Five Digital Marketing Trends to Watch Out For in 2019

Staying ahead of your competitors is a continuous process. If you have an online presence it doesn’t matter what kind of business you are in; the digital marketing efforts are concentrated towards bringing you more qualified leads. If you are still using the age-old strategies of digital marketing, you are probably leaving money on the table.

In the internet marketing world, things seem to be in perpetual motion. Technologies are constantly evolving, as are tools that help us understand the digital landscape and how people digitally behave. Not keeping up is not an option anymore. As 2017 comes to a close, we analyze the trends that have been emerging and will play a major driving force in 2018.

Video Marketing or Storytelling: Over the last year, video has really caught on. There is a twofold reason for this. The first one is authenticity. As there are more brands than you can remember in every niche, there’s a need for people to see who’s behind the brand or put a face to the brand. Secondly, we are drowning in the amount of the content being produced. With attention spans falling drastically, videos have come as a respite.

It’s predicted that 80% of all web traffic is going to be video-based by 2019. YouTube has released data that hints at mobile video consumption doubling every year. Videos are more engaging, and more than 40% of people are keen to watch videos than consuming written content. Creating a storyboard around your product or service is a critical part of a great brand strategy. Facebook and YouTube are constantly challenging brands to tell their stories within 6 seconds. These are the ads that appear before, after, or in-between the favorite videos you watch on social platforms. And in the year to come, it’s only going to get bigger.

Personalization: Who doesn’t like being remembered or offered choices based on their preferences? We all like being treated well. It’s the same with people who visit your website. Sectors like financial services and technology are increasingly spending more to make your user experience better on their sites.

Digital marketing companies are using big data to sift through consumer behavior data and designing personalized experiences for people visiting their site. According to smart insights, 4 out of 10 marketers are using dynamic content and moved away from serving static content.

Brands have already been harnessing the power of personalization through email automation. This trend is expected to play out in the B2B and B2C areas soon. Though too much personalization might make campaigns less effective, you need to keep an eye out for customer response and adapt according to that.

Micro Moments: Google advocated micro-moments in 2015. This builds on the idea of personalization and targeted marketing. More and more people are looking for information while on the move on their mobile devices. So, apart from making pages load on mobile devices quicker, more on-demand information will be made available to help accelerate impulsive decision-making.

Aspects from UX to device independent campaign experience design will occupy the top spot that will help consumers with accurate information on their fingertips.

Social Media and Referral Traffic: Social media platforms are a dominant force in the digital marketing landscape. Over 4 billion users everyday use social media to consume and share content.

Channels like emails, messaging apps, secure browsing, etc., from where the users remain anonymous are also being used equally to propagate content. Greater than 80% of the content that is being shared is by channels that are referred to as “dark social.” The largest chunk of consumers who share over dark social are people over the age of 55.

Brands that are only tracking web analytics can miss out on this medium which is a big chunk of the referral traffic and within which is hidden a great opportunity.

AI and Chatbots: The premise that the world is headed towards a takeover by the machines is still farfetched. But the future will only see an increased interaction between humans with automated processes and machines and a transformation in that direction is already taking shape. AI algorithms are breaking the ceiling in text to speech accuracy. In days to come, they will be used to study, analyze, predict and respond to online user behavior.

Chatbots are a natural extension of AI. They are being used to improve customer service experience and are being actively incorporated into the digital marketing landscape. With the help of AI, they are learning user behavior and are responding with appropriate suggestions, making it a delightful personal experience for the user.

At Results Driven Marketing, we’ve been helping our customers cash in on Digital Marketing Trends, helping them sustain qualified traffic to their websites. Essentially we are “turning clicks into clients.” If you’re looking to be found by more people who are looking for your services, give us a call at (215) 393-8700 to find out how we can help.

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