According to the founder and CEO of digitalmarketer.com, 9% of sales are concluded online, but 96% of sales begin with an online search. Ryan Deiss also confirmed that digital ad spend had outdone traditional ad spend for the first time in history in 2019! What do these and other statistics purport for 2020 marketing trends, and how can you leverage off these trends to bolster your digital marketing results?
To put it simply, your digital advertising efforts are more important than ever. Consumers need to be able to find you online, and your online presence should boost your brand image and increase your sales. The challenge is that hitting the sweet spot when it comes to digital marketing can be tricky.
You want the ideal balance between exertion, spend, and reward. In other words, to spend as little time and money as possible to get the most results possible. Understanding the current digital trends in marketing in 2020 can help you achieve better results without overspending. Here are five trends to take note of and use in your 2020 marketing efforts:
People are reading less and watching more. Audiences are skimming large amounts of text. This means using more visual content like videos, dynamic imagery, animation, graphics, and even infographics. When writing short-form written content, this means including lots of popping visuals.
The most popular and consumed version of visual content is video. Take advantage of this trend by creating more video in the formats that are most successful on your platforms of choice.
Purposeful and high-quality content matters more to consumers. This means less fluff. A report by B2B states that 90% of the most successful content marketers put their audience's info needs above their promotional message. Our focus should be providing high-value thought-provoking content that looks great and meets the audience's informational needs.
This year, about half of queries will be voice-based! You can turn this into an opportunity by using long-tail keywords and content in more natural language to reach the voice-searchers. The rise of voice search makes it clear that our content needs to be extremely relevant, informative, and authoritative, giving searchers the answers they want in a format Google can find and offer up when they search with voice.
In the context of content creation for search engine optimisation, this means that repetitions of a keyword matter less. Claiming a Google Snippet for the keyword will give you exponentially more results. For example, instead of aiming to repeat "cats" as many times as possible in a 1,000-word blog, aim to make each paragraph an answer to a query. "What is a cat?" for example. The snippet should be highlighted on the page.
According to Ryan Deiss, nobody is reading your blog. We write blogs for Google. This means we produce content not because we have a loyal fanbase reading the blog posts, but so that Google can use the content we produce to provide answers to questions people are asking. Take advantage of the voice search trend by optimising your content for voice search; Target long-tail keywords and use language that is more natural.
Gen Z-ers are "detoxing" by removing themselves the internet. This trend isn't to say that social media users are becoming fewer, because many of the detox-ers remain on social media but may jump to different platforms or be absent for longer stretches of time.
The key factor marketers should pay attention to with this trend is that users feel more disconnected with their world. Some feel that their online presence can be a waste of their time or distract them from real life issues. Simply pushing the brand message can drive users away from your content instead of leading them to purchase.
To take advantage of this trend, bands can focus on meeting consumers where they're at, answering their needs, and speaking to their desire for more authenticity and a greater connection to "real life". This can be considered when strategising.
Because consumers are tired of insincere adverts in their feeds, more authentic, real content is important. Brand adverts must, therefore, take a decided turn towards influencer-based reach instead of only boosting posts as adverts. The best way to make use of influencers in your campaign is to build more long-term relationships with influencers who can represent your brand over a longer period.
Micro influencers are of more value than influencers with gigantic audiences because of the trust everyday people build with their smaller audiences. To take advantage of this trend, begin discussions with multiple smaller-scale (micro) influencers for future collaboration.
Tiktok’s rise to popularity ties into the consumer's desire for more authentic content. Known as a place where content is more real, raw, and authentic than on other top social media platforms, TikTok is a trending platform. The algorithm is more merciful than Instagram or Facebook’s when it comes to organic reach, making it easier to create a presence on the app. That's because other algorithms are designed to cut your traffic unless you're paying for advertising.
In fact, Nielsen’s Agora Pulse said Facebook showed organic content to 26% of a user’s followers in 2011, but nowadays that number has dropped to a mere 0.05%! The drop comes as Facebook’s advertising rises. Creating a presence on TikTok now, while more and more users download the app, can bring a company extensive reach in the future, and companies can capitalise on virality more easily.
Marketing on TikTok cannot happen in the way it does on other platforms. Content needs to be entertaining, funny, engaging, and unique. Brands can advertise on this platform by:
Sporty fun loving “Half IronMan” with self-acclaimed degree in Search engine optimisation & Entrepreneurship. CEO & Founder of Trafficfundi, P.tch Digital & Greenies Comics.