends as well as strategy:

Video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019.
Adding a video to marketing emails can boost click-through rates by 200-300%.
Embedding videos in landing pages can increase conversion rates by 80%.
90% of customers report that product videos help them make purchasing decisions.
According to YouTube, mobile video consumption grows by 100% every year.

64% of customers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about it.
87% of online marketers are currently using video content in their digital marketing strategies.
A third of all the time people spend online is dedicated to watching videos.
Video ads now account for more than 35% of all ad spending online.
59% of company decision makers would rather watch a video than read an article or blog post.
Digital marketing expert James McQuivey estimates that a single minute of video content is the equivalent of 1.8 million words.

Conclusion

As technology increases, digital marketing will continue to evolve to help solve the biggest challenges of digital marketing and enable a relationship to 'sizzle' between a customer and a brand that will be mutually beneficial for everyone.