Digital marketing is a popular career choice right now, with people being able to do it from the comfort of their own homes. Digital marketing is a broad career path, with options to specialize in many different areas. Now, thanks to the progression of technology, the digital marketing space is ever-changing. Therefore, if you wish to go into digital marketing, you will need to constantly learn new technologies and stay ahead of the games. With this in mind, we have gathered together eleven digital marketing trends you can expect to see in 2021 and beyond.
Covered Topics
Live Streaming
Video content is taking the digital marketing space by storm. However, more recently, live streaming has become the go-to approach to video marketing. Believe it or not, around 80% of consumers would rather tune into a live stream than read a blog. Further, people’s attention span is longer when watching live streams. With the commercial success of social media apps including Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, there’s no surprise that live streams are paving the way forward.
Using social media platforms, you can leverage your brand’s vision and increase your consumer interaction. If you can write this into your strategy, you will boost your revenue in turn. If you want to learn about how to communicate brand vision across a range of platforms, you should check this online master’s in communication.
Blockchain Applications
Blockchain is the tech that runs in the background of any cryptocurrency. The chain is made up of time-stamped entries called transactions, which are stored on a ledger. Instead of being managed by one administrator, the blockchain is managed by everyone on the blockchain. When a new transaction is made, it is validated and encrypted. Then, everyone with access to the blockchain can see those changes. Due to the way it’s set up, it makes it difficult to make fraudulent entries or deny tampering.
Although blockchain is typically associated with cryptocurrency, it is now being adopted by businesses all over the world. When it comes to digital marketing, blockchain can give consumers control over which data they agree to share. By using blockchain, businesses are more likely to collect more user data to inform their marketing strategies.
Chatbots
We’ve all been onto a website and hit the chat icon at the bottom of the page, only to find out we’re talking to a robot. These used to be fairly limited in their capabilities. However, thanks to the power of AI, chatbots can learn from interactions and grow their services. This means that if one person asks a question and doesn’t know the answer, it will go away and learn. Then, when the question comes around again, it will be well equipped.
When consumers have easy queries to solve, they typically prefer talking to chatbots than humans. The reason for this is that the chatbot can answer queries 24/7 and there’s no need to wait until business hours resume. Further, the customer won’t be stuck in a queue to get impatient. If your chatbot can help customers, you are free to deal with more important issues.
AI Processes
Artificial intelligence (AI) is steering the background of many digital tools used today including search engines, chatbots, and content creation. Since the beginning of 2020, AI has seen mass adoption. In the world of digital marketing, when it comes to content creation, Jarvis is a fascinating AI that’s designed to create unique and creative content. Thanks to the powerful AI within Jarvis, which was programmed by leading SEO specialists, you won’t have to worry about plagiarism or slaving away over your digital content.
Another example of AI being used in the digital marketing space is Google, which has adopted AI to enhance its search metrics. Now, thanks to AI, Google’s search engine can analyze searching habits and combine them with data from social media to gather a full picture of how consumers look for services and products. Thanks to the updated AI algorithm, digital marketers can tailor their websites to satisfy search intent.
Omnichannel Marketing
Back in 2020, omnichannel marketing was a hot keyword in the digital marketing space. Essentially, the idea is that you would market your brand simultaneously across numerous platforms. By doing this, companies can offer a greater customer experience while portraying a consistent brand voice. By being active and consistent online, you will see great levels of conversion.
Although the excitement around this buzzword has died down in the digital marketing world, we can still assure you that it’s relevant and won’t be going anywhere soon.
Social Messaging Apps
Social messaging apps are great fun and have become central to the way the world communicates. As well as social messaging, a large number of people are using social messaging apps to contact brands. If you don’t believe in the potential already, just revel in the fact that 4.5 billion users are spread across WeChat, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. Believe it or not, that’s more people than have access to a YouTube or Facebook account.
By having a presence on social messaging apps, you are offering customers an instant means of messaging you. You can set automatic responses to let people know when their queries will be dealt with. This saves people sitting in lengthy waitlists getting increasingly angry.
Augmented Reality
The world of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is an exciting advancement for digital marketers. VR is exciting and has the potential to take people away to alternative worlds. However, it’s AR that has managed to have the most practical impact on digital marketing. If you look at this ARtillery revenue projection document, you will see that the AR industry is projected to grow an exponential 4x between 2020 and 2025, which takes the total revenue to around $26 billion.
In the real world, futuristic AR smart glasses are starting to populate the stores. Although these aren’t readily affordable or available, the technology is a gamechanger. Alternatively, you can see the likes of IKEA using AR in their fun placement app (IKEA Place). This app lets people use their cameras and place AR furniture in their rooms. This way, they can get a feel for a piece before they buy it. This is just the start of practical use for AR, and it will be interesting to see what the next decade brings.
Social Commerce
Social commerce isn’t a new concept, but it’s only in recent years that technology has caught up with it. In particular, TikTok and Instagram are leading the social commerce revolution. Across these social media platforms, there is a combined total of around 2 billion+ users, which is an enormous potential market. Of those, around 90% of them follow eCommerce brands and check in with them daily. These profiles can create captivating content and embed links to that point-to-sale sites including Shopify.
Geo-Fencing
Marketing towards people based on their location isn’t anything new. However, thanks to more mobile use, the revenue is expected to reach $2.4 billion before 2023. With location services being active on mobile devices, with the user’s permission, businesses can access this information. This means that if you have a restaurant, you can automate marketing material to hit consumers’ phones within 100 meters of your site. If you start doing this around the three main meal times, you’ll soon see a turnover increase. To take this further, thanks to AI, you can use other information to target marketing depending on the demographic.
5G Tech
Right now, the world is more obsessed with mobile technology than ever before. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the rollout of 5G technology is one of the most prominent trends in the digital marketing space. The sheer speed of 5G can support the rollout of AR heads-up tech. This means that drivers and cyclists can be made aware of upcoming hazards from all sides, which can help save lives. We’re still in the early days when it comes to 5G tech, but its future is certainly bright.
SERP Position Zero
These days, when you search a term on Google, you will see a sample of the top page. When pages reach this position, they are referred to as holding ‘position zero’. This place is where you want your site to be because it’s the most likely to be visited. However, in some instances, the snippets are so good that a searcher is satisfied without clicking through. Unfortunately, that means that despite being in zero position, you don’t get any traffic.
What this means for digital marketers is that the job of website SEO just got more difficult. Businesses can no longer rely on nailing search intent, keywords, and properly structured content – they need to find out if their chosen keywords already have snippets or not.
Digital marketing is an enormously popular career path right now, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Consistent technological advancement and an ever-changing world mean that digital marketers need to learn constantly and stay ahead of the game to do well.
