Top digital marketing trends for 2019

Marketing is no longer the slow paced environment it once was. The number of potential places to spread your brand’s seed has multiplied exponentially, as has the number of services and resources claiming to be the best at helping you to achieve your goals.

Despite this rapid rate of evolution, there are still many practices that hold true. However, and more importantly, there are many that don’t. If you’re going to avoid the black hole of obscurity and irrelevance, you need to keep abreast of all the latest developments. If you’re already planning your strategy for 2019, then the following trends could send you back to the drawing board.

Catching their attention

Micro-moments are those all important couple of seconds when people turn to their smart device to help fulfill a desire. They are divided into ‘I want to know’ moments, ‘I want to go’ moments, ‘I want to do’ moments, and ‘I want to buy’ moments.

Consumers are so used to having advertising pushed on them it’s inevitable they’ll become numb to much of the content that doesn’t instantly grab their attention. Placing your brand in the line of sight at the exact moment a consumer wants what you’re offering will increase conversions considerably. The brands that successfully harness the power of these micro-moments will be successful.

Micro-moment marketing will become an integral part of all the most successful campaigns.

You think you know social?

Unless you’ve been meditating in a cave for the past decade, you’ll already know social media platforms are now a daily part of your potential customers lives. However, just having an account on a few platforms is far too vague to have an impact. Social trends are constantly evolving, and your strategy should evolve to make the most of these changes.

Video, influencers, and automation have all been popular recently. Many users tend to have preferences about the resources they spend the bulk of their time on, so a great YouTube account won’t necessarily translate to a huge Instagram following. The key is to spread your message far and wide in the most relevant way for each platform. This usually means you need to repurpose your content while keeping the integrity of your message in tact.

The impact social media can have on your brand has been known for some time and all the statistics point to it becoming even more important. If you haven’t got a comprehensive social plan in place, now is the time to start investing in one.

Always be you

Being exposed to more advertising than ever before, the average user has grown pretty skeptical of advertising and marketing in general. In order to engage them it’s crucial you’re authentic. Authenticity means far more than simply having a consistent voice. It often involves brutal honesty. Humans don’t trust corporations, so the more human your voice is the more people will trust and relate to your brand.

This trend is fueling the continual growth of influencer marketing. If you can design a way for your customers to actually generate content on your behalf, then not only do they add a healthy dose of authenticity, it’s usually far more relatable to your average customer.

Consumers are three times more likely to find UGC (User Generated Content) authentic when compared to content created by a brand.

Understand the possibilities of AI

Artificial intelligence does have its limitations. However, its continual development also means it has more possibilities than ever before. In a world of instant gratification, it’s important to be responsive all the time. AI can offer you an initial way to avoid the wrath of a consumer’s impatience. The technology now has more of a personality then ever.

Chatbots are great for consumers with data related questions. They can be integrated into any digital space and can also gather critical information to help you refine your strategies. While the current technology is well developed, it’s only going to get better in the future. This is why companies are already integrating AI to help ensure their customers get an instant answer, rather than clicking the back button and going to the next search result.

AI isn’t just helping your customers get quick answers. It is also now helping marketers to spend the marketing budget more efficiently. It’s capable of tracking far more than a human user, and can target your advertising message far more accurately and consistently than a human marketer.

Typing is so last decade

Every single day an average of 3.5 billion searches are performed on Google. This isn’t surprising when you consider the search engines dominance. However, the fact that one third of these searches are voice searches is surprising to some.

The rise of Amazon’s Alexa, and the tech companies own voice activated digital assistants, will ensure this trend isn’t going away any time soon. This opens up a completely new can of worms for marketers. Firstly, the search terms used when speaking naturally can vary quite a bit from what someone might type. Secondly, a voice assistant is likely to give the consumer fewer potential results to choose from.

This means any SEO efforts you make should take into account voice search. Making the effort now is only going to pay dividends as the technology continues to advance and grow. It also greatly reduces the importance of UX and UI, the more popular voice search becomes the less consumers will be in front of a screen.

There is much more

Successfully combining all these elements will help your business to prosper in the year ahead. However, there are many more aspects to being successful in the digital world. Change happens quickly and being reactive is crucial. It’s hard to know which developments are crucial and which are pointless unless you live and breathe digital marketing.

This is why it can be a good idea to get some professional help with your digital presence. Thankfully, this is what we specialise in. We’re an experienced and friendly bunch that’s always happy to help, regardless of whether you simply want pointing in the right direction or a complete all-in-one solution.